After Effect to transcode Problems and thoughts

[AndreasOberg]

Right now I'm adding effects and doing color grading in After Effects.
When I'm exporting I have problems with stability so I thought I would split it up in steps.

- How about rendering a sequence of images and then doing the transcode after?
I'm trying png since openEXR shouldn't be needed to transcode to h264, right? PNG are fast but I remember having some color problems with them before.
- So plan is render png sequences and then import them again into After Effects and turn off all layers except the sound I have in After Effects.

I'm sure this is not an ideal way of doing it so some thoughts would be appreciated.

The things that takes the most time are:
- Neat Video noise reduction. Awesome but time consuming!
- Magic Bullet Looks. Nice program but so slow so it's nearly unbearable
- Debayer I'm sure.

Questions
- Should I keep working in Raw or create smaller files. Maybe 2k or 2.5k files (for cropping). I love RAW though... OpenEXR are really slow in AfterEffects to read.
- Also what resolution should I render them in if the final output is 1080p (for noise reduction and so.
- Where would you normally add music? I often time the visual effects to sound so for this reason I have done it in After Effects, but it's so SLOW to preview in After Effects.
- If I use Davinci for Color grading, do I need to render those out to be able to add effects in After Effects? OpenEXR, maybe?

Thanks for any ideas!
/ANdreas

 

[Björn Benckert]

Depends what you are doing, how long your edit is, number of layers, clips etc.
But to me it sounds like you would benefit from exporting you selects from RCXP using to DPX 16bit (or 12bit) or Proress 10bit. All depending on how far you want to push the colors later on. If there is no heavy "zooms in frame" and such that needs to be done I would go ahead and do primary grading in RCXP and export to 1920x1080, and I would probably use 16bit dpx files and set it to be redlogfilm. Then you got some small LOG files to work with that will not slow you down as much and if you for some reason would need to have it a higher pixel count you can always relink back to the r3d for the specific shot. The log file will work grat for grading, but i do not know how well aftereffects works with log files, so if that's an issue I would export them with red gamma 2 or 3 and then use a LINtoLOG conversion node before grading in resolve or such.

I do not use aftereffects my self, but the guys that do at my office gets some oddities and ram leaks and such when using the r3d's to extensively. Same goes when I work in flame, short projects no problem, but multi layered 10 minute long, complex comps using the r3d's in 4k will just not fly, same there, memory leaks etc, then converting to 4k DPX files keeps the crash count much lower.

 

[AndreasOberg]

Thanks for the tips Björn.
I will try that using DPX.
After Effect has some funky detail enhancement algoritms in Neat Video so I will have to test quality difference between 2k and 4k coming into AE. I think 2k would be fine however.

Have you ever tried Davinci? It looks very interesting for grading. From what I understand it can be realtime, probably with a hefty computer.

It may be time for an upgrade next payed assignment. Been looking at dual cpu and even quad cpu configurations. Interesting but the cpus are SO expensive.

Best
/Andreas

 

[Danko Dolch]

-> Do you really need AF for grading? It's more about compositing and slow in rendering - Speedgrade or Davinci will be more productive I think...
-> DPX is a good option (but keep in mind you need 10Bit because AF doesn't read 12 or 16Bit DXP without the plugin from FNORD Software...)
-> PNG is really really slow in read/write - bad idea...
-> Dual socket Xeon workstation: In everyday live a fast clocked hexa core i7 will outperform slower clocked dual socket machines bacause threading isn't optimal all the time... on the other hand Jpeg2000 or H.264 encoding will need all cores available to get acceptable processing times...
use the fastest single socket hexa core i7.... or if you can afford it buy the extreme expensive high clocked hexa core Xeons...

foreget about quad socked systems - it's just out of reach financially and you won't get a usable workstatsion mainborad with audio/thunderbolt power management and so on...

best
nw42

 

[Russ Fill]

Andre Im no supper post AFX guy but do a fair share of the same sort of plugins you have mentioned and I know that my AFX gets buggy when I have lots of layers and color grading and noise reduction etc etc.
I know that Neat Video suggest not using it with anything else so maybe a precompose here and there, and the other day I was pasting some Magic Bullet coloring on different clips and started to notice a very light red small grid on the clips that were say 3 or more cut and past effects copies from the original. When I adjusted the settings to the same as the original everything was fine but made me think that something was wrong with my AFX or plugin.

I also stableized a bunch of clips and after about 50 30sec clips AFX gave up the ghost and crashed for no reason. Feeling was I maxed out the RAM on keeping track of all the frames and pixels.
Don't know if this helps.
I know reading through some of your comments has helped me start to problem solve some issues.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Thanks for the tips Björn.
I will try that using DPX.
After Effect has some funky detail enhancement algoritms in Neat Video so I will have to test quality difference between 2k and 4k coming into AE. I think 2k would be fine however.

Have you ever tried Davinci? It looks very interesting for grading. From what I understand it can be realtime, probably with a hefty computer.

It may be time for an upgrade next payed assignment. Been looking at dual cpu and even quad cpu configurations. Interesting but the cpus are SO expensive.

Best
/Andreas

I tried most programs, and I think resolve is really good for what it does. But since I have spent the better part of my life in front of a inferno/flame (17 years now still counting) I find a lot of excuses to use anything else. And for me grading and compositing is better done simultaneously and my compositing will probably be done in flame until I retire

 

[John Tissavary]

Resolve doesn't really benefit from CPU - it leverages GPU mostly, with CPU left to do work for some debayering (if no redrocket for instance), system & IO. With Mac Resolve you can use 4 GPU, win7 64 PC it's 5 GPU, and with Linux 9 GPU. Note - one of the GPU is dedicated to UI. You can also use Resolve with a single GPU (no extra UI GPU) as for V9, works pretty well but of course you drop out of real-time with less nodes.