One more for Steve Forde et al....
by jimmybee500
on
Jul 5, 2007 at 2:58:56 pm
Hi guys,
Just been going through the Nucleo Pro manual before purchase...and had a couple of questions?
- It says in there that temporal effects cannot be rendered with Nucleo - Does these mean even if a layer has motion blur applied to it, or is it just plugins that are not native to AE? Presumably Timewarp is one of these temporal no-go's?
- When Nucleo is doing a spec render in a 2 proc machine for instance, and you are using AE in the meantime for a normal AE RAM preview - is Spec render using both procs to render faster, or is one proc/instance being used for Nucleo and the other for AE? Just trying to work out basically if Fast preview/render works properly even when you're normal previewing/rendering with AE natively?...If that makes sense!
- Lastly, with the new AE CS3 having multithreading capabilities internally now, does this mean Nucleo adds even more bonus to your workflow, if you have enough processors? What I mean is; say I've got a quad machine and I have a spec/background render going off via Nucleo, can I at the same time use AE's new multi-proc support to do a fast preview?
Hope some of that made sense. I'm basically trying to work out how much workflow/speed benefit I will get from different setups...mainly to convince my boss it's worth the extra cash for CS3 + Nucleo Pro 2 + a quad machine.
Cheers for any advice
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Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by beenyweenies on Jul 5, 2007 at 6:46:44 pm
Personally, I would hold off on Nucleo Pro until you test out the multiprocessing in CS3. To my knowledge, it does the exact same thing as Nucleo minus the cool spec preview features. As for the temporal effects issue - It is my understanding that ANY and all temporal effects will not work with Nucleo. There are other gotchas that are hard to swallow as well, such as comps with Illustrator files don't render with the full benefits of Nucleo.
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by Steve Forde on Jul 5, 2007 at 9:34:42 pm
Whether you choose between Nucleo Pro 2 or AE CS3's multiprocessing is entirely up to you but just to clarify....
[beenyweenies]"To my knowledge, it does the exact same thing as Nucleo minus the cool spec preview features."
You are indeed correct. That said - we found since the release of Nucleo Pro that making AE faster had more to do with how YOU use AE, rather than how AE uses the CPU. Improving your workflow is the ultimate performance boost.
[beenyweenies]"As for the temporal effects issue - It is my understanding that ANY and all temporal effects will not work with Nucleo"
ALL Temporal effects meaning things like Twixtor or Film Fix, Video Gough etc. This is identical with CS3's multiprocessing as well. Temporal effects are not supported in either product. (We even use the same list...;) Temporal effects are in the small minority - and are easily identifiable by how you use them.
[beenyweenies]"There are other gotchas that are hard to swallow as well, such as comps with Illustrator files don't render with the full benefits of Nucleo"
Illustrator files are actually an issue within AE, that Nucleo (or AE CS3's multiprocessing) makes bigger. The key is - with or without Nucleo - Illustrator support in AE is not great. The first time a frame is rendered in a comp that uses an AI file as source footage - the "vector" illustration must be rasterized (try importing the file into Photoshop, and then repeat for every frame).
AE's caching mechanism is vastly improved since 7.01 - which means that from 7.01 forward, Illustrator files are less of an issue to Nucleo or Multiprocessing in general.
Don't know what the other "gotcha's" are you make reference to - but if you would like to put them forth - will do my best to answer them.
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by beenyweenies on Jul 5, 2007 at 10:27:04 pm
Thanks for the clarification on those issues, especially regarding the Illustrator file problem.
I must admit, I love Nucleo Pro and I use it almost every day, so my comments were in no way meant to short-change an excellent product. My understanding of CS3's multiprocessing is that they "borrowed" from Nucleo technology and integrated it directly into the product, but that doesn't mean jack when you consider the great spec preview etc. found in Nucleo. I only suggested the poster hold off so that he can better understand what he WILL get with CS3 and then evaluate needs from there, especially if he's concerned with conflicts between processor use, etc.
As for the other "gotchas" I should have said "the other gotcha" singular. ;)
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by Steve Forde on Jul 5, 2007 at 9:20:58 pm
Here's your answers.....
[jimmybee500]"- It says in there that temporal effects cannot be rendered with Nucleo - Does these mean even if a layer has motion blur applied to it, or is it just plugins that are not native to AE? Presumably Timewarp is one of these temporal no-go's?"
Temporal effects are any that effects (plugins or otherwise) that need information from rendered frames in the timeline to render the current frame. Example - if AE is rendering frame 10 but needs information from frame 2 before it can render frame 10, it is a "temporal" effect - needs information from other places in time. Examples of effects like this are Re:visions Twixtor, Red Giant's Film Fix etc. Most effects are not Temporal in nature.
[jimmybee500]"- When Nucleo is doing a spec render in a 2 proc machine for instance, and you are using AE in the meantime for a normal AE RAM preview - is Spec render using both procs to render faster, or is one proc/instance being used for Nucleo and the other for AE? Just trying to work out basically if Fast preview/render works properly even when you're normal previewing/rendering with AE natively?...If that makes sense!"
Nucleo Pro 2 will use all CPU's to render in the background while you work in AE or anything else. What it does is use the CPU "opportunistically" - meaning only when its available. It does not "divide" between CPU's. The key is - you always have priority over NP2 when it comes to CPU (as long as you set the performance preference to "normal"). If you require all the resources for whatever you happen to be doing - NP2 will wait until those resources become available before continuing the render.
[jimmybee500]"- Lastly, with the new AE CS3 having multithreading capabilities internally now, does this mean Nucleo adds even more bonus to your workflow, if you have enough processors? What I mean is; say I've got a quad machine and I have a spec/background render going off via Nucleo, can I at the same time use AE's new multi-proc support to do a fast preview?"
AE CS3's new multi-processing (not multi-threading) is identical to Nucleo "standard". There is no speed difference between Nucleo and AE CS3. Therefore - when you install Nucleo Pro 2, you will be using Nucleo's method of multiprocessing - not AE's. (or else your machine would really be clobbered)
To compare the benefits between Nucleo Pro and AE CS3's native multi-processing - we created this handy dandy chart....
The key thing is - we found the performance issue (or - why is working in AE really really slow...) with AE not really associated with just how the computer uses CPU - but how YOU use the computer.
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by jimmybee500 on Jul 6, 2007 at 9:11:34 am
Thanks for your replies guys..I think I will be buying Nucleo Pro anyway, I just wondered if somehow CS3's multiproc support was in ADDITION to Nucleo's - thought that was too good to be true! Sounds like it's either or..right? So if you are doing a spec render for instance, then your previews while that is going on can only be a standard 1-proc RAM preview, as per with AE7 withOUT Nucleo, oui?
As for this temporal thing - so does Motion Blur of layer come into this? I use mo blur on just about any layer I move, but can't figure out if it is truly temporal or whether the render is calculated by the layer's position differences?
Last thing (promise!) with the temporal effects will Nucleo render them, but just at normal speed, then resuming fast preview when it has passed them right? So you can do spec preview, commit to disk, background render, etc - but that part of the comp will only be rendered with 1 proc?
Thanks again. Oh - how much longer will NP2 be at that pre-order price Steve? ;-)
*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
-------------------------------------
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by Steve Forde on Jul 6, 2007 at 1:54:09 pm
[jimmybee500]"Sounds like it's either or..right?"
Since its the same technology - there is really no speed difference. They are both implemented a little differently, but the moral of the story is the same. Therefore with NP2 you have the same capability as AE CS3's Multiprocessing ala Nucleo (which is inside NP2) - we just happen to call it Fast Render and Fast Preview.
[jimmybee500]"As for this temporal thing - so does Motion Blur of layer come into this? I use mo blur on just about any layer I move, but can't figure out if it is truly temporal or whether the render is calculated by the layer's position differences?"
Motion Blur is not "Temporal". Meaning Nucleo Pro 2 will use all CPU to render it. One thing to keep in mind though - if all you have is a single layer of say a jpeg flying around the comp - and you motion blur it - Multiprocessing or Fast Render / Preview will be of little benefit. Motion Blur is highly optimized by itself. When used in conjunction with other things (as in more than one layer) - you will see speedup with Fast Render / Preview or CS3 Multiprocessing.
The above is all irrelevant if you are spec previewing, rendering, precomp-proxy'ing, commit to Disk'ing, or background rendering. You will see performance benefit on any of those (even with temporal plugins!) as you are rendering AND working at the same time.
[jimmybee500]"Last thing (promise!) with the temporal effects will Nucleo render them, but just at normal speed, then resuming fast preview when it has passed them right? So you can do spec preview, commit to disk, background render, etc - but that part of the comp will only be rendered with 1 proc?"
For Previews and spec operations - yes. For Background Rendering and Fast rendering - no. Its a bowels thing. Its how we have to treat individual frames vs. an entire project in a queue.
[jimmybee500]"Oh - how much longer will NP2 be at that pre-order price Steve? ;-)"
Can't give an exact date until the day of (in case we hit a big bug on the beta), but the way things are looking its not much longer now. Put it to you this way - I am going on vacation at the end of July - and I never miss a product launch...;)
Re: One more for Steve Forde et al.... by jimmybee500 on Jul 6, 2007 at 3:16:56 pm
Thanks for all your advice Steve..I will *HAVE* to tie the boss down to buying some blummin kit soon!!
Last, LAST thing!...Is it only Fast Preview & Fast Render that utilises all procs and speeds things up? Or do the other Spec operations use multiproc aswell?
*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
-------------------------------------
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0
