I've created a comp that is 7416 wide x 12051 height ... but it'll only show up in AE as black, it won't show any layers I put into it ... it's a large image because i'm doing camera moves around the image then backing out to reveal the full image. I thought it was maybe a memory issue, but any combination I try doesn't seem to help any. This computer has 2G of RAM ... any thoughts? Am I SOL? I could probably break it down into smaller comps but I also wanted to apply a displacement map to the whole image. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Re: Comp Size by Dave LaRonde on Feb 1, 2008 at 6:15:05 pm
The fist thing I can suggest is to get more RAM.
In After Effects, 2GB really isn't much at all. If you have a single processor, AE can use 3GB of RAM all by itself, to say nothing of the RAM you'd need for the operating system and the other applications you'd like to have open.
You may be having other woes, but sadly, I'm clueless about them. Other folks will be by to help, don't worry.
PS: I see your handle is kcdesigner. Do you know Bob Lorenzen at KMBC-TV?
Re: Comp Size by Mary C. Taylor on Feb 1, 2008 at 8:16:12 pm
Hmm ... I've never had a problem with the amount of RAM I'm using at work or at home and the one I'm working on here at work says it has 2.00 GB of RAM ... Anyway ... but I've never had a pre-comp this size before either. Thanks for your help though.
And I got out of news quite a few years ago and am now in the advertising arena for my day job. So I don't know Bob, but I see you're in Iowa ... a good friend of mine, April Samp, is the News Director at KWQC-TV6 in Davenport.
Re: Comp Size by Darby Edelen on Feb 1, 2008 at 6:18:22 pm
[Mary C. Taylor]"it's a large image because i'm doing camera moves around the image then backing out to reveal the full image"
Scale the 'full image' down, your composition is far too large. Your composition should be the size of your final output and I'm not aware of any devices that are 7416 x 12051 pixels. If you need higher resolution close ups then isolate those portions of the image at a higher resolution but smaller size (i.e. not the 'full image') for the close ups.
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Comp Size by Mary C. Taylor on Feb 1, 2008 at 8:06:14 pm
That wasn't going to be the final comp size ... that is a pre-comp I am using ... and according to AE you can have comps/images 30,000 x 30,000 and I had it so big so I could do extreme close-ups. Thanks for your help though.
Re: Comp Size by Darby Edelen on Feb 1, 2008 at 9:35:05 pm
[Mary C. Taylor]"according to AE you can have comps/images 30,000 x 30,000"
Where did you get that information?
I can tell you for a fact that it is impossible to render a 30,000 x 30,000 image in AE without errors. This might be possible if it used a scanline render system, but it is highly unlikely with AE's current RAM limitations and image cache system.
AE uses an image cache system that must be able to store all of the pixel information for the layer it is attempting to render in the available RAM. A 30,000 x 30,000 image at 8 bits per channel would require:
30,000 pixels x 30,000 pixels x 32 bits/pixel = 28800000000 bits to store
As you add effects to that layer the amount of free RAM necessary to cache it will increase as well. If you are rendering at 16bpc then the amount of RAM required is multiplied 2 fold. Just because you can enter 30,000 into the width and height field does not mean that AE is capable of rendering an image that large.
Your comp at 7416 x 12051 requires less RAM to cache, but still quite a bit at 340 megabytes... And that's not including the space required to cache a layer inside of the composition, or the extra memory required for effects/motion blur/depth of field/shadows/lights/anything else.
For more information straight from Adobe, check this page:
Re: Comp Size by Dave LaRonde on Feb 2, 2008 at 5:43:20 pm
[Mary C. Taylor]"I'll just figure out a work-around."
As you devise your workaround, keep this in mind:
You can make a normal comp-sized layer 3D, move way, far back in z-space, and then scale it up to fill the comp again with no loss of quality. So depending on what you're doing, you may not need those big, huge comps.
