Best way to go faster?
by Laurie Pepper
on
Feb 27, 2008 at 6:37:08 pm
I'm currently using a G5 dual 2.5 w 4.5 Gigs ram with an ATI Radeon 9800 XT video card, 2 Apple cinema displays, and running Quicktime 7.4.1 with OS 10.4.11.
I do a lot of effects-heavy 3D work. I'm using AE CS3 (8.0.2). Because I'm currently using mesh warp and bezier warp and Boris page turn (I'm animating "books" that fly through the air, pages flapping) I need to constantly see how this is working in real time). I need to do best quality rendering in previewing, because I can't tell how things look when I do it with lower res or skipping frames.
Every time I need to look at one second's worth of elaborate action in real time, I spend several minutes tapping my foot waiting for the little green line to fill. (those "trails" in Boris page turn are a monster time-eater). I REALLY want to look at 4 seconds worth, but that involves going away and doing something else. Then, if I want to alter one little glitch, I fix it, walk away, come back, check it out. If that didn't work....... And so on.
So. Will a mac pro (intel) help? How much will it help? How much memory will After Effects really use? Is there anything I can do to speed things up while I'm saving my pennies?
Re: Best way to go faster? by steve Roberts on Feb 27, 2008 at 6:56:07 pm
In my opinion, you don't need to see it full-res & full frame rate every time you tweak a setting.
Part of working with CG is compromising due to the hardware. In 3D apps, we work in wireframe when there are too many polys for OpenGL. We do a beauty preview still, then change the things that don't require a full preview, such as animation pacing, positioning and so on. When it comes time to check the lighting, we use OpenGL or make a full preview.
In AE, unless the effect is out of position (or does other wrong things) at lower res, we can check the animation, rough positioning and a lot of other things with a low-res preview and skipping frames. Also, if you're doing a lot of books with similar animation, do you really need to see all of them at full frame rate? Do the first one at full frame rate, then do the others by skipping frames at lower res. Save the full res, full frame preview for the very last preview.
In short, there's no other way to speed up previews of what you're doing on that machine.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Jeremy Allen on Feb 27, 2008 at 7:22:14 pm
I'm running pretty much the same setup as you, except mine is a Quad and AE7, but I still go through the same hassles while working. After working in Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash for so long, it almost seems like something is wrong with AE when every little thing you do seems to take forever. But I've come to learn that's just the way it is. It takes alot of processing power to make that stuff happen.
Working at half rez and skipping frames seems weird at first, but you just have to get used to it. Aside from what's already been mentioned, you could also try turning off lights or certain effects after you know they are working like you want them. You could also turn off other layers that you aren't working on at the moment. Another thing I found useful is to use the "region of interest" when checking smaller animations. That way it will only preview and render a certain part of the comp.
Most likely you don't want to spend $500 on an extra program, but I've heard nothing but praises about Nucleo Pro. Version 1 is available for $50 but I don't know what the differences are. Hang in there, we all have to deal with it! :)
Re: Best way to go faster? by Dave LaRonde on Feb 27, 2008 at 7:31:24 pm
I agree with everything Steve says. The need for speed is nothing new. It has been with AE users since the days when the software was known as CoSA After Effects, and a really HOT computer ran at 300mHz, had 500MB of memory and a BIG hard drive could store 10 GB.
However, there are strategies you can use in AE to make the task a bit less odious. Steve has mentioned some of these:
• When previewing motion, reduce the comp window's size and resolution
• Check details of a single frame at full quality only on selected trouble spots
• In 3D comps, disable lights and shadows when possible
• Disable motion blur when possible
• Crop the area of the comp to be previewed at any one time. There's a switch that lets you crop your ram previews at the cottom of the comp window
• Preview only part of the comp's total duration by limiting the Work Area. Use the b (for Begin) and n (for eNd) to do it.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Laurie Pepper on Feb 27, 2008 at 8:58:41 pm
hey, thanks all. I've done the cropping thing and reducing size, etc. BUT, in my sad experience, a lower res and skipped frames both leave unrevealed serious problems which only show at a full res render. So, what I've been doing is full res renders, then taking notes, going in, fixing, full res render, etc. I think nucleo pro is what I'm going to try next -- at least I can render in the background, which is better than going outside and chewing the foliage. Meanwhile, how much benefit might I get if I go into hock and get an intel machine?
Re: Best way to go faster? by Dave LaRonde on Feb 27, 2008 at 9:47:04 pm
[Laurie Pepper]"...how much benefit might I get if I go into hock and get an intel machine?"
If you were a big multinational corporation I'd probably say, "What? You haven't done it yet? What's wrong with you?" But you're not.
If you have to go into hock to do it, I'd say something else: stick with what you've got.
You're probably better off biting the bullet and using the methods described above. Really. No foolin'. I've used 'em all, and it is possible to get the job done without breaking the bank. Yeah, it's a pain, but compare it to breaking the bank: you wouldn't see the kind of increase in speed that you would anticipate nor that you could justify for the dollars spent.
You don't HAVE to see every detail in real time 100% of the time. It IS possible to see the motion in real time without the details, and the details without real time motion. It's not fun, but it's possible. How do I know? Because at one time or another, pretty much every AE user on the planet has to do such things to get the job done.
To get the improvements you seek, you'd probably need access to the National Security Agency's super-duper-fast, bleeding-edge technology code-breaking computers, and you'd have to persuade 'em to run AE.
Someday, computers just might run at the speed of thought. Unfortunately, we're living in today.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Kevin Camp on Feb 27, 2008 at 10:21:55 pm
i have to agree (to some degree) that no matter how fast your system can go, at some point, you'll want it to go faster...
and i'm sure that you can get this project done with your current system faster than if you stop now, buy a new system, do all the installing and upgrading of other components and migrate your project over to the new system just to finish it.
but you should also know that both steve and dave have 8-core mac pros, and it would be a noticeable speed jump if you upgraded to one. here is a benchmark comparison between and 8-core mac pro and several other macs including a 4-core 2.5ghz g5... the 8-core mac pro is nearly 3.5 times faster than the quad g5 in the ae test, that may equate to around 6-7 times faster than your dual g5.
you don't need a high end graphics card for ae or new monitors (you may need adapters if they have adc connectors, those used to be $100), you will need new ram (pretty pricey). you would have to check if you need to upgrade any other devices you have, like capture cards, host adapters, etc. but if you have been considering upgrading for a while and your extra hardware will work and you'll still be able to feed your family if you spend a few grand, it may be worth upgrading to a new system.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Dave LaRonde on Feb 27, 2008 at 11:56:57 pm
[Kevin Camp]"....you should also know that both steve and dave have 8-core mac pros..."
True enough, Kevin.
However, I have done a tiny bit of 3D work on my new box, and when you start animating effects applied to a few 4500x6000 stills and some effects-laden, time-remapped video, adding multiple lights, then enabling shadows and a little motion blur for good luck...
...you would think that shiny new box was no quicker than my old Powermac 266 Mhz machine running OS 8.6 and AE 3.1.
The old tricks still work just fine for those who know -- and choose-- to use 'em.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Darby Edelen on Feb 27, 2008 at 9:59:40 pm
[Laurie Pepper]"hey, thanks all. I've done the cropping thing and reducing size, etc. BUT, in my sad experience, a lower res and skipped frames both leave unrevealed serious problems which only show at a full res render. So, what I've been doing is full res renders, then taking notes, going in, fixing, full res render, etc."
I've had to do this with projects in the past that used complicated expressions linking between compositions... Sometimes the expression would 'forget' to update and the layer would jump to another location on screen.
My recommendation is that you do your renders as PSD sequences... This way you will only need to render out a small minority of trouble frames later on down the road. Import your PSD sequence into AE to preview it in full motion, and render out to lossless (or do whatever it is you need to do) when you've got a sequence that is working for you.
Worked for me and saved me major headaches!
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Best way to go faster? by steve Roberts on Feb 27, 2008 at 11:15:26 pm
[Darby Edelen]"My recommendation is that you do your renders as PSD sequences... This way you will only need to render out a small minority of trouble frames later on down the road. "
Re: Best way to go faster? by Laurie Pepper on Feb 28, 2008 at 12:55:42 am
Oh, thanks!!!! I'm very grateful for the benchmark comparisons. They are meaningful, and, if a couple little ships come in, I may be able to spring for bigger/faster. Meanwhile, I'm going to follow advice here, including, especially, My recommendation is that you do your renders as PSD sequences... This way you will only need to render out a small minority of trouble frames later on down the road. Import your PSD sequence into AE to preview it in full motion, and render out to lossless (or do whatever it is you need to do) when you've got a sequence that is working for you. .
Also, will go for nucleo pro, simply because if I actually CAN render in the background, at least I can keep working (I can, can't I?). L.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Jeff Memmer on Feb 28, 2008 at 5:27:27 am
This is one of the best threads I've seen in awhile. Don't get me wrong, there's a load of good stuff on this forum, but, man, I'm telling ya, this rendering speed deal is what really keeps me, as a novice, from doing a whole lot with AE and other pro to prosumer level software.
It's amazingly cool how the prices have dropped and how easy it is to get a copy of pro software now - and even the learning curve is reduced by the web and all of the free information out there, including info on this website. But... it's the rendering time for even the small stuff that's such a killer.
I'm sure there's a lot of others out there - weekend warriors who would love to do some more creative stuff, but hit that rendering barrier, where it's just not worth the time to sit and wait - mainly because our paychecks aren't dependent on it.
It's great that we now have cheap storage capacity to do the projects, but it's really going to be awesome when the processing power starts increasing again. Maybe in a few years we'll see some of these often spoken of "breakthroughs" in computing actually hit the market and make our weekend fun a little more fun.
And if that's the case, can you imagine how big sites like this will grow, because so many people will actually have the ability to share creative ideas that can turn more quickly into real projects...
I still have to check and make sure the hamsters are ok in my simple little HP.
Hey, but did you see Michael Bay talking about how with 3 robots in a scene, that it took them 38 hours to render one frame of film for Transformers:
Re: Best way to go faster? by Steve Roberts on Feb 28, 2008 at 2:11:31 pm
We're doing processor-heavy work in a compositing app. NLEs allow us to do a few things (transitions and some effects) quickly because those few things have been designed to work quickly in a one-layer editing environment.
But just try stacking more than one of those effects on a clip in your NLE and boom -- you have to render.
So that's the price we pay with AE's massive layering ability: render time.
Once they made cards that accelerated third-party effects. But the effects had to be programmed specifically for those cards. Then those cards became obsolete (slower than the computers' processors). For that reason, I doubt we'll see anything like that again on the desktop market -- why make that kind of investment in hardware?
All we can do it wait for two things:
1. processors to get faster
2. AE's OpenGL implementation to improve. But once we start adding effects, we'll probably be back at #1, since OpenGL can't accelerate everything.
Or we could just buy what we can, and build the delays into our workflow, thankful that we can afford something this fast at this price, compared to the Discreet "big iron":
"Manufacturers Suggested List Price for the Discreet visual effects systems are: inferno 5--$571,500; flame 8--$266,500; flint 8--$99,000. "
Re: Best way to go faster? by Darby Edelen on Feb 28, 2008 at 4:42:55 pm
[Jeff Memmer]"but hit that rendering barrier, where it's just not worth the time to sit and wait - mainly because our paychecks aren't dependent on it."
Even when my paycheck is dependent on it, I don't like to wait. I recommend trying to pre-comp render intensive layers and pre-rendering them when possible. Try rendering overnight for the long ones (;
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Best way to go faster? by Laurie Pepper on Feb 28, 2008 at 5:19:04 am
Just wanted to let y'all know. I've downloaded the nucleo demo and I'm rendering out PSD sequences, and it's working really great. I'll buy nucleo -- which is a lot cheaper and lot less time consuming than a new computer. I'm very happy with all this. Thanks, thanks, all.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Brendan Coots on Feb 28, 2008 at 6:20:16 pm
Not knowing what you know/don't know about computers and what contributes to speed, here's some basic info:
- The mac pros have 4 processors vs. your current setup of 2.
- Mac pros support much more RAM than your current setup as well.
- AE CS3 can use all four cores of a Mac pro, provided that the machine has around 2GB RAM per core. This means 8GB+ is ideal. Apple-certified RAM can be purchased from third party companies like Other World Computing for 1/5th what Apple charges, making this a more reasonable option.
- When set to "multiprocessing" mode in prefs, AE CS3 on a mac pro quad (with 2GB RAM per CPU) will process four frames at once during RAM previews, which is essentially a 4X boost in speed.
- Mac pros feature the Core 2 Duo chip which is definitely superior to your current setup, and you will probably notice speed benefits JUST from the faster front side bus/ram speed etc. of the Mac pro.
The above setup, a Mac Pro Quad with 8GB of Other World Computing RAM will cost you about $2800. You could probably sell your current machine for $1200 or so in today's market, meaning you would need to come up with $1,600 or so to make the switch.
I would tend to disagree with the opinions here that there is no way to get noticeable speed increases, just by going to a Mac pro you are rendering 100% faster with AE CS3 due to having twice as many processors.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Kevin Camp on Feb 28, 2008 at 7:02:46 pm
actually, it would probably be faster than that... going from a 4-core g5 (2.5 ghz) to a 4-core mac pro (3.0 ghz) will render nearly 2x faster (based on some of the ae render benchmarks i've seen)... so going from a dual 2.5ghz g5 may be closer to 3x-4x faster on a newer 4-core mac pro... and around 6x-7x faster on an 8-core mac pro...
Re: Best way to go faster? by Laurie Pepper on Feb 28, 2008 at 7:15:38 pm
The above setup, a Mac Pro Quad with 8GB of Other World Computing RAM will cost you about $2800. You could probably sell your current machine for $1200 or so in today's market, meaning you would need to come up with $1,600 or so to make the switch.
Okay. So, you say 2800. I need a decent video card (can't use the one I have, right?) and internal drives are extra, bigger main drive is extra? Well, at least the last time I looked I was looking at 7 grand -- true, I was looking at Apple RAM... You guys make it seem possible. Easy, even. I will check it out. Waiting on an influx of dough.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Kevin Camp on Feb 28, 2008 at 7:47:26 pm
i wouldn't say it's easy to come up with $2,800 or even $1,600... not for me anyway...
but i don't think you will need to spend money on an additional or upgraded graphics card for ae work, there is just not to much benefit in opengl within ae.
the drives that you may have in your g5 should work in the mac pro... they should be sata I drives and the mac pro should take them on it's stata II bus, at least as storage drive. i don't believe you can use them as boot drives (at least i had problems trying to create a bootable drive from an older sata I drive from an older system, but as an extra storage drive it's fine).
the ram is spendy and i would say the minimum would be 1gb per core, and there are some rules to follow for upgrading.... there are 2 risers for ram, each with 4 ram slots. the ram has to be installed in matching pairs. that's easy to remember, but then if you add ram you want to add more ram, you want it to be able to match the ram sizes in the respective slots on the other riser.... so if you have 2x512gb sticks in slots 1&2 on riserA, you want to add 2x512gb sticks in slots 1&2 on riserB to take advantage of the interleaving... so it starts getting complicated as you try to add more ram... just an fyi.
another concern would be any pci cards you have... i think your g5 has pci-x slots which are not compatible with the pcie slots in the mac pros. double check that, but if that is the case you would have to figure in the cost of any pci cards you have, like capture cards or sata (or scsi??) host adapters for external drive arrays.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Laurie Pepper on Feb 28, 2008 at 9:36:48 pm
Thanks, Kevin for all the info. You just answered all my questions. Next I have to ask the CalDigit people if they have a card that works for my external serial ata. L.
Re: Best way to go faster? by Kelvin Schutz on Mar 8, 2008 at 6:24:32 am
You could always go the Hackintosh route to save lots of money if you really need to work on a Mac OS. They do run on x86 architecture! In a few weeks, Intel has the Q9000 series of quad cores coming out. 12MB L2 cache, 45nm die, support for SSE4 instruction (mostly beneficial for encoding, but its a big benefit at that!). DDR2 ram is insanely cheap, easy enough to find 8GB for less than $200. Seagate has some new 32MB buffered drives that are performing more like 10K Raptor drives. And if you would also like to run XP or Vista (or not vista :( ) its not impossible to dual boot both OSX and Windows.
This is a great thread by the way, definitely going to start utilizing some of the setting in AE and pay more attention to preview settings. I'm definitely going to give Nucleo Pro a run. I'm looking at building a PC in the next couple weeks so I'm eager to finish a project I've started.
