computer crash during render!

[DragonToe]

My iMac has frozen during a render on Adobe Media Encoder (which is rendering an After Effects project, I render this way because I like to continue working whilst rendering).

The render has taken 60 hours so far, and only had 13 hours left, so the computer freezing was extremely frustrating.

Does the application continue to work, i.e. render, in the background during my computer freeze? The freeze is one where the screen is completely unresponsive apart from the mouse cursor, which I can move around, but which does not interact with anything on screen.

If applications continue to run during these freezes then I'll leave the computer for a day or so before performing a force shut down.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[handsome pete]

First off, wow, what are you rendering out of After Effects that has a 3 day render time. Surely there has to be a way to cut that down.

But to answer your question, I don't know. I feel as though it's not still rendering in the background though. So you're likely going to have to restart. And I'm assuming since you asking this question in the first place that you're not rendering out to image sequences. Do yourself a favor and remedy that immediately.

 

[DragonToe]

Yes, I know I should render to image sequences. I'll defo do that from now on.

It's a 1 minute 3D sequence with motion blur on numerous layers. But I suspect the large render time is from my inadequate system. I am using a firewire 400 HDD for my previews and renders, reading video files from a USB 2. I know I need to upgrade my system. It's just a matter of time and money.

Ok, well I guess I'd better go and shut down.

Thanks for your input.

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p.s.

I started a render for a Cinema 4D project. It cited an 8 week render time. That's when I knew I had to upgrade.

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the project was only 8 seconds!

 

[handsome pete]

Yes, I know I should render to image sequences. I'll defo do that from now on.

It's a 1 minute 3D sequence with motion blur on numerous layers. But I suspect the large render time is from my inadequate system. I am using a firewire 400 HDD for my previews and renders, reading video files from a USB 2. I know I need to upgrade my system. It's just a matter of time and money.

Ok, well I guess I'd better go and shut down.

Thanks for your input.

Reading your video files off of USB 2 is definitely problematic. How many video streams are there? Are you able to precomp anything and render that out first?

p.s.

I started a render for a Cinema 4D project. It cited an 8 week render time. That's when I knew I had to upgrade.

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the project was only 8 seconds!

Yeah, that sounds unusable. I'm assuming you were maxing out some quality settings there and turning on all sorts of goodies like GI.

 

[DragonToe]

Lost the render. Damn it.

Now going to try again and render an image sequence. But I'm having trouble doing it in Media Encoder. I hope I don't have to render the image sequence in AE first. Because if I do, surely that will negate the point of rendering in Media Encoder.

 

[DragonToe]

Yeah, the Cinema 4D project was with maxed settings. Mo blur, GI, AO, etc. I turned everything down and got it down to an 80 hour render (fast for my setup!).

I am currently rendering an image sequence out of AE, and have turned down the quality again, so that it is not a two day render, and it seems to be going fine. BUT this is still time that I can't use AE, and I have a few projects I need to be working on. Is there a way to render the project as an image sequence directly from Media Encoder? I usually drag the AE comp into Media Encoder and render it from there, freeing myself up to continue working on other projects in AE. But the image sequence setting were greyed out when tried them in Media Encoder, and so I had to render the project directly out of AE. This seems like a big problem to me. Are there any ways around this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[handsome pete]

Yeah, the Cinema 4D project was with maxed settings. Mo blur, GI, AO, etc. I turned everything down and got it down to an 80 hour render (fast for my setup!).

I am currently rendering an image sequence out of AE, and have turned down the quality again, so that it is not a two day render, and it seems to be going fine. BUT this is still time that I can't use AE, and I have a few projects I need to be working on. Is there a way to render the project as an image sequence directly from Media Encoder? I usually drag the AE comp into Media Encoder and render it from there, freeing myself up to continue working on other projects in AE. But the image sequence setting were greyed out when tried them in Media Encoder, and so I had to render the project directly out of AE. This seems like a big problem to me. Are there any ways around this?

Thanks in advance.

Ok, so I don't use Adobe Media Encoder, but I thought I'd give it a quick look to see if I could help you out. Which version are you running? I did my little test on CS6. I dragged my AE file into the queue window, and when the dynamic relink synced up, then selected the comp I wanted to render. From there I saw four columns (Format, Preset, Output File, Status). Under "Format" I selected Targa (Tiff would be another good choice). Under "Preset" I selected HD 1080p 29.97 sequence since those are my comp settings. And then under "Output File" I obviously just selected the the folder where I wanted my images to go. Then hit the Start Queue button up top and everything seemed to work fine. Are these the steps you are taking?

I also have CS 5.5 installed and tried that one out too to see if it's the same. The layout is a little different, but it still works the same. I did notice though, that on the CS 5.5 version, if you select a still image format, then "Export As Sequence" isn't turned on by default. For that you'll have to click on your preset link, navigate to the Video tab of the export settings and turn it on there.




As for your C4D stuff, I would seriously look into techniques on simulating indirect lighting if you're going to be doing animations. GI is a rendering hog and it's also tricky getting it right with moving images. Also, motion blur is a killer too. There are some great 3rd party post effects in AE or other compositing programs that will do a good enough job in a fraction of the time.

 

[DragonToe]

Thanks for looking into that for me.

I am using AME CS6. The problem is that when I drop down the format menu, after importing AE project, I only get 5 options:
F4V, FLV, H.264, H.264 (Legacy), MP3.
That's it. no options for anything else. And if I try to drag a preset from the opposite window onto the file it doesn't do anything. I can only drag video presets onto the file. It won't work she I try to drag image sequence presets on it.

Did you do anything to your AE project before you saved it?

???

 

[handsome pete]

Thanks for looking into that for me.

I am using AME CS6. The problem is that when I drop down the format menu, after importing AE project, I only get 5 options:
F4V, FLV, H.264, H.264 (Legacy), MP3.
That's it. no options for anything else. And if I try to drag a preset from the opposite window onto the file it doesn't do anything. I can only drag video presets onto the file. It won't work she I try to drag image sequence presets on it.

Did you do anything to your AE project before you saved it?

???

No, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary when saving my AE project.

I actually created the project just to try this out. So I would try just creating a very simple project from scratch and bringing that into Media Encoder to see if you have the same issue. That way you can at least eliminate whether or not the problem is file specific. I don't believe it is, but might as well test it anyway.

I simply created a new project and comp, threw a layer into the comp and keyframed it across the timeline, then saved.

 

[Unami]

i'm not using media composer, because it always seemed buggy / prone to crash to me.

you are getting the same insane rendering times when doing a ram-preview in after effects, right ?

i don't think that the usb 2.0 / firewire 400 should make a difference in this case.

before adobe allowed background rendering via media encoder there were some plugins / scripts, etc... that did background rendering inside after effects - maybe there's a way to use one of those.

 

[DragonToe]

Thanks, yeah I should probably start using background rendering more. I just fear that it will slow down AE even more. Does it?

 

[Chad3eleven]

What model iMac are you on? 2009 dual core with 4gb ram?

If you check your render settings in AE, do you get more options? (image sequences, quicktime, etc)

Strange how you dont have those options in AME.

My inital thought is that you are rendering to an h.264 file.. that is a death sentance. I tend to export to a higher quality file (usually pro res 422HQ or 4444) then compress it again to what I need for delivery (for small approval files, web use, etc)

I would suggest pre-rendering some of your elements..

Meaning.. if you have video being used with effects.. isolate that layer or layers, render it, bring it back into your comp and turn off the original layers or comp that the render came from..

Repeat this process for the areas you can.. doing this will cut down dramtically on your render time.

And yes.. havign a drive hooked up via USB 2 would make a difference.. faster the connection and the speed of the drive are factors.

Also.. I think you could have too many settings/effects cranked way too high. IE, how many samples on your motion blurs? perhaps drop those to 8, or down to a number that doesnt dramtically impact your project, but saves on render time.

I've attached a preset from premiere/AME.. I copied a standard preset for a 1920x1080 24 fps PNG sequence. you have to change the extension from .zip to .epr

 

[DragonToe]

Thank you very much. I'll try your preset.