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BG Renderer CS3
Posted: August 30th, 2007, 8:07 pm
by lloydalvarez
It is with great pleasure that I announce the official version of the BG Renderer for After Effects CS3.
It now runs as an embed-able panel that is saved as part of your workspace. It also utilizes the built in multiprocessing support that was added in CS3. This script takes whatever items are queued and ready in the render queue and sends them to render in the background allowing you to keep working in After Effects. There is a comprehensive built-in help that explains all the nitty-gritty.
You can download the script here:
http://aescripts.com/2007/08/30/bg-renderer-cs-3/
-Lloyd
Nice
Posted: September 8th, 2007, 10:31 am
by Colin Braley
Thanks Lloyd, this is a very usefull script... especially for those without the $ to buy Nucleo. Why no source code this time around however?
Posted: September 8th, 2007, 12:35 pm
by lloydalvarez
making it a .jsxbin makes it so that it doesnt run unless it's properly installed in the ScriptUI Panels folder (on mac anyway). If you want to see the source code send me a PM with your email address and i can send you the .jsx file..
-Lloyd
new feature
Posted: January 3rd, 2008, 5:53 am
by tyler paul
It would be really great if you could add the exact time each frame was rendered in the next release. I'd like to be able to estimate how long it'll take to render down the project.
Multiprocessing prefs
Posted: January 20th, 2008, 12:03 am
by agrapha
I am using your BG render script to bug check the MP process on my 8-core. I am doing $K imagery, and have not seen any benefit to the MP checkbox.
Your scripts memory check vs # of cores was a good insight (2GB per core recommended).
I have limited the number of procs for BG rendering in the prefs. Does your script check that?
AG
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: January 23rd, 2008, 6:57 am
by lloydalvarez
Ag:
If you are getting the memory warning it means that you don't have enough RAM to see benefits from MP. As a matter of fact you might even slow your renders down since each process requires it's own allotment of RAM to render and they will be memory starved if there isn't enough and it will cause the system to memory swap which is very very slow.
There is some good news however. If you upgrade to 8.0.2 (released yesterday) there is now a system pref you can set to tell AE how many procs you want to use (in previous versions it used all the procs every time) for MP.
This is from the 8.0.2 tech notes:
Multiprocessing performance issues with multi-core machines, especially high-end 8-core hardware. When all 8 cores try to render a complex or memory intensive composition with Render Mutliple Frames Simultaneously, the application can become memory starved if each process has insufficient memory. To remedy this, there is a text preference to control the maximum number of cores that Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously will use. Open the text preference file and look in the ["MP"] section for: "MaxNumberOfProcesses" = "0". "0" is the default setting, which disables this preference setting. For better performance on an 8-core machine with 8GB RAM, for example, change the "0" setting to "4" and save the preference file and restart After Effects. This restricts multiprocessing with RenderMultiple Frames Simultaneously to 4 cores, each getting approximately 2GB of RAM.
I plan on updating the BG Renderer to include an option to set this pref, but unfortunately it sets it for the whole app, not the BG render process.
-Lloyd
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: January 25th, 2008, 3:52 am
by agrapha
Thanks for the reply.
4096 x 3072 stereo IMAX will even tax 8GB of RAM. The AE multiprocessor prefs I held at 4 of my 8 procs, and the BG renders would still exit and switch to FG rendering. So, I just ran 4 instances of the render engine in the FG, and it actually rendered faster. Most likely not as fast as as it should, but with a drastically reduced render time.
Sorry your cool solution was not the one I needed, butit is now in my toolbox!
AG
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: March 31st, 2008, 3:33 am
by Olivia Presents
Hello,
I have downloaded the 'BG render' script twice but keep getting a message telling me it can't find AE in applications (it's definitely there, I've checked) I have noticed that the icon for the script when I download it to my Power Mac G5 is black and white instead of color could that be because the download is bad or maybe it's not compatible with Mac? Any help on this matter would be appreciated.
all the best
Olivia Presents
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: September 8th, 2008, 12:11 pm
by Butters
Long time lurker first time poster.
Great script! I love it. Question:
If I set my MP in the app prefs to use only 4 cores out of my 8 and I go to BG render with the MP box unchecked in the UI panel, will the BG render only use 1 core?
It'd be nice to be able to set number of cores for the FG app and the BG renderer independently... is there a plan to do this? If it is even possible.
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: September 8th, 2008, 12:13 pm
by lloydalvarez
Unfortunately this is not possible. The max number of processors pref only applies to the FG app. If you are rendering to a frame sequence you could choose the "Skip existing frames" option in the render setting and launch several 1 processor BG renders.
-Lloyd
Re: BG Renderer CS3
Posted: September 16th, 2008, 4:09 pm
by Butters
Lloyd,
Great script! One thing:
When I go to BG render something in my queue, there are two aerender processes that start up and only one seems to process. The other goes into the "unresponsive" state and just hangs there.
Have you noticed this at all?