Adobe 12040118 Tutorial - Page 532

your computer system and compositions. See Memory & Multiprocessing preferences. Todd Kopriva provides more information about optimum memory and processor settings on the Adobe website. Improve performance using Global Performance Cache (CS6) To the top Import projects from After Effects CS5.5 and earlier into After Effects CS6 to take advantage of the Global Performance Cache. For details, see Disk Cache. Persistent disk cache improves performance by retaining frames stored in the disk cache between sessions, saving rendering time as you work on a project or other projects that might use the same cached frames. Use Cache Work Area In Background to fill the disk cache for a composition's work area while continuing to work. This technique is useful when you do not expect to make changes to a downstream composition, or precomposition. This feature works with multiple compositions, as well. Improve performance by simplifying your project To the top By simplifying and dividing your project, you can prevent After Effects from using memory and other resources to process elements that you are not currently working with. Also, by controlling when After Effects performs certain processing, you can greatly improve overall performance. For example, you can avoid repeating an action that needs to happen only once, or you can postpone an action until it is more convenient for you. Delete unused elements from your project. See Remove items from a project. Divide complex projects into simpler projects, and then recombine them before you render the finished movie. To recombine projects, import all of the projects into a single project. See Import an After Effects project. Before rendering, put all of your source footage files on a fast, local disk-not the one that you're rendering and exporting to. A good way to do this is with the Collect Files command. See Collect files in one location. Pre-render nested compositions. Render a completed composition as a movie so that After Effects doesn't rerender the composition every time it is displayed. See Pre-render a nested composition. Substitute a low-resolution or still-image proxy for a source item when not working directly with that item. See Placeholders and proxies. Lower the resolution for the composition. See Resolution. Isolate the layer you're working on by using the Solo switch. See Solo a layer. For more information about improving performance by isolating what you're working on, see this video on the video2brain website. Improve performance by modifying screen output To the top You can improve performance in many ways that don't affect how After Effects treats your project data, only how output is drawn to the screen as you work. Although it is often useful to see certain items and information as you work, After Effects uses memory and processor resources to update this information, so be selective in what you choose to display as you work. You will likely need to see different aspects of your project at different points in your workflow, so you may apply the following suggestions in various combinations at various stages. Turn off display color management and output simulation when not needed. See Simulate how colors will appear on a different output device. The speed and quality of color management for previews are controlled by the Viewer Quality preferences. See Viewer Quality preferences. Enable hardware acceleration of previews, which uses the GPU to assist in drawing previews to the screen. Choose Edit > Preferences > Display (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Display (Mac OS), and select Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, And Footage Panels. Close unneeded panels. After Effects must use memory and processor resources to update open panels, which may slow the work that you are doing in another panel. Create a region of interest. If you are working on a small part of your composition, limit which portion of the composition is rendered to the screen during previews. See Region of interest (ROI). Deselect Show Cache Indicators in the Timeline panel menu to prevent After Effects from displaying green and blue bars in the time ruler to indicate cached frames. See Caches: RAM cache, disk cache, and media cache. Deselect the Show Rendering Progress In Info Panel And Flowchart preference to prevent the details of each render operation for each frame from being written to the screen. See Display preferences. Hide Current Render Details in the Render Queue panel by clicking the triangle beside Current Render Details in the Render Queue panel. See Information shown for current render operations. Press Caps Lock to prevent After Effects from updating Footage, Layer, or Composition panels. When you make a change that would otherwise appear in a panel, After Effects adds a red bar with a text reminder at the bottom of the panel. After Effects continues to update panel controls such as motion paths, anchor points, and mask outlines as you move them. To resume panel updates and display all changes, press Caps Lock again. Note: Pressing Caps Lock suspends updates (disables refresh) of previews in viewers during rendering for final output, too, although no red reminder bar appears.