dfx+ slow rendering

#1

I finaly installed my DFX+ copy I received with the LW8 update. I’m used to working in After FX but people told me DFX is much better and the audio support in AfterFX is just bad.

So I’m currently editing my animation in DFX, but what I noticed is that it renders dog slow, I mean, it renders and average of 2 frames per second with an animation that has just a lot of frame sequences merged together. No processing involved whatsoever.

Also it sometimes stops rendering and just sits there for about 5 minutes. At first I thought it froze up, but when I wait long enough it continues to render. All the sequences are about 2:30 long and it takes DFX about half an hour to render the avi.

In AfterFX something like this renders faster then realtime, so I think I must be doing something wrong ? What I do is add a couple of loaders, load my sequences, add some merge nodes, link 2 loaders to a merge and so on. Then I link the last merge to the saver that saves an DivX avi file.

I already updated to version 4.04e yesterday but that didn’t help.

Win 2K, Dual Xeon 3.6 Ghz, 4 Gig Ram, Quadro FX 3400

#2

How do you merge layers together without processing? :slight_smile:

Every merge takes processing time so the more merges, the longer it takes to render. Depending on your flow, 2 frames per second might not be that long at all. I once had to render a composite which took about 2 days for 40 frames. Mind you, that was more than a few merges ;-)…

Fusion locking for a while and then continuing to render sounds a bit strange though…

Try rendering to a frame sequence instead of a DivX file. If that helps then that would mean that it has something to do with the outputting to avi instead of the flow itself.

I usually render to frame sequences anyway. Biggest advantage of that is that you don’t need to rerender the entire shot if two frames are faulty or if the software crashes during render (yes that does happen sometimes ;-))

Hope that helps…

#3

what I ment was that I do no image adjustements nor compositing layers. I just use the merge nodes to glue several scenes from my animation into one.
DFX is taking half a second or sometimes more to render out an image that is actualy exactly the same as the image in the sequence it’s using :-
I can imagine DFX slowing down if I’m doing complicated stuff with HD images, but these are preview renders at a 400x300 rez. AfterFX renders the same sequences in about 6 minutes. From what I hear DFX should be faster, so there’s definately something fishy going on.

Try rendering to a frame sequence instead of a DivX file. If that helps then that would mean that it has something to do with the outputting to avi instead of the flow itself.

hehe, I already have image sequences and need an avi with sound to show the client. What I’m doing is editing the timing of the scenes to the sound, which is why I wanted to use DFX instead of AE because the audio support in AE sucks.
But I tried image sequences which was a bit faster but still more then twice as slow as AE.

I usually render to frame sequences anyway. Biggest advantage of that is that you don’t need to rerender the entire shot if two frames are faulty or if the software crashes during render (yes that does happen sometimes ;-)).

That’s what I’d do too if I had some complicated composting going on that takes days to render :slight_smile:

but thanks for the help.

#4

You’re welcome…

Never done any serious work with After Effects to be honest, the very concept of layer based compositing sounds appalling and extremely limiting…

Could be that Fusion does certain tasks “slower” than AE, but knowing Eyeon a little, there will most likely be a very good reason for it. Those “hangs” don’t sound right though. You might want to send your flow and specs to tech@eyeonline.com…

Other than that it’s up to you mate, bit slower renders or crappy output… you choose. :wink:

#5

Think I need a slower computer to get rid of that crappy output. But then again, slow renders are health wrecking, they make me smoke cigarettes and drink lots of coffee :slight_smile:

#6

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