Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 750)

Windows locations:
C:\Users\\Documents
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Adobe
You cannot use a watch folder and multiple render engines to simultaneously render a single movie file. However, you can use multiple render
engines to render a movie as a sequence of still-image files. You can then use a post-render action to create a single movie file from that still-
image sequence. (See Post-render actions.)
When you have multiple render engines on multiple computers monitoring a watch folder, they cooperate to achieve optimal efficiency. If your
queued render items are set to Skip Existing Files (a Render Settings option), the render engines all work on a single render item at once—no
render engine renders any frame another render engine has already worked on. If this option is not selected, each render engine handles a render
item itself.
Rhys Enniks provides a video tutorial on his website that demonstrates the use of multiple computers on a network to render a composition with a
watch folder.
Computer with full version of After Effects (A) saves a project and all source files to a folder (B) on a server. Computers with the render engine
installed (C) open the project and render a still-frame sequence to a designated output folder (D) on the server.
Network considerations
When working with multiple render engines on multiple computers, keep in mind the following guidelines:
When possible, identify folders using absolute file paths so that the paths are correctly identified for all render engines. Identifying folders
using absolute file paths may mean mapping network drives to a particular drive letter on all computers (for example, H:\renders\watch\).
Avoid using relative paths (for example, \\renders\watch).
Each Macintosh computer monitoring the watch folder must have a unique name. Because the default names of computers are often
identical, you should rename your computers to not use the default name.
Make sure that all servers and clients (computers monitoring the watch folder) have hard drives with unique names.
Do not use the same computer to serve a watch folder and to run After Effects in Watch Folder mode. Use a dedicated server that’s
accessible to all render engines to serve your watch folder.
Do not render to or initiate Watch Folder mode on the root of a volume or a shared folder that appears as the root when viewed from another
computer. Specify a subfolder instead. Also, avoid using high-ASCII or other extended characters and slashes in filenames. For multiple-
computer rendering, After Effects includes the Multi-Machine sample template that you can use as a starting point.
When rendering across a network that includes volumes using different network or operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OS, Novell, and
UNIX, make sure that you specify output files using a file-naming convention that’s compatible with all rendering or destination volumes.
Project considerations
Make sure that you install all fonts, effects, and encoders (compressors) used in the project on all computers monitoring the watch folder. If a
computer monitoring the watch folder can’t find fonts, effects, or encoders used in a project, the render fails.
When you install an After Effects render engine on a computer, it contains all the plug-ins included with After Effects. If a composition uses a plug-
in from another manufacturer, the plug-in must be present on all computers that will render the composition. However, support for network
rendering varies among plug-in manufacturers. Before you set up a network to render effects created by third-party plug-ins, see the
documentation for your plug-ins or contact the plug-in manufacturers and get answers to the following questions:
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