Improve performance by modifying screen output – Adobe After Effects CS4 User Manual
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USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Memory, storage, and performance
Last updated 12/21/2009
Improve performance by modifying screen output
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
•
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 “
•
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.
•
Deselect the Show Rendering Progress In Info Panel And Flowchart preference (in Display preferences) to prevent
the details of each render operation for each frame from being written to the screen.
•
Hide Current Render Details in the Render Queue panel by clicking the triangle beside Current Render Details in
the Render Queue panel.
•
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.
•
Lower the display quality of a layer to Draft. See “
Layer image quality and subpixel positioning
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Select Draft 3D in the Timeline panel menu, which disables all lights and shadows that fall on 3D layers. It also
disables the depth-of-field blur for a camera.
•
Deselect Live Update in the Timeline panel menu to prevent After Effects from updating compositions
dynamically.
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Display audio waveforms in the Timeline panel only when necessary.
•
Disable pixel aspect ratio correction by clicking the Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction
button at the bottom
of a Composition, Layer, or Footage panel.
•
Deselect Mirror On Computer Monitor when previewing video on an external video monitor. See “
•
Hide layer controls, such as masks, 3D reference axes, and layer handles. See “
Show or hide layer controls in the
•
Lower the magnification for a composition. When After Effects displays the Composition, Layer, and Footage
panels at magnifications of 100% or greater, screen redraw speed decreases. (See “