Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 710)

704 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Rendering and exporting
Last updated 12/21/2009
Note: You cannot use the Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing feature while also using OpenGL to
render RAM previews or render for final output. The Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously feature works by using
background processes on multiple CPU processor cores to render frames. (See “
Memory & Multiprocessing preferences ”
on page 635.)
OpenGL in After Effects can render the following features:
• Shadows, except point light shadows (Colored shadows appear gray.)
• Lights (eight maximum)
• Masks
• Alpha channels
• Track mattes
• Intersecting layers
• Transformations for 2D and 3D layers
• GPU-accelerated effects, including Alpha Levels, Bevel Alpha, Bilateral Blur, Box Blur, Brightness & Contrast,
Channel Blur, Color Balance, Color Balance (HLS), Curves, Directional Blur, Drop Shadow, Fast Blur, Find Edges,
Fractal Noise, Gaussian Blur, Hue/Saturation, Invert, Noise, Radial Blur, Ramp, Sharpen, Tint, and Turbulent Noise
• All blending modes except Dissolve and Dancing Dissolve
• Metal property settings for 3D layers
• Cone feather settings for light layers
• 2D motion blur
• Adjustment layers
• Anti-aliasing
• Depth-of-field blur
• Nested compositions
Note: OpenGL is not used to render a nested composition if the precomposition layer has a mask or a non-GPU-
accelerated effect applied to it.
Important: Use caution when enabling the OpenGL renderer in a network rendering environment. Inconsistencies may
arise if differences exist in the sets of features that the OpenGL cards in the network support.
When OpenGL does not support a feature, it simply renders without using that feature. For example, if your layers
contain shadows and your OpenGL hardware does not support shadows, the output will not contain shadows.
• To enable OpenGL for rendering final output, click the underlined text next to Render Settings in the Render
Queue panel, and select Use OpenGL Renderer.
• To enable OpenGL for rendering previews, choose Edit > Preferences > Previews (Windows) or After Effects >
Preferences > Previews (Mac OS), and select Enable OpenGL. To also allow OpenGL to render at a lower resolution
to maintain rendering speed while rendering complex compositions for previews, select Enable Adaptive
Resolution With OpenGL.
• To see what features your OpenGL card supports, choose Edit > Preferences > Previews (Windows) or After
Effects > Preferences > Previews (Mac OS), and click OpenGL Info.
• To modify the amount of texture memory, choose Edit > Preferences > Previews (Windows) or After Effects >
Preferences > Previews (Mac OS), click OpenGL Info, and enter a value for Texture Memory of no more than 80%
of the installed video RAM (VRAM) on your video card.