Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 733)

727 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Rendering and exporting
Last updated 12/21/2009
Lloyd Alvarez provides a script on his After Effects Scripts website that takes items that are ready to render in the
render queue and sends them to render in the background using aerender.
More Help topics
“ Basics of rendering and exporting ” on page 688
Network rendering with watch folders and render engines
You can render one or more compositions from a project using multiple computers over a network in a fraction of the
time that a single computer would require. Network rendering involves copying the project and source files to a
networked folder, and then rendering the project. (A network of computers used together to render a single
composition is sometimes called a render farm.)
If you have a full licensed copy of After Effects, you can set it up to work with render-only versions of After Effects
called render engines. Your license entitles you to install as many copies of the render engine as you want on your
network, as long as one activated copy of After Effects is installed on that network.
You install render engines in the same manner as the full version of the application, but you do not activate them. You
run the render engine using the Adobe After Effects Render Engine shortcut in the Adobe After Effects CS4 folder.
(See “
Install the software ” on page 1.)
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 ” on page 702.)
–log log_file_path
log_file_path is a file path or URI specifying the location of the log file. If
this argument is not used, aerender uses standard output (stdout).
–sound sound_flag
If sound_flag is ON , a sound is played when rendering is complete. Default
is OFF .
–close close_flag
close_flag specifies whether or not to close the project when rendering is
complete, and whether or not to save changes:
DO_NOT_SAVE_CHANGES : (default) The project is closed without saving
changes.
SAVE_CHANGES : The project is closed and changes are saved.
DO_NOT_CLOSE : The project is left open if using an already-running instance
of After Effects. (New instances of After Effects must always quit when done.)
-rqindex
index_in_render_queue
-rqindex works just like -comp , except that it won’t create a render item
from the composition automatically.
-mp enable_flag
If enable_flag is 0, additional processes are not created to render multiple
frames simultaneously.
If enable_flag is 1, additional processes may be created to render multiple
frames simultaneously, depending on system configuration and preference
settings. (See “
Memory & Multiprocessing preferences ” on page 635.)
-continueOnMissingFootage The render operation continues even if a source footage item is missing.
Argument Description