After Effects Tutorial: Faster Rendering with Multi-Machine Network Rendering

I am going to show you how to make After Effects render video faster by using "multi-machine" network rendering. In this tutorial, I will use the power of multiple computers to speed up the rending of a short HD video clip.

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In this example, I used After Effects CS 5.5 on two computers, and all the video was stored on a file server.

I won't go over the specifics of setting up a shared folder in this tutorial, but i will mention this works best over gigabit Ethernet.

Before you start, make sure that each workstation in the render farm has a copy of After Effects. if you are using any plugins or effects in your project, be sure each copy of after effects has those plugins.

The trick to network rendering is turning your video into an image sequence. Then in the last step of the process, you render the image sequence back into a video.

When you are ready to render, select Add to render Q In the composition menu.
Select "multi-machine Settings" for Render Settings in the pull down tab
Select "multi-machine Settings" for the Output mode
In Render Settings, make sure the "Skip existing files..."

Important: SAVE the project at this point.

Open the AE project (located on the shared network drive) on each computer in the network farm.

Now start the render on each computer. They DO NOT have to be started in any particular order. Just open the project file on any computer, and start rendering.


When the render is complete, simplly import the image sequence.

When the import is complete, drag the image sequence to a new composition.

NOTE: if you want to use audio, you must move the audio track here!

Add the comp to a new render queue, and render the movie in your favorite video format. Here I use H263 to make a mp4.


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Notes about audio
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You must add the audio in the last step. To be more specific, image sequences don't use audio. Thus, the last step is importing the image sequence, and rendering the image sequence as a video. I simply move the audio track into the final step and render the image sequence + audio track as the final video.

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[bl1ppyboy]

does it have to be on a file server ?

can it not be on one of the 2 computers that are rendering ?

I ask because i only have 2pcs here

[rsmrt]

@bl1ppyboy It does not have to be on a file server. 1 of the 2 computers can share the source video. You can also have the source video copied to both computers. In fact, this way is even faster because it does not rely on network/server speed. One strategy that works for me, render half the video on one computer, and the other half on the second computer simultaneously. Then combine the image sequences on one of the computers for the final movie. You can do this with or w/o a network/server.

[bl1ppyboy]

@rsmrt

Thank you for the very fast reply and for the great tut btw.

I do not know if it would be any faster for me to do that ? (the 2 pcs render 50% each)

I think Im probably doing something wrong :)

Would it be possible to contact you via some other form of communication rather than your youtube comments ?

[rsmrt]

@bl1ppyboy Thx for the comments. Feel free to send me a message via YouTube or on my discussion forum (see the video description for links).

When you divide up the processing between two or more computers, you are basically rendering more content simultaneously because you now have multiple processors doing the work. This is likely only advantageous when you have content that requires a lot of processor power (when using CPU intense filters like denoise, motion blur, particles, etc).

[fsmaestro]

Do I have to have a license per machine?

[rsmrt]

@fsmaestro Yes for the "easy" method I show here, you must have a license per machine. However, for single license multi-machine rendering, look up the "watch folder" method. I don't like it nearly as much, but with some tinkering you can achieve the same goal.

[AnalogX64]

@beaupoor Cool. Looking forward to it.

[beaupoor]

@AnalogX64 You actually can do that. I'm creating a tutorial as soon as I get a render farm set up (prob this weekend) to show how to do it. The OP posted the method farther up int he comments.

[AnalogX64]

Great tutorial.. I wish this multi machine rendering was done like a 3D Software like Bryce or Carrara. Where you simply install a Client on the additional machines and 1 main machine does all the job handling instead of having to run a separate render manually.

[AlfanetKayuara]

thank you

[fsmaestro]

@rsmrt awesome! Thanks so much - this will work great for me.