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BG Renderer
Version: 2.12 Sign up to be notified by email when a new version is posted
[BG Renderer 2] kept me sane when I was onlining BRICK & STEEL. It’s difficult to describe just how quickly this little panel will become an essential part of your After Effects workflow.
-Stu Maschwitz (prolost.com)
I use this script daily, and this update is a must have.
-Paul Conigliaro (motion designer/editor)
That’s dirt cheap for background rendering. If only our editing applications like Final Cut Pro or Media Composer could do the same. In this day and age they should be able to that.
-Scott Simmons (studiodaily.com)
Been using BG Renderer on current project. So nice to get email and txt msg especially when they crash in the middle of the night.
-Danny Princz (AE Ninja & FXPHD professor)
Just installed Background Renderer 2.0 & it works like a charm! Text message updates when render is finished are sick.
-Ryan Summers (via twitter)
BG Renderer is a script that allows you to render your Render Queue items in the background while you can continue working in After Effects. It  runs as a dockable panel that is saved as part of your workspace.
BG Renderer now comes in 2 flavors: Basic and Pro.
- With the all new basic version you can just render your queue in the background. We completely re-programmed how it works so that it is simple and easy and works every time.
- If you need options, then the Pro version is what you want. Â Besides being able to set prefs for the render, the pro version offer the very powerful post render actions which allow you to get growl notifications, send email (with log), send sms and even iPhone push notifications when your renders are done or you have an error. Â You can also send a terminal command to be executed after each item in the queue is done rendering and put the machine to sleep or shut it down. If you are using CS3 or CS4 and have CS5 installed, you can send your CS3 or CS4 render to the CS5 render engine to take advantage of the new 64-bit goodness while keeping your work project in the older version. Finally there is a new portable app/folder feature that makes it easy to create an ad-hoc render farm quickly by simply copying this portable app to all the machines on your network and just double-clicking it to launch the render on that machine.
Due to the huge amount of work that was required to bring version 2.0 to life we made the tough decision to make this version a licensed only version. Â However, we feel strongly that you get a whole lot of value for the price. You can upgrade from the basic to the pro version at any time by purchasing a basic to pro upgrade license. Â We also have not forgotten about all of you who were generous with the “Name Your Own Price” concept so please read the following upgrade notice.
Upgrade notice: For users who purchased BG Renderer between Jan 1, 2010 & Jan 11, 2011 when it was ‘Name Your Own Price’ we will give you a discount code equal to 100% of the amount you spent (if you bought it more than once, the values will add up). If you paid for BG Renderer before Jan 1, 2010, we will still give you a discount code worth 50% of what you spent. To request a discount code please submit the email address you used for your original purchase here. Â (If you purchased a Basic license after Jan 11, 2011 and want to upgrade, then all you need to do is buy a Basic to Pro Upgrade license above.)
FULL INSTRUCTIONS:
Once you start the render, a new terminal/batch will open. Keep this window open. Â Here you will see the render progress. Tip: On mac you can customize the look of the terminal window by going into the terminal preferences and adjusting the look in the settings tab.
ADVANCED SETTINGS: (Only available in Pro version)
Set it to Low if you plan on continuing to work in AE. It is recommended to have at least 2 GB of RAM per CPU for best performance.
Click on the  ”Configure” button to configure the post render actions.  All post render actions have the option of being executed at the end of each comp being rendered or at the end of the entire render queue.  You also have the option of only being notified if there are any errors logged.  You select this from the pull-down menu to the right of each action.
This will play the default After Effects render done sound.
On windows simply check this option to have the batch window close automatically when BG Renderer is finished. On Mac you need to go into the Terminal Preferences->Settings and under the “Shell” tab select “Close the window” in the “When the shell exits:” dropdown.
This is the outgoing mail server. Â It is usually smtp.domain.com or mail.domain.com. Â Check with your internet provider for these settings.
This is the email address that the email will be addressed from.
This is name the mail will come from. Â There are 2 special keywords that can be used in this field: [username] is the username of the machine that is rendering and [computername] which is the name of the computer. Â These are dynamically inserted so if you use the portable launcher feature these will report the machine they are being run on.
This is a secure connection option that is required by some servers. Â Please check with your provider is you can/should use this option.
You will most likely need to turn this option on. Â This allows you to login to the SMTP server.
Check with your provider for this info but it is most likely your full email address.
This is most likely your email password.
This will allow you to send a test email from this window to make sure your settings are correct. Â If they are not you will get the server error to help you figure out what is wrong.
Clicking on the SMS Help button will give you further assistance with this feature. Â If your provider is not included in the provider list please contact support@aescripts.com and we will add it.
This feature uses the “Prowl” iPhone app to send push notifications to your iPhone. Â You will need to purchase the Prowl app for your iPhone (it’s only $2.99) then go to the prowl website and register to obtain a free API key which you can enter in the Prowl API Key field in BG Renderer. Â Once entered you can click on the Verify API key to make sure it works.
If you have an android phone you can turn on growl notifications and use the GrowlForAndroid app.
This uses the “Growl” notification system to let you know when the renders are done. Please note that you need to download and install growl even if you are already getting growl notifications from other apps. Download growl for windows here: http://www.growlforwindows.com/ and download growl for mac here: http://growl.info/. Please note that on mac you also need to install growlnotify from the Extras folder in the growl installer (This extra step is not necessary for windows).
This feature allows you to execute a command-line command after the render is done. Â This field can use the special keywords available in the “Special Keywords” section. Â Clicking on the “Save” button will save the current command. Â Up to 10 commands can be save and retrieved from the pull down menu to the right of the Save button. Â To delete a saved command, simply load it and click on “Remove”.
This is the message that will be sent in the notifications. This field can use the special keywords available in the “Special Keywords” section. Please note that any errors will be automatically included in the message if any errors are detected.
Will shut the machine down after the entire render queue is done rendering.
These keywords are dynamically replaced with the respective values when used in certain fields. Â There is a descrition for each keywords to the right of the pull down after it is selected. Â To insert it, click on the field you want to use it in and click “Insert keyword”.
Once you are done configuring the post render actions click on the “Save settings” button.
This feature will save a double-clickable file in the designated location. Â This can come in handy if you are wanting to launch several instances of the same render. Â Please note that all post render actions will also be executed for each instance.
If you plan on using a different computer to execute the render, choose this option and copy the portable launcher file (on mac or folder on windows) to that machine. Â This carries over the necessary support files that BG Renderer needs to execute some of the post render actions. Â However, you will still need to make sure that there is a local copy of the same version of After Effects installed in the rendering maching and any footage and output folders also need to be accessible from the new machine. Â This is usually accomplished with a shared server. Â A launcher file generated on a mac can only be used on mac and vice-versa.
If CS5 is installed on the same machine, this feature will use CS5′s new 64-bit rendering engine to render the project which is converted on the fly. You will need to make sure that all the same plugins are installed in the CS5 installation. Please make sure to test this feature before trying any critical renders.
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- BG Renderer Post Render Actions UI
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- BG Renderer Pro UI
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- BG Renderer Basic UI
Version history:
- v2.12 Escaped special characters in Dos, Fixed growlnotify instructions – May 2011
- v2.1 – Feb 2011
- Added priority change for growl/prowl notices if there is an error
- Added option to close BG Render window when finished
- Added more sms providers
- v2.05 Added email and sms support to older OS X versions – Feb 2011
- v2.04 Fixed iPhone/Prowl compatibility with OS X 10.5 – Jan 2011
- v2.03 Fixed small bug when updating SMS provider list – Jan 2011
- v2.02 – Jan 2011
- Added a bunch more SMS providers
- Growl on mac now lists BG Renderer as an application
- Fixed shutdown on mac
- v2.01 Fixed small bug when email was not configured properly – Jan 2011
- v2.0 re-written from ground up, added pro options – Jan 2011
- v1.6 Changed temp file location to fix corrupted .term file bug – Dec 2009
- v1.5 added additional escaped characters check – Aug 2009
- v1.4 fixed additional issues with Leopard, tested and approved for CS4 – Nov 2008
- v1.3 fixed issues with MacOS 10.5 Leopard – Feb 2008
- v1.2 fixed aerender path issue with Windows 64bit systems – Oct 2007
- v1.1 added terminal instructions, and MP Ram check and warning on Mac – Oct 2007
- v1.0 updated for CS3 – Jul 2007
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hello,
big crash with bg render 2.o and red import pluggin involve in the comps i am working with.
any idea ?
thanks.
Sorry > system is PC. windows 7 64bits. all last update done. including the latest adobe ones.
after effect 10.5.0.253
system has 48 GiG of ram.
and SSD 6g drives.
>> update on my problem > >> if i wait for 30 seconds the render start.
)) where this error message was not welcome and 30 seconds to wait … hum… not good 
))
> yesterday night was a hurry moment kind of post prod moment
any way >> still have this adboe after effect new “situation” where >>
> load project. with render setup already done .
Launch BG render.
Activate again the comp I want to BG render
Bg Render ask if I want to save the project.
SAY/clic YES.
After effect crash. ALL THE TIME.
… >> painfull solution for now >>> load project > launch Bg render. kill Ae. start Ae. and re do the operation each time I want another Bg render process.
ANY IDEA ? memory ? hard drive not being cooperatives ?
(brand new SSD 6g !
anyway >> THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR GOOD WORK !!!
yann
>>> another interesting development in analyzing the problem.
> having 3 project in the queue > at the end of the first one. about 5000 frames. when the next one kick in > Each process ( 4 ) try to render > and crash/freeze on the first image. 0 k image is written in the folder. but the render is stopped.
>>> since the background render start with a RED IMPORTER error. but is okay to render the images of the first queue project…. well… who knows right ?!…
>> the thing is >> bg render stop to be awesome and kickass !
anyhow >>> thanks for reading and taking the time to have a look at it when you can.
Cheerz!
yann
Sounds like an issue with your comp. Can you try a simple test comp to see if you successfully launch a multi-item-queue render?
Hello
When simply render to avi file output , AE does uses the GPU (i can activity in GPU gadget).
If I render same project with same setup using BG-renderer then GPU is not being used(no activity in GPU gadget.
is this expected behavior with BG-renderer ?
thanks
Kiran
Correct, BG Renderer renders using aerender which is the command-line GUI less render engine so it renders on the CPU only.
Thanks Alvarez ,
We have Mac and PC in our edit facilities… I’m trying to run the trial version of BG renderer on our PC’s. When I set up the render to go, everything goes smoothly until the script tries to launch the msdos window. The window appears for a fraction of a second, and then disappears. Do you have any ideas as to what would be killing the window?
I tried the script on the Mac and it works fine.
Are you running any firewall or virus protection software that might be killing the process?
That was my thought as well… we’re running AVG here, so I tried shutting it down and trying it, but still with the same results. Maybe there’s some other process that’s running that I don’t know about.
I’m having the same problem.
Besides firewall and virus software another thing to check is to make sure you don’t have any unusual characters in your file path or project name.
That doesn’t fix it either.
Please contact support and include your AE and OS version and if possible let us know the full path of your AE project.
You created an awesome script, I love it!
I got one performance question:
When I m still working in AE while rendering out several Comps in the background, is it recommended to turn on Multiprocessing? I m wondering if this will slow down the overal pc performance (like ram previews in AE).
I got a Six Core i7 with 24 GB RAM.
Thanx
Hey, I’ve been using BG Renderer for a while now and it’s great for saving time. But for some reason, since I started using it, I can’t render lossless videos anymore. Not through BG Renderer or the normal way.
Has anyone had this issue before and does anyone know how to solve it?
Thanks.
You might have a bad codec. I would try re-installing.
I deleted all my adobe preferences and it solved the issue, no idea what was causing the problem specifically though.
Thanks for this script…I use it at home and got my new job to use it too.
I’d like to learn more about the commands option. Specifically, I’d like to learn about converting an image sequence to a movie file. Do you have any suggestions where to look? I saw on your tutorial where you mention ffmpeg, is that the only way to do this or are there other commands (like the ones for command line rendering in Maya)
I’m on an iMac running Lion.
Dumb question but I love the Black terminal window with white text. I’ve changed it over and over again in the terminal prefs but it always defaults to the white background black text. any thoughts?
Just tryin’ to be cool
dj
You need to make it the ‘Default’ shell. After you customize it, hit the ‘Default’ button at the bottom.
Hey!
Love the BG renderer plugin! But coming from the discontinued Nucleo Pro plugin I have some small feature requests.
I would be nice with a render progress indication in the console while the BG renderer is rendering. X of X frames for instance.
and perhaps even an indication of what render job it is working on. Like X of X job.
But love it – don’t stop working on this plugin!
//Allan @ Cadesign – Denmark
BG Renderer works fully in the background so we don’t keep AE occupied on purpose. You can always switch to the terminal to see the render progress. If you have any “Per Comp” notifications, the title bar of the Terminal will say which comp it is currently rendering. Is that what you mean by X of X job?
Oh – and regarding what Phillip wrote – I get the error regardless of the multiprocessing.
I have a similar problem to Gill (above). Mine doesn’t crash but says it’s unable to load another instance of aerender, or waiting for dialog, etc. Try running without the -reuse etc…
I tried saving the BGrender to a file and closed AE and only ran the cmd file – still the same error.
Windows 7 Quad 4Gb RAM. Works fine on a similar computer at work. At home it fails.
Here’s the terminal output:
———————————————————
BG Renderer v2.12
http://aescripts.com
RENDERING: Untitled Project 2.aep
Launching aerender…
aerender version 10.0×458
Unable to execute script at line 1. Expected: )
aerender ERROR: After Effects can not render for aerender. Another instance of a
erender, or another script, may be running; or, AE may be waiting for response f
rom a modal dialog, or for a render to complete. Try running aerender without th
e -reuse flag to invoke a separate instance of After Effects
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day.
Press any key to close this window…
Do you have any scripts in your Scripts-Startup folder?
whats funny is, when I turn “multiprocessing” off, it works.
That sounds like an aerender bug. I would encourage you to report it to Adobe, you can do that here: http://adobe.com/go/wish/
Yes:
1_startup.jsx
commandLineRenderer.jsx
Device Central Importer.jsx
What is the email to support?
Click on the word support to get the address and please provide all the requested info
I am getting an error message “Error creating launcher file” I am using CS5. Im not sure what the issue is.
This is due to a permissions issue. Are you on Mac or Windows? If you have the pro version choose the “Save BG Launcher” option and save the launcher file somewhere you have permissions to write a file like your desktop for example.
Its still not working. Im on a mac. It says something about the bg_renderer.cmmd
Can you tell us exactly what the error says? Also it will help if you can email us the BG_Renderer.command file that is created. You can email it to support Is there anything unique about your setup? Are you a networked user or anything that would have reduced privileges or permissions? The more information you can provide the more likely we will be to help you.
This is THE BEST $30 dollar!!! investment I have ever made. The script is amazing and I can only say BRAVO to Lloyd. Great, great work. NEB
growl notification is turned on and growl is running. BG Renderer doesn’t show up in the application list
Have you turned on growl notifications in the post-render actions? If so can you choose the “Save BG Launcher” option and send the BG_Renderer file that is generated to customer support. Also let us know what version of After Effects, BG Renderer and Windows you are running.
Today I’ve downloaded growl for windows to test it in conjunction with the bg renderer but unfortunetly after the render nothing happens. If I look into the applications panel in growl there is no after effects entry. Is there anything I have to do because I just watched the tutorial again but you don’t enable anything special (I restarted BG renderer)
Did you turn on Growl notifications in the post-render actions UI? You also need to make sure Growl is running. You do this by choosing “Open Growl” from the growl icon in the task bar. It’s probably a good idea to check the “Automatically start growl at login” option to make sure it is running when you do your renders. Lastly the Application listed will be BG Renderer not After Effects as that who is issuing the growl notifications. However, you won’t see BG Renderer listed in the application until after it’s done a notification.
Idear for the net update:
Sometimes a AE-Projekt could not render on Multipul Cores… becouse of the use of a Expression or a Effect.
If it is so, i shop the Comp in segments – usind the work area – then Render the areas with BG-Render (NOTE – i render into Img-Sequenz !! And Skip existing Frames!!)
So i am able to start more then one BG Render, and so i get my Multicore-Render.
Is there a way to make this right in BG-Render – some kind of “Chop in peaces an Render on X instances” ?! (x may be a number to punch in, so there is controll over how many instanzes are lounched)
The benefit of this method is – Time.
If i render a Projet direct in AE or use BG-Render it takes about 1,5h.
If i use the method i discribed it renders in.. about 30 min.
Maybe this helps, maybe this gets implemented.
Greetings
Steven
With the Pro version what you can do is choose the ‘Save BG Launcher’ option and then all you need to do is double click the BG_Renderer.cmd file that is created once per rendering instance. Just make sure you have the ‘Skip Existing Frames’ option set in the Render Settings.
Hey, I just figured out a rather obscure problem, so I thought I’d report my solution here in case it helps anyone.
I’ve recently upgraded to OSX 10.7, and the BG Renderer script had stopped working. It would appear as though everything was OK, but when it launched the Terminal window it would just sit there. The problem was that I wanted to change my default shell from Bash to zsh, and I had set a preference within Terminal to launch zsh by running /bin/zsh as a command every time a new window opened. That conflicted with BG Renderer’s ability to run its script in a shell.
The solution was to change my default shell using “chsh -s /bin/zsh” and leave the Terminal preferences to use the “Default login shell”.
I’m sure I’m the only person to experience this (based on what I could find out, anyway
but perhaps it’ll be helpful for someone down the track.
Ian
Before I email support,
If I wanted to “reinstall” the script and start from scratch, would I delete my AE preferences, the BGRenderer Script, the Volumes/Users/123456/Library/Application Support/Aescripts/ folder, and start the process over?
Are there any other hidden files or preferences that are created?
Yes that would do it. However, before you reset everything start by just deleting the folder in the Application Support folder as that is the one that seems to be misbehaving. If that doesn’t work you can try deleting the rest but not sure that will fix your problem.
Lloyd,
I have been using BGRenderer’s Portable App option since it came out to render many different promo versions across several computers. The way it works is the next best thing to a render farm!
Recently, I started to get this error, which has prevented me from using BG Render the way I need to:
If I click the BG Renderer button, it says “creating one-time necessary file for “portable app,” finishes, then says:
Could not find bgRendererAppTemplate.app in the bgRenderer please contact support
Full path:
/Users/123456/Library/Application Support/Aescripts/bgRenderer/bgRendererAppTemplate.app
This happens whenever I use “make”portable app”
Sometimes “Save BG Launcher file” works
Other times, it gives this error:
Error creating Launcher file
Location: /Volumes/Users/123456/Library/Application Support/Aescripts/bgRenderer/BG_Renderer.command
I appreciate any help.
Thanks,
MacPro 12core – 2.66
24GB RAM
Mac OS X 10.6.4
Sounds like you might have a permissions issue. Can you verify that this folder has read/write permissions by the user that is logged in using After Effects:
/Users/123456/Library/Application Support/Aescripts/bgRenderer/
You will get that error is BG Renderer can’t write to that folder.
User 123456 has read/write permission.
Strange. Is there anything in that folder? Also, for faster feedback you can email support directly.
I really love this script.
but one thing I found really strange. when using the ae internal renderer it renders 4 frames at a time when multiprocessing is on. when I use the BG Renderer only 2 Frames are rendered at a time. is this the normal behavior?
I use win 7 with an i7 (4cores+4hyperthreading) and 24gigs of ram
Starting with CS5, BG Renderer should use the same number of procs as indicated in the main AE multiproc prefs. You also need to make sure you have enough available ram to allow all those procs to launch. Try restarting to make sure that the memory has not been claimed by other processes.
I’m finding with the latest version it is taking a really long time for BGrenderer to get rolling. Itll sit on the initial status (ending with):
PROGRESS: Embed Profile:
PROGRESS:
PROGRESS: Post-Render Action: None
PROGRESS:
PROGRESS:
PROGRESS:
PROGRESS:
For minutes. Is this aerender again?
Yes, this is aerender again. Anything after it says starting aerender is aerender. Assuming you project isn’t huge (because this would cause a delay) the delay might be due to you not having enough RAM or old processes that did not end properly. You can open the Activity Monitor and look for aeselflink or aerendercore processes. If you see any and you are not rendering then they need to be killed or you are going to be fighting for RAM and that process takes time as memory is being swapped with the system. Restarting would also solve this problem.
Thanks again Lloyd. Love your script, Aerenderer is a royal pain in the ass. I think it was aeselflink or aerendercore processes fighting with me. Solved. I still do have this intermittent problem where launches aerender then says finished without rendering a single thing nor throwing a single error. No missing files, no plugin issues. Ususally the first time I hit it it flakes out like that, then I hit it again and it works ok. Not your issue I know, but I just wonder if you / anyone else has run into that and found a solution?
I’ve been using bg_renderer_v2.12 and about 2 weeks ago it just stopped working. Running cs5. It’s been perfect up to now. I get a message:
Unable to execute script at line 1. Syntax error
aerender Error: After Effects can not render for aerender.
There’s more to the message but the box won’t scale for me to read what it says…
Can you help?
Thanks.
Where are you getting this message? In AE or the terminal. Also please tell us what your AE/OS versions are. The more info you give us the more likely we are to be able to help you.
Hello,
This is not causing any problems, but I was just curious why I sometimes get duplicate frames listed in the Terminal window while rendering. (Its a 29.97 frame render, not fields)
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;00 (1): 2 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;01 (2): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;01 (2): 1 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;02 (3): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;02 (3): 1 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;03 (4): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;03 (4): 2 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;04 (5): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;04 (5): 1 Seconds
PROGRESS: 0;00;00;05 (6): 0 Seconds
Thx
Misha
Great little thingy!
Friendly hint:
I´m currently working on a quite big project and i would not be able to hit the deadline without BG-Render.
The AEP-File now crosses the 90MB (i NEVER had a file this big – you couls imagen how big the project is…).
when i hit the BG-Render btn, AE frezes and thats it. I have to kill AE and restart it, using the regular RenderModule. With the help of BG-Render i am good in time, so this is no big problem.
it´s just to let you know.
but maybe the “error” is nested in the project…
(cs5, macPro, 8core, 10.6, 24GB)
In BG Renderer I don’t because I cannot access it’s controls. In After Effects I have the multiprocessing settings cranked way up to the advantage of After Effects (14 gigs of ram being dedicated to the program). Before I installed Lion I did a complete format and reinstall so none of my previous settings in BG Renderer have the opportunity of still being at play.
It’s going to take me a bit to get this sorted as i don’t have Lion installed on any machines yet but I will certainly post an update once I fix the proble, Thanks for reporting it.
Love your product. It has worked very well for me in the past. I recently just upgraded to OS X Lion using CS 5.5 (which is the same CS version I used before in Snow Leopard without problems). Everytime I start BG Renderer now, it give me this:
“Unable to execute script at line 94. Null is not an object”
It won’t give me any GUI to work with. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?
Thanks in advance.
Mac Pro 8 core tower
2.26 i7 chips
17 gigs of Ram
OS 10.7.1
Have not tested with Lion yet. Apple is known to change things so I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed something that BG Renderer relies on. Do you have any advanced settings on when you are trying the render?
Hello,
Is it possiable to create a cmd file which will run a list of few portable apps/folders ?
Or any other option for creating a psaudo AE “render farm” ?
Thanks
Eran
In the Pro version you can create a “Portable App” which you can use for creating an ad-hoc render farm:
MAKE PORTABLE APP/FOLDER:
If you plan on using a different computer to execute the render, choose this option and copy the portable launcher file (on mac or folder on windows) to that machine. This carries over the necessary support files that BG Renderer needs to execute some of the post render actions. However, you will still need to make sure that there is a local copy of the same version of After Effects installed in the rendering maching and any footage and output folders also need to be accessible from the new machine. This is usually accomplished with a shared server. A launcher file generated on a mac can only be used on mac and vice-versa.
just a short update – I realised I had mistakenly checked the “use multiprocessing” checkbox – I unchecked this and restarted the render – BOOM – now I’m getting the behaviour I’m used to. The individual frames are rendering significantly faster also.
So I guess I’m solved. Although I’m interested to know why using multiprocessing would increase rendering (and frame skipping) times? Is there a situation where you would actually want to use this feature?
cheers
dan
You need a lot of RAM to use MP. If you don’t have enough you have what Adobe calls “memory starvation” and disk swapping happens which takes a reaaaaaally long time. Read this thread for more info: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/956335
hey lloyd
i’ve been rocking BG render since the name your own price days and it is without a doubt the best thing to happen to after effects since… the render queue maybe. so.. thanks for changing all our lives.
anyway today I have a query – I’m rendering a hellish 4500 frame project that is averaging maybe 9 minutes a frame. Its been cranking through the weekend on my 8 core, I had 6 instances of the app running, rendering to a jpg sequence at 1920×1080.
I came in this morning to find it at around frame 4000, but for other reasons I needed to reboot. so I shut down terminal, rebooted and then opened the portable app again to resume the render. I expected the terminal to crank through the 4000 rendered frames super quick and then get back to business. But it’s taking ages – it has now been running for about 10 minutes and has skipped 54 frames. Whats going on?
An obvious workaround is to go into the project and reset the work area to allow the render to start where I need it, but I’d like to work out what is causing the delay for future renders.
As I said I’m on an 8 core mac pro, 16b ram, osx10.6.8, ae cs5 (10.0.2), and BG renderer v2.03.
any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.
thanks man
dan
Are you using the “Skip Existing Frames” feature? Any kind of cache that might have saved you re-render time is deleted after a reboot, however using skip existing will work after a reboot.
yeah I’m using skip existing frames – so what I expect to happen is for AE render to rapidly skip through all the frames that are already rendered.
what I’m seeing however is AE render sits on each frame for almost as long as it takes to render before skipping to the next – below is a cut of my current render out of terminal:
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00364) (1): 3 Min, 33 Sec
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00365) (2): 23 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00366) (3): 53 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00367) (4): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00368) (5): 2 Minutes
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00369) (6): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00370) (7): 1 Min, 59 Sec
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00371) (8): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00372) (9): 2 Minutes
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00373) (10): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00374) (11): 2 Minutes
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00375) (12): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00376) (13): 2 Min, 2 Sec
PROGRESS: (Skipping 00377) (14): 0 Seconds
so… how come its taking 2 minutes + to skip some frames?
any ideas? thanks dude
First this is an aerender issue, not a BG Renderer issue. Having said that are you using Multi-Processing? If so then maybe the delay is due to the other processes launching, but that doesn’t really make sense. My other guess is that maybe it has to do with your disk i/o. What happens if you render an empty comp to the same folder, does it sit on each frame or does it fly through it?
Yep I am an idiot. It was not the programs fault but the installers lack of knowledge on how to make the script work in after effects. I should have tried to find away to make contact with the developer.
What a rip off. Pay the money and when you open the zip drive all does is give you a bunch of reoccurring letters. Do not be the next to get ripped off. No way to contact them.
Is there anything I can avoid that causes the “error in bg renderer” error? Still randomly pops up in 2.12.
Also, any way to allow BGrender to overwrite existing files? I would love that.
Thanks much
-m
Can you be more descriptive about the error you are getting? When do you get it and where and exaclty what does it say? Also what OS and AE versions are you runnning. The more info you give us the more likely we are able to help you.
Aerender does not allow overwriting files but we are looking at adding an option to delete existing files before beginning a render in a future version.
Ok, will do when it does it again.
Im running AE 5.5 on OSX 10.6.8. 2.66Ghz 12-Core. 32GB ram
I also just hit another annoyance that happened randomly on the previous version: After clicking “BG Render” in the bgrenderer it doesnt render poot and dumps this to terminal:
Launching aerender…
PROGRESS: Total Time Elapsed:
aerender version 10.5×253
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
PROGRESS: …After Effects successfully launched
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
logout
[Process completed]
Does this happen on a specific project? Also, do you get any errors when you open this project in the main AE app like missing or duplicate plugins or footage. Aerender won’t render if there are any error messages when opening the project.
Doesnt seem to be a specific project, as well, it will work and not work in the same project. Eg, I bgrender once and get that message, I re-queue and click bgrender again and it works…? Been doing this randomly to me ever since I started using it back at 1.0…
That is very strange, never heard that before. What version of BG Renderer are you running? Do you have another machine you can try it on? Might be AE preferences related. Have you ever reset your AE prefs?
Hey, running 2.12 — reset prefs and still doing it randomly. No warnings about missing files / fonts / fx. Also, yesterday it did something really funky at two different times. It said it had completed a render when actually it had only made it part way through the frames. Lost the window or I would post the details. But basically it said something like this:
…
PROGRESS: Start: 00000
PROGRESS: End: 00602
PROGRESS: Duration: 00603
…
PROGRESS: 00078 (79): 1 Seconds
PROGRESS: 00079 (80): 0 Seconds
PROGRESS: 00080 (81): 1 Seconds
PROGRESS: 11-07-28 9:33:35 AM EDT: Finished composition Puffy_Smoke_02.
PROGRESS: Total Time Elapsed: 8 Min, 23 Sec
aerender version 10.5×253
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
PROGRESS: …After Effects successfully launched
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
logout
Notice how the actual frames rendered differs from the duration claimed at the beginning.
Hmm, just did it again — any ideas Lloyd? The comp I am rendering contains an .mov and a subcomp. BG Render does the .mov fine, then about 40 frames into the subcomp it quits and says it is done. This just started yesterday, can’t think of anything that has changed with my system..
PROGRESS: Time Span: Work Area
PROGRESS: Start: 00000
PROGRESS: End: 00885
PROGRESS: Duration: 00886
…
PROGRESS: 00759 (760): 22 Seconds
PROGRESS: 11-07-29 11:52:13 AM EDT: Finished composition F5 – Epic Scene.
Firstly, this is an issue with aerender not BG Renderer. You can file issues with aerender directly with adobe here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Having said that, it sounds like a corrupted frame or plugin to me. The fact that it fails at a specific point leads me to think that it is a bad frame but some plugins have bugs that are only triggered under certain conditions and that could also be happening in your comp. This is particularly true when you are dealing with 32bit comps. Unfortunately aerender is more sensitive to errors than the main AE renderer so its possible that you can render something in the foreground that fails in aerender. Hope some of this helps.
Thanks for the help. It appears to be very erratic — can’t nail it down to any specific comp or plug — and appears to be getting worse. Maybe time to re-install AE. Makes me realize how dependant Ive become on BG render for my workflow — thanks for such a great plug!
Same here! Just bought a site license (v2.12) and installed it to both CS installations:
Mac Os 10.5.8
CS4: works just fine.
CS5:
aerender version 10.0.2×4
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
aerender ERROR -1712: AESend failed to send apple event at line 766
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
——–
On a second machine: its just a composition with Text, rendering to the desktop.
Mac Os 10.6.8, CS5.5:
aerender Error: After Effects error: Unable to call openFast because of parameter 1. Path is not valid. Path: /Volumes/Users/xxx/Desktop/_test/teeeeetst.aep
aerender version 10.5×253
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
PROGRESS: …After Effects successfully launched
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
——
All installations are on default locations. User has admin rights and installed everything with admin rights.
For the first issue, there is an incompatibility with CS5′s aerender and 10.5.8. See this thread for more info: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3489490?tstart=-1 The only known solution is to upgrade to 10.6.
For the second issue. Are you running regular user accounts or are they hosted on a server? Unless you have a Volume named Users that path doesn’t seem right. I’ve heard of some issues similar to this with some servers so maybe it is related to this? Can you do a get info on the project file and see what path is reported?
For the first issue:
If upgrading to 10.6 is the solution, I’m going to wait for OSX 10.7, so the whole new installation makes sense by means of time investment.
But, well, I have another desktop machine with 10.6 running CS5 (all updates installed). It doesn’t work, too.
Standard output module, rendering to desktop.
Here’s the resulting terminal (I cut out the standard info):
Last login: Thu Jul 7 13:20:17 on ttys000
/Volumes/Users/freelancer/Library/Application\ Support/Aescripts/bgRenderer/BG_Renderer.command ; exit;
MacPro-7:~ freelancer$ /Volumes/Users/freelancer/Library/Application\ Support/Aescripts/bgRenderer/BG_Renderer.command ; exit;
BG Renderer v2.12
The problem is that on a normal installation the path to the desktop is /Users/xxx/Desktop/ but aerender is seeing the path as /Volumes/Users/xxx/Desktop/ This is why I was asking if it was a server hosted user account. Is there anything else unusual about the installation that might be causing this? Btw, BG Renderer is working as expected which is to launch aerender and load the project. The error is happening with aerender which is not able to interpret the path with the added /Volumes/ at the beginning.
Well, at least a step: there is a network share called “Users”, and after connecting to it, it is available under /Volumes/Users.
So far so good.
I disconnected from it and rendered the project with bg-renderer (aep on desktop, rendering to desktop), works fine.
Connecting to that network share and restarting the exact same project results in grabbing the false path: /Volumes/Users/ instead of /Users/
aerender seems to be the problem here. If I start it manually in the terminal it also results in an wrong path error.
“/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS5.5/aerender” -project /Users/xxx/Desktop/_test/teeeeetst.aep
aerender version 10.5×253
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
PROGRESS: …After Effects successfully launched
aerender Error: After Effects error: Unable to call openFast because of parameter 1. Path is not valid. Path: /Volumes/Users/xxx/Desktop/_test/teeeeetst.aep
I will send a bug report to adobe.
I think your problem is rooted in the fact that your network share is called Users. Since Users is the folder name OS X uses to store the local users I suspect this might why aerender is getting tripped up. Remember I initially pointed out that your path looked wrong. Any chance you can change the name of the share?
Yep, luckily that was possible and worked out.
Still strange how ae ends up using a different path.
The OSX 10.5 machines still don’t work tho. Have to wait for the update.
Hi, I installed the latest version of BG renderer, and it’s very useful and very fast. It’s really a good plug in, but unfortunately I decided to remove it because of problems with the “copy” and “paste” functions and dragging and dropping from the project window to the time line window, for example. Over all After Effects seemed to become a little bit unstable and I can’t afford to get some more bugs wile I’m working in a production…
I really hope those stability problems will be solved in next versions.
(My computer: IMac 27” 2.8Ghz Core i7. Memory: 8Go)
Merlin.
Not sure what bugs you are referring to. What are the problems with copy and paste and dragging from the project window to the timeline. Are you sure you are talking about the right product? This is BG Renderer, it has nothing to do with the project panel or the timeline. Just the Render Queue.
Don’t you think this terminal window is odd: http://cl.ly/0O3z0m2r1r0n0l1r0s01
why some frames only for 0 sec?
No that is not odd at all, aerender rounds the time so 0 seconds just means it was less than a second
Hello, I just bought your .jsx and run it, but I have to run few BG Renders at the same time from different projects. Can I run it? I didn’t check it yet, because I don’t want to my render fail.
I rendering one file now, and I opened another file, I have to set it for render and then open another one to work on, I don’t wanna stop my current render, I wanna load my MBP twice harder
is this possible? I have Basic licence btw.
Thank you.
Yes, you can run as many BG Renders as you have RAM for. We recommend a minimum of 2GB per instance.
I was wanting to purchase the basic BG Renderer but wanted to make sure the default was set to low, if thats the case I’m good to go; if not I’ll just wait a month or two to purchase pro :/
Thanks in advance, the trial version helped push me along for a month
The default is set to low but once you change it it is saved to the preferences and will remain there until you change it again.
I am using win xp pro SP3 with CS3. When I click BG RENDER a terminal window pops open for a split second and then vanishes and, then, no rendering.
Is this an anti-virus killing a popup? Any ideas?
thanks
What version of BG Renderer are you running? You can get the version by clicking on the ? in the script panel.
version 2.12
Hi Lyoyd -
When I launch it, I get an error that says ‘After Effects can not open a socket to aerender’. Any idea on what that’s all about?
Thanks for the script – seems like it could be really handy!
-G
Are you on windows? Do you have any firewall or anti-virus software installed that might be blocking the aerender socket? Can you try disabling the firewall or anti-virus software temporarily to test it to see if that’s the problem?
Hi Lloyd,
Is there any way of stopping the creation of log folders/files for every project?
I don’t recall these being created before I started using BGrenderer, so assume they’re being created by AErender or bg-renderer script?
Phil
Aerender automatically creates logs, don’t think there is a way to turn that off. BG Renderer then creates its own logs within the aerender log folder which could technically be turned off but BG Renderer uses the logs for some of the post-render actions so turning them off would disable those features.
Ok not to worry – thanks for your reply!
Hey Lloyd
I use BGR like maybe 150 times a day and it rules. I’m having a weird issue with a particular comp and I’m thinking its a bug. I have a comp that uses a couple of layers from an illustrator file that are animated over the top of a pretty complex precomp. Theres also a trackmatte using another illiustrator layer. Anyways, when I ram preview or render frames from inside AE it looks all good, but renders I output using BG renderer the .ai layers don’t show up (or matte out, in the case fo the track matte). do you know what could be causing this behaviour? its driving me nuts!
CS5 10.0.1.19 on OSX 10.6.7, dual quad with 16gb ram, BGR v 2.03 are my stats.
if you need more info, email me and I can post you some frames or whatever.
thanks dude
dan
That definitely sounds like a bug but it is within the realm of Adobe and aerender. BG Renderer passes the render to aerender, once the render starts any bugs are related to aerender. You can file a bug with Adobe here: http://adobe.com/go/wish/
Sorry Lloyd, one more note. Even on just a very basic .mov render on a file with NO effects or use of plug-ins, it does not work.
I also did check the “Allow Scripts” box in the Preferences
I see a lot of potential in this script and would buy it, but I need it to function on AE5. I talked to my friend freelance friend, and he is using BG Render with AE5, and he says it works fine. I believe he is also just on old Leopard.
Really strange…..
There seems to be an incompatibility with 10.5.8 and aerender CS5 specifically. See this Adobe support thread: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3419531 Unfortuantely the only thing I can suggest is upgrading to Snow Leopard.
I downloaded the latest BG render as a trial. I have a mac 8 Core on Leopard 10.5.8 (NOT Snow Leopard). I have a very basic box at home, no firewall, etc…
BG Render works perfect in CS4 after effects, but it DOES NOT WORK in CS5 (at least on mine). It allows me to start the render, then it will say “Render is complete, thank you (or something like that),” but nothing was rendered.
I just installed CS5 yesterday and I also trashed the prefs for good measure. But yes, it does not work with my CS5 for some reason.
Not sure what the problem is.
i just doing the app . but nothing happened when i double-click the app on the other computer which has installed the aftereffects cs4 . By the way ,perhaps this script maybe just running one time on the computer
Is CS4 installed in the standard location? Actually it should be the same path as the computer where the app was created. And you can run as many instances as you want/have the resources for. That’s the whole idea.
Hi Lloyd,
Just had this error come up for the first time. I’m not sure whether it’s the script or aerender that’s at fault, but thought I’d run it by you first:
(there were no other renders etc running at the time, and the comp rendered fine in After Effects itself)
BG Renderer v2.1
http://aescripts.com
RENDERING: CantGetToSleep_Promo.aep
Launching aerender…
aerender version 10.0.2×4
Unable to execute script at line 1. Expected: )
aerender ERROR: After Effects can not render for aerender. Another instance of a
erender, or another script, may be running; or, AE may be waiting for response f
rom a modal dialog, or for a render to complete. Try running aerender without th
e -reuse flag to invoke a separate instance of After Effects
Any ideas?
This is indeed an aerender problem but are you using any plugins you have not used before? I’ve heard reports of this error being caused by certain plugins. Can’t remember exactly which one though. Does restarting fix the problem?
Hey Lloyd,
I just updated (clean installed) to Snow Leopard, and reinstalled FXFactory and BG Renderer. Now if I use some of the FxFactory plugins, the Terminal window shows some errors about mismatching flags, and then renders along. Problem is, the output is of the MacOSX starfield splash screen, not the project. If I render normally in AE, it renders the project just fine. Any ideas? Thanks!
I am not familiar with FXFactory but someone told me that they were not compatible with aerender. Can you ask the FXFactory developers if it is compatible with aerender? BG Renderer uses aerender to render.
Lloyd,
After contacting the FxFactory dev’s, they responded quite quickly that they would see how to solve the issue. They got back to me today, emailed me an advanced copy of FxFactory 2.5.7, which solved the issue. For those who have the issue, they will be releasing 2.5.7 soon, and it solves compatibility problems with BG Renderer and FxFactory.
Thanks for the tip-off, Lloyd, so that I would ask them and get it working!
That’s great to hear. Thanks for posting a follow-up
Hi Lloyd,
First, thanks for a great script which is fantastic value for money. I have used Nucleo Pro for years, and switched to BGrenderer Pro when I upgraded to CS5 recently.
On some renders I’m getting a lot of lines in the BGrenderer window saying “no fan 8 16 (diff 8/24)” or similar between each of the PROGRESS lines.
The renders succeed, but I was just wondering what this meant as these lines only appear on certain renders.
Cheers,
Phil
Never heard of that error before. However that is in the realm of aerender so you should file it as a bug with Adobe. You can do that here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Thanks Lloyd, will do that.
I absolutely love this script. It is invaluable to my workflow and being able to pump out graphics while updating and working on other elements makes me even more competitive in getting projects done quickly. Thank you for a great script.
Hi Lloyd – Winx64 pro With CS5 production premium installed in the default location (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS5).
CS4 was installed after CS5 (as we installed CS5 first and then found we were doing some projecs for a client still on CS4 so needed to produce some AE project templates for them) – it comes with CS5 along with Premiere CS4, mainly for those not using a 64bit OS.
When I checked file associations there were a few associated with CS4 so I changed all of them to CS5 but that didn’t fix it. I’m assuming if I re-install AE CS5 it may adjust the registry and everything might work?
oops sorry – should have kept it inthe conversation…
Picked up a small problem – on a machine with AE CS4 and CS5 installed (for backwards compatibility with a client) the script attempts to launch CS4 background render (v9.x) instead of CS5 even when launched from within CS5. Apart from that brilliant and simple.
Not sure if this is something you could fix easily Lloyd – like making sure a project file is associated with the correct version?
That should not happen. Can you tell me a little more about your setup. Is After Effects installed in the default location?
Yep sure is – see next post as I forgot to stay int he conversation – info there..JM
For those that are interested or may run into a similar problem – it went away after saving teh launcher file once, which we did to heklp Lloyd fault test the setup.
I tried doing the portable app, but nothing happens when I double-click on it on other computers. Is there another step in the process?
Does it work on the computer that created it? Is AE installed on the other computers?
Sorry, it’s been kind of crazy. I finally got around to testing it again and it worked this time, so I don’t know what the problem was.
Great, glad it is working for you now.
RENDER question: if you are exporting 2 or more comps, when Terminal loads and starts rendering, will he render both renders ? At that time, would I be able to close AE (It usually allows me to close AE on 1 comp and it renders nicely without needing to open the mov file trough the night) ..
BG Renderer loads the project file into RAM to render so once the render starts you can even save over the project file and it will not disrupt the render (although I would advice against this for obvious reasons). If you want to render different versions of your comp what you could do is set the comp how you like then launch the BG Render. Once it is rendering you can change the comp and send the new version to render and the first render will not be affected. You can continue doing this for as many render instances as you have ram which I recommend a min of 2GB per instance plus 2GB for the system and 2GB for the FG AE app.
I found a small glitch with the BGrender script. I have a folder on my desktop that I keep my projects in named “000 ||| 000″ those center characters are the key to the right of the right bracket on my macbook pro, the renders were not working with the projects in this folder. It gave me an error in regards to encountering that “|” character in the file path. but because the nature of the way it expresses errors in the terminal window comes out without any line breaks so its just this solid block of text, it took me about 5 times of having the same error to see that little part at the beginning of the text that said there was an error in the character. I also was confused cause it says BGrender is done have a nice day [Process completed] at the bottom of the window anyways.
“|” is not a permitted naming character in unix (it is used to pipe one command to another) which is why BG Renderer failed. However, since the Finder clearly allows using it for naming i’ve updated BG Renderer to be able to handle it. v2.11 now allows the | character in the the project name or path on Mac.
I installed the script but when i try opening it it says to go to the general Panel and allow access to write files and get access network, how do i do that?
You need to go into the After Effects Preferences under “General” and check “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network” preference.
Hey there,
Keep getting “Unable to delete existing file” error if overwriting the same Quicktime. Is this normal?
Also, canceling a render does not cancel the AE processes in Activity Monitor. Is there a proper way to cancel a render?
Thanks,
Misha
Mac OSX 10.6.6
AE CS5
BG Renderer uses aerender (After Effects’ command line renderer) and unfortuantely aerender does not support overwriting existing files so you should make sure that you delete any previous versions prior to render. If you think this behavior should be different, please request it from Adobe here: http://adobe.com/go/wish.
And the proper way to cancel a render is CTRL-C which is displayed in the instructions at the beginning of all BG Renders.
Thanks Lloyd,
About the AE processes issue though, I do use CTRL-C to cancel, but I notice that the system remains laggy and looking at the Activity Monitor reveals an “aerendercore” process chewing up over 100% CPU per canceled job. This happens on 3 separate computers. Ideas?
Thanks,
Misha
Just did some research on this and unfortunately this is a documented bug with Adobe for CS5. The workaround is to kill the aerendercore process with this command: killall aerendercore
I would also encourage you to file this bug with Adobe. The more people that file it the more likely it is to be fixed. You can file the bug here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
When using Bg Renderer with Zaxwerks 3D Titles applied, the loseless alpha files render at half the opacity. They render with full opacity when using the regular AE renderer. Any possible workaround for this?
Sounds like it might be an issue with Zaxwerks 3D, can you ask them if there are any issues with aerender and their software? BG Renderer uses aerender to render. Aerender is Adobe’s command line renderer.
Great tool! Is there a way to start simultaneous separate renders for each queued item in one step? If not that would be a feature request.
Not in the current version but we will consider adding it as a feature to a future version.
HI THERE,
APOLOGIES FOR THE CAPS LOCK, CURRENTLY RENDERING SOMETHING OL’ SCHOOL STYLE.
SO FAR, I HAVE TESTED RESTARTING AE, AND I AM QUITE SURE IT’S ANY PROJECT I TRY TO RENDER. I JUST TURNED ON MY PC, AND I REALLY HATE RESTARTING MY PC, BUT WILL GIVE IT A SHOT ONCE THE RENDER IS COMPLETE.
HERE’S THE LINK TO THE SCREENSHOT:
HTTP://WWW.REDBLACKLABS.COM/uploads/screen.png
IT’S JUST FOR YOU. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. LOL.
I’LL TELL YOU, FRIEND, IF WE CAN GET THIS TO WORK I’LL BUY THIS RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE I AM SO EXCITED TO FIND SOMETHING LIKE THIS WITH SUCH HIGH REVIEWS. CAN’T WAIT TO ACTUALLY GET IT WORKING!
THANKS FOR THE QUICK REPLY!
Never seen that error before but I am afraid there might be something wrong with your installation of aerender (aerender is the command line renderer that BG Renderer uses to render). Two things to try, one is to delete the AE prefs and the other is to try from a different user account.
Hmm, how would I go about removing my prefs? Any help would be much appreciated. Do you think perhaps it’s a memory issue (4GB RAM) or maybe I should get the full version to see if that makes a difference?
Thanks!
4GB is very little RAM to be running more than one instance of AE so that might be it although I would hope that it would resort to disk swapping instead of crashing. To delete your prefs restart AE while holding down the Command + Option + Shift keys (Mac) or Control + Alt + Shift (Windows), and hit OK when it asks you if you want to delete your prefs. Keep in mind that this will, well, delete your prefs so you will need to set them up again when you get back into AE.
So many hidden secrets in AE.
Just tried it out, same error. Tragic. Well, like you said, it’s not a good idea to use 4gb with 2 instances, so maybe this is for the best. Fret not; I shall revisit this software later this year when I upgrade the hell outta my PC for the sole purpose of playing Skyrim!
I will get as much RAM as possible and hopefully I will have better luck with this by then. If you have any other suggestions, I’m still open to trying them out.
Thanks for the replies, Godspeed!
UPDATE:
Also tried the Nucleo plugin from the boys over at GridIron. Didn’t work either, must be something wrong with my PC or installation. Looks like I’m due for a format. If I ever get around to the 3 day process of reinstalling all my software n games n stuff, I will give this another shot. And, will update you as well.
Thanks again for all the help, and mad props for actually making something like this, I’m sure it’s super helpful.
Peace, and keep on rocking buddy.
Hi there, got the trail, and so far I love the idea of this, BUT, sadly, every time I try to render something, I get an error in DOS (Using Win7 btw). The error is: AE can’t continue: Sorry After Effects has crashed…. (The usual AE crash text). At the end of that it reads “Try using aerender without the -reuse flag to invoke a separate instance of After Effects.
No idea what that means.
Running AE CS5 on Win 7, v2 Demo. Any help would be great. I’ve got 63 videos left to do in a very short amount of time. Suicide, you ask? No, it is merely my pride/cockiness getting the best of me. Hahaha.
Thanks!
I’m working in cs5, and after hitting bg render in the script and saving the file,i have an error that says “error creating launcher file”.
Help please!
Thanks,
Daniel M
That worked! Thanks!
I have the pro version, running on OSX 10.5.8, AE CS3… and it has worked great in the past, but for some reason it isn’t launching terminal, and is definitely not rendering anything.
It prompts me to save my file, it saves, then nothing. Is there an update I need to download or something?
You can check the version by clicking on the ? button and the current script version posted on the site is right below the title at the top of this post. To upgrade you simply download the Free Trial and replace the script file. Your license will be automatically detected.
Bought the pro version – it’s great, but is there an auto-close-window-when-done-rendering option somewhere? I didn’t have to manually close the render windows in the last version.
Just added the option to close the BG Render window when done in v2.1 Please download the new version and you should see this option in the Post-Render Actions on Windows. For Mac you need to go into the Terminal Preferences->Settings and under the
hey lloyd
this is probably a stupid question.
i have a bunch of quicktimes to render and I want to share the queue across a couple of my machines. so i queue em up and hit BG render with the make portable app option enabled. terminal cranks away all good, so i go to my next box and click on the portable app i have made.
terminal starts, but it starts rendering the same movie as is already being made on my first box.
i tried checking skip existing files in the AE render settings but this is greyed out – i guess because i’m outputting QTs? if i switch to a tiffs or whatever i can check it, but i want Quicktimes.
am i missing something?
thanks dude. despite this glitch, BGRenderer is the best thing that ever happened to AE.
dan
Skip existing frames only works with files sequences. Unfortunately the scripting API does not allow to check for this so BG Renderer can’t warn you if you try to use it with Quicktimes. I would urge you to request Adobe to add this feature to the api so I can add it to BGR. You can do so here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
What I do is render to file sequences then use the command line post render action to assemble the quicktimes using ffmpeg.
request posted dude, and thanks for the ffmpeg tip, i’ll try that out.
hey is there a way I can get BGRenderer to report how long each render has taken? This would help me in planning future renders.
On this note the one thing I actually miss about the AE queue is the estimated time of completion… if there was some way of building this into a future release… wow
my sms provider in switzerland is missing! –>swisscom
Just added Swisscom to the SMS Provider database. To update your list click on the ‘SMS Help’ button then on the ‘Check for updated SMS provider list’. Once the list is updated, restart the script and you should see Swisscom in the list. Let me know if there’s any issues.
Background Renderer worked fine with CS4 but when we made the switch to CS5 with the new BGR2 we
When do you get that error? After aerender has launched? Do the machines has the same configurations: plugins, fonts, etc?
Thanks for replying Lloyd.
The error comes up after the terminal loads up. This is the message that comes up:
Launching aerender…
aerender version 10.0.1×19
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
PROGRESS: …After Effects successfully launched
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
logout
[Process completed]
No frames are rendered it jumps straight to the finished rendered message. Really odd that this occurs for two the machines and not the other two.
The machines have the same plugins, font libraries and configuration. We’re all using the Pro edition as well.
At a loss as to why this is happening. Pretty sure its not a network issue because we’ve tried both local and network.
Hope you can solve this. Cheers.
My guess is that it must be something specific to those machines. Can you try a different user on the same machine (you will need to enter the license again but running it in trial mode should be fine)? Sometimes things get corrupted with the user accounts. If that works and you want to keep the original account then try deleting the AE prefs to see if that solves the problem, doesn’t always work but it is worth trying.
Lloyd, How can I download the latest version? I purchased at my own price AND ALSO purchased it again last month.
Just download the free trial and replace the script file. Your license will be automatically detected. If you have not purchased v2 yet then you can get an upgrade discount by following the instructions in the upgrade notice in the post above.
And Speaking Of Emails,How Do I contact you Lloyd,I just used this cool 3d text Expression where I was Able to plug a few notches and make a control layer,that allows me to control the depth and give it the extrude effect(if animated),…I was thinking if I mail you the expression you could turn it into a script useful for the CG world, And of course,make it less lamer than it is right now….
Hi. I cant get my email settings to work with the configure tab. What do your typical settings look like? Im on a imac. Software 10.6.6. My settings work fine on my MacBook Pro (Software 10.5.8). When I enter the same exact settings on the imac it gives me an error 64 “busy cant connect” every time.
Please help if you can. Great script!! I need this to work with my imac if possible.
Thank You
Ande
Make sure you are not behind a firewall. Busy can’t connect is a message you will get if a firewall is blocking connections.
The script is awesome, it’s already paid for itself in time not staring at a status bar.
Is there a way to make the text messages all come from the same number? I get a text from -004 then -005 etc. With a lot of BG rendering my messages is filling up with a lot of dummy numbers. I would love to get multiple texts all from the same number.
BG Renderer uses an email to SMS gateway provided by your Mobile provider so those numbers are inserted by the provider and therefore BG Renderer can’t control them.
I just bought the basic version but when I want to launch it in AE CS5 I get this error:
“Unable to execute script at line 118.null is not an object”
What’s the matter?
This error has been fixed, please download the latest version by downloading the free trial and replacing the script file. Your license will be automatically detected.
I’m testing the pro trial version (Windows 7, AE CS 4), and every now and then when doing a multi-machine render, it gets to a certain frame (not the same one each time it seems) and stops.
The error message says, “After Effects error: Unable to open file…” and then it lists the name of the jpeg file which would be the next one to be created (but wasn’t).
What could be going wrong?
Assuming you have the “Skip existing frames” option turned on then depending on your server configuration, the server locks the file if two machines try to write the same file at exactly the same time. I would imaging that this is a very rare condition though and if you have error notification turned on then you would be notified of the error and you can relaunch the render simply by double clicking on the launcher file again.
Probably a dumb question but the pro single user license can be installed on as many computers as you want?
No, the Single User License is for one user on one computer. We make the pricing affordable so that you can buy another license if you need it on another computer. The site license allows you to install it on an unlimited number computers as long as they are all in the same location connected to the same server.
Okay gotcha.
If I have one license for BG render, can I put the portable app on as many computers as I want?
Absolutely, that’s what it is intended for.
Maybe I should read the description before I purchase a product, but I was really disappointed when I recognized this product just uses the terminal-render-engine which comes with AE, cause this stupid render-engine continuous produces crappy files and i’m not sure how to stop it without “killing” it in the terminal.
The first time I used the new BG-renderer it produced only single-color-images and didn’t stopped it after closing the terminal.
The renders from aerender are identical from what you get in the main AE app. If you are seeing anything different then it is a bug that you should file here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
To stop the BG Render you just need to close the Terminal window.
weird, I get crappy files very often, when I use the terminal-render-engine. But only when I use third party plugins. But only if I use the engine, never if I render straight from AE. Maybe I should figure out what plugins causes that problems.
And when I close the terminal-window it keeps rendering and producing files in my render-folder. As I said I need to reboot or use the “kill”-command in the terminal to stop it.
That should never be the case with any plugin. Sometimes there are licensing issues but the render quality should always be identical. If you have a project that renders differently in the command-line vs the main AE app please send it in to us and we will investigate as this would most certainly be a bug.
A very late reply but I found the plugin accidentally and maybe it helps somebody else. This weird glitch is always produced by RE:Vision plugins
It`s better than GridIron Nucleo Pro ???
……………………………………….
Balazs Gyorfi
Fantazo.com
http://www.fantazo.com/
http://www.fantazo.com/ae-projects/
http://www.twitter.com/fantazo
It is different. While both do BG Rendering that is where the similarities stop. Nucleo has some other features and BG Renderer Pro has all the post-render actions and option to render with CS5 from CS3 and CS4 as well as creating the portable rendering app that allows to easily create an ad-hoc rendering network.
prowl & growl tries to work but doesnt. This is copied from the terminal window at the end of the render.
Sending prowl notification
curl: option –data-urlencode: is unknown
curl: try ‘curl –help’ or ‘curl –manual’ for more information
dont really know how the troubleshoot that one. any advice?
Looks like you found a bug that affects OSX 10.5 and the prowl notification. There was a code change from OSX 10.5 to 10.6 that we were not aware of but are creating a fix for it right now. Please stay tuned, we’ll have a version that works with 10.5 shortly.
This is a great a script as everyone before me has said.
I happen to have bg rendered running and I clicked to open another after effects project and some how it opened aftereffects instance that is running bg render in the background. and I though thats cool that I can actually see the render queue while bg renderer is running. Just thought it would be cool to have that all the time since checking the command prompt isn’t as visual as the actual ae render queue. Not sure if it’s possible could be a glitch or because I told it to use the cs5 engine while using cs4 .
Any way good work
keep it up
That is definitely not supposed to happen. Can you describe your steps so that we can try to repro that here? Which version is showing the BG Render in the main app?
hey Lloyd, thanks for updating this already awesome script. i installed pro v2 last night and have been ouputting render apps and getting iphone growls ever since. it rocks!
i have a problem though – everything is sweet in my CS5 install but i also use CS3 on the same box (for vector paint mainly). I’ve put a copy of the script into the right place etc but when I click it in CS3 I get an error:
Unable to execute script at line 1. Expected: ;
what am i doing wrong or not doing right?
thanks!
dan
Briefly there was a version accidentally uploaded that was not CS3 compatible, but it was quickly corrected. Please re-download the Free Trial above and try that in CS3, your license will be automatically detected and will unlock the trial.
Hi, I was using the trial version with no problems. Then I entered the code for the basic version, and now it no longer works. Any reason for this?
What no longer works? Are you referring to the “Go Pro!” button? This is because you purchased a Basic license which does not include the Advance Pro Features. However, you still get a 14 day trial for the advanced pro settings after you’ve entered your Basic license. If you would like to permanently unlock the pro features you need to purchase a Basic to Pro Upgrade license.
Please let us know if this is not the problem.
Hello, I’m having the same problem as Mike M (earlier post). Only difference is I’m on a Mac (OS 10.6.4). I tried downloading the script a second time with the same result. No luck…. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
This might sound obvious but make sure you are trying the right script. I just re-confirmed that it works with CS3 on both Mac 10.6.4 as well as Windows 7. And sorry again for having put the wrong file up in the first place!
Your attached version has worked! Thanks for the help….have a good one!
telling me that aerender ERROR: the script commandLineRenderer.jsx was not properly loaded
Thanks for any help.
Sounds like there is a problem with your AE installation. In the Scripts folder there should be a folder called Startup and inside the startup folder there should be a file called commandLineRenderer.jsx. Can you check to make sure it is there? Also what AE version and OS are you running?
thank you very much for your help that was the problem, it wasn’t in the correct folder
Just purchased the new Pro Version 2.3 and I start up AE CS3 and get this error when I go to bring BG Render up from the window tab. Error reads: unable to execute script at line 1. Expected: ;
and loads a blank panel w/ BG Renderer on the Tab. Older version of BG renderer worked fine.
Running Windows 7
Thanks for any help
Please re-download the free trial. The server briefly had a version that was not CS3 compatible which was quickly fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hi,
Great update. I already purchase it. But I get an error message since I installed it when I try to preview into AE or rendering : “Unable to connect to backgorund renderer”. I never had this error before BGR2, and it appears only after one rendering with it. Whatever I try (killing AE, restart it) it doesn’t want to work anymore. All I have to do is to restart the computer. I’m on PC win7 64.
Thank you
Are you using the multiprocessor option? How much ram does your machine have? That error is generated by AE when you turn on MP and don’t have enough memory to sustain the multiple-process render so it disconnects from some of them.
when i try to run bg_renderer in CS3 an error message says
unable to execute script in line 1.expected Help! Thanks
This has been fixed, please update to the latest version.
How is it that Adobe gets away with selling AE lacking all the great tools you guys have created here? Shame on Adobe! AE is soooo much better because of the people who write the stuff on this site!!!
Amazing new version Lloyd. You the man!
Thank you!
This update is fantastic, but I have one suggestion to make for the Growl settings. Right now, the notification is sent/registered under “growlnotify” and makes it difficult to style specifically to AE, especially if I’m already using growlnotify for other purposes. All that is needed to fix this is simply add «-n “Adobe After Effects CS5″» to the growlnotify command. Doing so would register the notifications under After Effects instead of growlnotify.
It seems the BG Renderer script is already pulling the application name dynamically when it is triggered, since the command already includes «-a “Adobe After Effects CS5″» to pull the correct application icon. As it stands now, I am using a custom terminal command to achieve the same results. But it would be great to have it function this way out of the box.
Also, so worth the $19.99 and more. Thanks again!
Thanks for the detailed explanation. v2.02 now works this way.
I’m waiting for the day the creator plan to add a “Shutdown PC after Render” function. It will be extremely usefull!!!
You are aware that shutdown after the render is finished is an option of the Pro version right?
@Navarro – Same issue, Terminal will not launch for me either – Disabled Advanced settings and the terminal will launch. Running the Pro Single User License.
Running Mac OSx 10.6.6 – 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo 8Gb RAM
AE 10.0.1.19
This issue had to do with improperly configured email setting. v2.01 just posted now checks for this condition and you will get an appropriate error message.
Just bought the Pro version. For some reason Terminal doesn’t launch. In fact, nothing happens after I OK the “Project must be saved…” dialog box. Sadness.
//AE 10.0.1.19, Mac OS X 10.6.6, Westmere Mac Pro, 32GB RAM.//
Weird, I turned off the Advanced Settings. Now it works. (
@Navarro thanks to a little help from Lloyd, I’ve got it working. Depending on which features you have enabled (in my case SMS) you’ll need to make sure your email settings are correct and you’ve successfully sent a test email or text. In my case I hadn’t setup my email client correctly. Changed a few settings and its running quite smoothly now.
lloyd, just bought the new version, and have a question. does the multiprocessing respect the settings in the prefs? for instance, if i have my 8 core with 16GB of ram set to leave 6GB for the system, and 2GB for 4 or 5 procs to render, does the bg script follow that, or just try and use all 8?
also, running cs5, should we shut off the max ram cache bits?
In CS4 and CS5 aerender honors the MP prefs set in the AE preferences. In CS5 I would recommend leaving the max ram and max cache settings to their defaults of 120% for max mem and 60% for ram cache.
Sorry if this has been addressed before, but the 32-bit era Max Usage/RAM Cache memory percentages don’t make a lot of sense in the 64-bit CS5 age. (120% of 64-bit addressing?? Yikes.)
What are some suggested settings for uni-processing and multi-processing? (for example, my machine has 32GB of RAM)
120% means that if the amount of physical ram runs out then it will use 20% of virtual memory which means the renders will slow down considerably but you won’t get an out of memory error. I doubt you will ever run into this situation with 32GB of RAM and CS5′s new 64-bit addressing but if you needed to render a 200k x 200k comp you just might
As for MP vs not MP, i’ve had more luck launching several single processor renders than one MP render but Adobe keeps improving their MP performance and frankly I have not put CS5′s MP through its proper paces so I would say try it with and without and see what works best for you. The new version of BG Renderer will make it easier to launch several one processor renders but with the current version just check the ‘skip existing files’ option in the Render Settings and launch the BG Render as many times as you have processors but probably not more than 8 to avoid disk I/O bottlenecks.
Hello.I’ve just got After Effects CS4, and I’d like to know why i am not allowed to render a quicktime uncompressed 10 bits on. In CS3 i could do it without problems and no i can’t see that option. Someone knows what should i do?
If you give us more details about exactly what is happening we will be able to better help you.
In CS3 when i used to render, i clicked MAKE MOVIE, then Output module: Format options; quicktime and i could choose “uncompressed 10 bits”. But now in this After Effects CS4 the uncompressed 10 bits is not in the options of compresion type… I have leopard Mac OS X version 10.6
I believe that is because Apple decided to disable a bunch of codecs in 10.6, has nothing to do with After Effects or BG Renderer. Check out this page: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403333.html
Can’t wait for v2! Getting close?
Yes, it’s getting close. It is currently being beta tested.
Released v2.0 today. Enjoy!
This script just saved my life, I can’t believe I wasn’t using this before. I haven’t used the normal AE renderer once since I starting using this. Thank you so much Lloyd… I’ll definitely be buying v 2.0 when it’s ready.
You are one seriously shaboinken dude …
Mike
Hi there, is there a version that is compatible with CS5 yet? Really need to use it on a job next week, and have to work on CS5 unfortunately.
Thanks!
Dom
The current version works in CS5. The new official version is still a few weeks away from being released.Just released v2.0 which is fully CS5 certified and compatible.
I was going to tweak this script to add support for Growl/Prowl on a Mac
You have interesting timing. I am currently working on v2.0 of BG Renderer which will have growl/prowl notification options.
v2.0 now supports both growl and prowl notifications plus many other new features
I have idea how to enhance this script. Could you add few switches/dialog boxes to run multiple copies of aerender process with difference combination of frames ranges? (ex. 0-100,101-200,201-300 or 0,3,6,9,12…; 1,4,7,10,12…; 2,5,8,11,14)
I have AE CS4, and sometimes I have report (in info panel) – “incompatible effect or expression – multiprocessing disabled”. I don’t know AE CS5, but in CS4 case, aerender running in 4 copies is 4 times faster than regular render with multiprocessing enabled (in preferences).
I wanted to do it myself (for me only), but this is jsxbin file …
I’m having some problems with this script when trying to run it in CS5. I’ve attached a video to show the problem I’m having. It works perfect in CS3. Multiprocessing never seemed to work in CS4 for me. And now in CS5 it doesn’t work at all. I’ve downloaded the most recent update and everything. I’m not sure if it’s a problem that I have CS3, CS4, and CS5 installed on the same machine or not.
http://www.stubbysquirrel.com/BGRendererProblem.mov (right-click and save)
Not sure if this is a problem you could give insight on or if it’s something I need to contact Adobe about.
Saw your screencast and that is definitely strange but unfortunately beyond the realm of BG Renderer. All BG Renderer does is pass the project to aerender in the terminal and launches it which is happening successfully. The crash happens when the ae instance is being launched by aerender. So I would definitely report it to Adobe, you can do that here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Having said that, one thing I would try is changing the location of your project file. Try saving it on your desktop or another volume and see if the render launches there.
I also tried this on CS5 and had no luck. It worked on CS4 though.
For CS5 it says PROGRESS: AE successfully launched, but then nothing happens.
Does this work with CS5? Can anyone confirm this?
Yes, it works with CS5.
BGrenderer is the best!!! Just wanted try the new “fast” AE CS5, but the big comps with HD and bigger were faster rendered with BGrenderer!!!!! Love it
So, has it been updated for CS5?
v2 is fully CS5 compatible and certified
Hi,
Thanks so much for your script. It has really helped my productivity by freeing me up to work on different projects. I do have one concern. Some clients prefer QuickTimes with BlackMagic, others AJA Kona. In AEP, I different Output Modules set up for this. When I set a project to render using your script, I have noticed in the terminal window that the script is calling up the AJA Kona codec instead of the BlackMagic.
(from the terminal window)
PROGRESS: Output Module: 10bit BlackMagic w Audio
PROGRESS: Output To: HW59 Project HD2:212_06Test2.mov
PROGRESS: Format: QuickTime Movie
PROGRESS: Output Info: AJA Kona v210 Codec
Is there a way to fix this? If not, I’ll continue to render QTs that require blackMagic out of AEP. No biggie.
Thanks again.
rice
The script passes your render queue to aerender to render in Terminal so if you are not seeing the same codec as you setup in your Render Queue then I would consider that a bug. I highly encourage you to report that bug to Adobe, you can do that here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Thanks for the quick reply. I’ll go do that now.
Best wishes.
rice
There is no difference between BlackMagic, AJA Kono or MS v210 codec. They are all 4:2:2 10bit uncompressed, so it doesn’t matter what you are using.
I have had BG render on my mac when i got CS3 i have had no problem it till now. I was rendering a project and i got this error message
” The file
Make sure you are running the latest version (currently 1.6) and make sure you don’t have any illegal characters such as accents, foreign characters or punctuation in your project name or path. http://aescripts.com/faq/bg_renderer_temp_file-is-damaged/
I have no idea what happened, but i did find a solution. I used time machine to reload AE folder to a time when the BG worked fine and it worked. I could not tell you what was causing it but the Time Machine restore fixed it.. thanks for you help
Ivan~
Hi, this script is very useful, excellent job! While I used this scripts kind of often, I just have a new error message when I tried to use it: Popup message saying that – The file “BG_Renderer_temp_file.term” could not be opened because it is corrupt. It may have been incompletely copied from another machine. – No chance I did a copy from another machine.
I reinstall the script, empty the cache database, run it from another location etc… but still this message… I am on CS4 latest update with macpro intel 10.5.8, the only thing I could imagine from now, it’s the latest MacosX security update I did 2 days ago… Any ideas?
Thanks!
Stupid of me… I didn’t fully read the faq and the comment before… sorry…
Are you running the latest version and have you followed the FAQ? http://aescripts.com/faq/bg_renderer_temp_file-is-damaged/
FIXED with the faq…
I’ve been using BG Renderer for a while now, but I’ve recently run into a problem. In CS4, any time I try to render anything with multiprocessing on, it fails and says “There is an error in background rendering so switching to foreground rendering after 1 frames….” I haven’t had this problem before until the past couple of days. It works fine in CS3.
I checked out the Activity Monitor while I tried rendering and it seems like the aeselflink processes never get up to speed like they do in CS3. One of them gets to 94%, but when it tries to start another one, it never gets very high and terminates. In CS3, all 4 aeselflink processes load and get up to >90% and works correctly
Do you have any idea why this would be happening or a way I could try to fix this? Thanks.
This is an aerender error so you should report it directly to adobe: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Having said that, it’s hard to say why that would be happening but generally MP tends to be kind of flakey and certain plugins don’t play well with it. Can you try rendering a project without any 3rd party plugs and see if it still happens? I suspect it is plugin related but that is just a hunch.
Thanks for the reply. Sadly, I just tried a comp without any plugins and I just ran into the same problem. I just used a piece of footage, a solid with a mask animating, and that’s it. I’ll send in an error report to adobe and I might try a fresh install.
hi,
does that script run on windows7, too? i only found mac-screenshots and couldn’t locate a compatabilities-list anywhere on the website. unfortunately i purchased it before looking that up and every time i run the script it only displays an almost empty run-window for a short while, then
thanks for responding!
sven
It definitely runs on Windows 7, however, Windows 7 is very restrictive with it’s permissions so make sure that the user running after effects and launching the script have permissions to save a file to the users documents folder and run aerender which is located inside the support files folder in the same folder as the AE application.
Just tested BG Renderer on Windows 7 using a regular user account and it worked fine. Maybe it is a permissions issue on the destination you are rendering to? Check to make sure you have permission to write to the drives you are rendering to.
hello,
great script
is possible to create a queue of another render, opening another comp after the first render is started? because anytime I hit the render button there is an instance if background render how sucks out my little – 2gb
– ram -
Yes, as long as you have the ram (min 2.5GB per process) you can have as many instances og BG Renderer as you want.
First off, great script! I’m shocked that I’ve waited this long to get it. I have a question about functionality though. If I have a master comp that has multiple precomps sequenced within it and I render that master comp through BG Render. If I work on the latter comps before BG Render gets to those frames, does the script render the changes I’ve made to those precomps? Or does the master comps get cached or something like that at the time you submit the job?
Thanks again, great script!
When you launch a BG Render your project is saved then opened in the terminal through aerender. You can then continue working on your project and any changes after the save won’t be reflected in the background render. One thing to note is be careful not to save your project again until the BG Render has started. One thing I do for example is to create versions I launch a BG Render, wait for it to start, make changes to the project for the next version launch the BG Render again and repeat until I’ve saturated the number of BG Render instances my amount of RAM can support. I try to have at least 2.5GB of RAM per process plus 2.5GB for the system and 2.5GB for the main AE app. For example on a machine with 20GB of RAM I can launch 6 BG Renders, but make sure you don’t have any other apps running as these will require RAM as well. Hope that helps.
Definitely helps, thanks!
One more question, and I think I know the answer, but I didn’t see it specifically mentioned above. Does BG Render work with Throttle? It seems like it does from using it earlier, but if I spawn a second instance with MP turned off through Throttle could I have the first instance using 4 cores and second using only 1? I have an 8-core machine with 18GB of RAM.
Unfortunately not, this is a limitation of aerender. Please feature request it from Adobe: http://adobe.com/go/wish/
Hi Lloyd, I download your script who seems verry nice, but after trying it and seeing that it didn’t works, I saw that it would not work on my french AE cs4 version. Can you please tell me how to launch AE in english (on a PC) ?
Thanks for the answer, and sorry for my poor english.
http://aescripts.com/faq/force-after-effects-to-run-in-english/
thanks lloyd, sorry for the disturb. Congratulation for your beautifull animations on your website.
Hi, and sorry for my poor english !!!
I have problems running Backgroung Render CS4 on my PC (a simple Quad core/XP/4gb).
As i launch BG RENDER, the terminal windows opens but nothing happens !!! arghhh!
It only shut down after a while…i tried with different names for the comp and still nothing !! only this messsage in the terminal wiondow “ae render version 9.0×346 …” and nothing else !!!!! another Windows OS surprise ???
Thanks for help
i really need this script working !
Has the script worked at all or is this the first time you are trying it? Make sure that you project name and path does not have any illegal characters like accents. Lastly, I would highly recommend you upgrade to AE v9.0.2
thanks for your answer ..
The script never worked..i have to try instaling a newer version of AE …it’s my last chance
i’ll keep you informed ..
thanks again
Please do, it is impossible for me to test in every scenario so if you are having trouble I will do what I can to try and fix it. Just so you know 99% of the reported problems have to do with illegal characters such as accented letters in the project name or path.
Found your interesting tool while searching for pos. to accelerate AE. I´m running AE in german language. Any chance to use your solution?
Thank you
Ed
Unfortunately I am only one person and supporting foreign languages would require more support than I am able to provide. The good news is that it is very easy to switch AE to run in english so you can use the scripts. Check the FAQ above.
v2 supports foreign languages.
Thanx Lloyd! You work for the community is great! Your work is inspiring and this script is what I’ve been wishing for since…a long time.
Greetings from The Hague!
Ok- I created a “ScriptUI Panels” folder, inside my “Scripts” folder.
Placed the “BG_renderer-AE7-mac.jsx” file inside the “ScriptUI Panels” folder. Fired up my AE C33. Added a comp to the Render Queue. Went to the Window drop-down, selected the “BG_renderer-AE7-mac.jsx”.
Then I get error massage-
Could not locate aerender
This script requires aerender to run.
Please install aerender in it’s deflault location:
/Application/Adobe After Effects 7.0/
So I change my Adobe After Effects CS3 folder to be Adobe After Effects 7.0. Which I shouldn’t have to do…?
Restart AE again. Place another comp to queue. This time I get a pretty messed up window with the BG controls in it. The window is separate from the nice AE window tab. I click the BG button. Then I get the lengthy “It appears something might have gone wrong.” error message… Tell me about!
Please help.
Machine specs
MacOSX 10.5.8
Macpro 2×2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
12 GB Ram
ATI Radeon 4870
Fibre Channel w/ Sanmp
Kona3
Adobe cs3
BG_renderer-AE7-mac.jsx is an older version which only works with After Effects 7 and will not work in CS3. Make sure you download the new version which you can get by hitting the ‘Add to Cart’ button above
Sorry. Didn’t see the fix until after hitting submit!
Check out the BG Renderer Error FAQ
Any thoughts on why I’m getting the following error message:
The file
Upgrade to v2
I too get this error:
aerender ERROR -609: AESend failed to send apple event at line 751
it is not project specific, it only happens when multiprocessing is turned on, and the regular AE render with multiprocessing works fine.
This is an error with aerender which you should report to Adobe at http://adobe.com/go/wish BG Renderer simply passes the project over to aerender in the console, any errors after that have to do with aerender.
I’d like to follow up on this error. You will get this error if there are any alerts such as missing plugins when you launch the main After Effects application. It is also caused if your project uses certain GPU accelerated plugins.
Hi! Just wanted to check what this error message means. Can’t seem to render my project
aerender ERROR -609: AESend failed to send apple event at line 751
wii:~ daniel$
thanks
Maybe I should add that this only happens when Multiprocess button is selected
@Daniel – I have never seen this error before but it is an aerender error so I would let Adobe know about it. My guess is that it is project specific. Does it render in the main AE app? You can report bugs to Adobe here: http://adobe.com/go/wish
Make sure when you launch AE that there aren’t any alert boxes like duplicate plugins or anything else that requires user input. Not saying that this is the source of the error but this will cause an AESend error.
anybody figured that problem out yet??
i have the same problem with the exact same info:
“PROGRESS: Launching After Effects…
aerender ERROR -609: AESend failed to send apple event at line 751
BG Renderer is done, have a nice day!
logout
[Prozess beendet]”
i can render the project with the normal render function. and this error occures within any project
p.s. love that site, except for the BG renderer everything works just perfect!!!
Strange behavior, indeed. I keep getting it as well. I had the trial version, but I don’t think I buy this script because this error keeps returning. Sometimes, after quitting and restarting AE, it rensers. But most of the time, not. Too bad, really…
AESend errors almost always have to do with 3rd party plugins misbehaving. Make sure you don’t have any plugin errors in your project. If you get any alert from a plugin in your comp it will fail to render in the BG because the alert cannot be acknowledged.
Hi there,
I have been using the BG tool for quite some time now on various 8 core MAC’s and it works a treat. I can only add to what jmayoros has posted a while back, in regards to additional functionality when submitting the render. Especially being able to submit the render to another machine available in the network would be an amazing feature. Even if you have to manually setup a config file.
I personally dislike the MP function AE provides – even in CS4. Especially, when you start rendering long image sequences from multiple machines with “skip existing files” enabled. It sometimes stalls and slows down horrendously (just reading the existing files, not even rendering). Therefore, I always rather use multiple instances of the terminal to launch single core renders, all feeding into the same destination, to get the most out of the machine’s capabilities. This, of course, depends on the task given.
However, not sure whether it is at all possible, but a feature to launch multiple terminal windows at once would be very nice
… and submit to other machines … ?
Great tool regardless
Thanks a lot
Check out the new ‘Make portable app’ feature in v2. It makes is very easy to launch renders on another machine. Just copy the portable app over and double click to launch the render on that machine.
hi,
where I can download the script? I didn’t find the way to download and try it!
Thanks a lot
@Ignacio – To download the script you need to add it to the cart and checkout. The script will be available for download immediately after checkout.
I just installed background renderer, and it gives me a message:
aerender Error: After Effects Error: Unable to call “openFast” because of parameter 1. Path is not valid.
Then it gives me the path. This path (to the AE project) works fine for AE. What am I doing wrong?
@Dave – Make sure you don’t have any illegal or foreign characters in your path or file name. Aerender (which is what BG renderer uses to render) runs in unix so the paths and filenames need to be unix friendly.
Hi, just installed the script and it is working fine. The only difficulty is that the rendering of each frame is taking an unusual amount of time compared to regular render queue rendering (usually 20 – 30 seconds for relatively simple frames). I have played with Max Mem Usage, Max Ram Cache, and Use Multiprocessing and so far nothing seems to speed things up. Any suggestions?
turn MP off. MP is only beneficial if you have at least 2GB per proc and 2GB free for the system.
This is real great plugin. It’s true amazing scripts. Best purely function for web designar. Thanks Guys.
I love your script, works great and has been very usefull.
I was going to write my own for some coworkers as they at times can be “challenged” but this doees the trick.
What I was wondering was if you have thought about adding the following functionality.
1.) When Choosing memory settings, maybe have a info window which will tell you how much memory will be used and in multi-processor mode show you how much ram you may use so one can easily adjust the settings to insure they do not overtax the system.
This happens all the time for my co-workersand myself at times when I forget to look at system resources before rendering.
2.) Additional settings for multi-processor mode, specify exactly how many threads or cores to use, etc. This way i can easily choose to limit processing to maybe 4 of my 8 cores, etc.
3.) Notification when background render is done or an option to run a post render script?
4.) Simple scheduler or sleep setting that you can use to queue the render up but wait until later to start.
5.) Remote rendering?
If configured able to submit the render command to a remote machine to offload the task.
Maybe use ssh, or something similar…..not sure if this is possible or not, just curious….
Please not that some plugins (Zaxwerks 3D Warps 1.5) fails to render in background (multiprocessor mode), when simultaneously used and manipulated in main AE window.
Hey Lloyd, at work right now and am getting an error with BGR. It stops at the “/aerender” file path and says “no match”. Never got that before and I do have an “aerender” file app located in the app folder. Any ideas? Thanks.
Just a followup, apparently “[" and "]” are illegal Unix characters and caused the error. So word to the wise, make sure you don’t have source project folders named with illegal characters. Pardon me now while I go scold the editors.
Thanks for the help Lloyd.
This script is awesome! Make sure you’re setting the correct amount of RAM. At 16 cores, you’d better have 16Gb of RAM, or lower your RAM setting. I’m not sure if this scales mathematically, but for example if you’re running on 8Gb of RAM and have 16 cores, use <50% for “Max Mem Usage”, otherwise your render will stall.
In the tutorial video for BG Renderer, it shows that “use multiprocessing” box is unchecked. Can someone tell me why that was done? Assuming one has a multiprocessing machine, would there ever be a reason to uncheck that box?
@Joel You need to make sure your machine has enough ram to handle MP properly. Min 2GB per processor is recommended but in real world test I’ve found that more is usually needed to have a successful MP render. You might also not want to tax all your processors if you are going to continue working in the foreground app.
The solution to my problem was to change the permissions in the my render output folder. I located the folder in finder, then brought up the info (command+i) on that folder, then under Sharing & Permissions I had to add my user account name to the list and change my privilege to Read & Write.
Thanks so much for making this plug in its been working great! One issue though, I just tried installing it on another machine and I keep getting this error message
such a lifesaver. thanks lloyd, you are very valued in the AE community!
Hey Lloyd,
I’ve been using this BG renderer for months since I saw you at AENY. This is saving me so much time at work! Thanks.
Lately, I’ve occasionally been getting a file corrupted message or just an empty terminal window pops up. When I try it the second time it is fine. What’s that about? I’m on a Mac, OS 10.5.6, using CS3.
Thanks.
Check out the FAQ to see if this helps
All these issues are fixed in the new version 2
I’ve been using BG Renderer for a while – super useful. Thanks for making it available. Recently though I get a prompt in the terminal window that says “Badly placed ()’s.” and nothing else happens. I know the project filename contains no illegal characters, and the sequence I(‘m rendering is also good.
What else could it be? I’m stumped.
Yes! Me too, exactly this… any solutions to this problem?
Well, I solved this one! You can’t have parenthesis in your file name. I thought it might be sensitive to the composition name, so I had made sure that was clean, but I didn’t realize that the FILE NAME also matters. You After Effects project file name can’t have ()’s in it at all. I renamed the file, and it’s working wonderfully again.
By the way, version 2 now allows you to have ()’s and other foreign characters that were not supported in previous versions.
U R The best man. Where are the donation links? I’ve been away from away for about 6 months, too much shooting and photography. U know us FCP users are waiting for Ur FCP to AE scripts. Thx a bunch for all Ur hard work scripting and vid tuts.
I tried the BG Render script on a WinXP 64bit installation of After Effects CS4. Got it installed properly and able to get the interface loaded AE. Unfortunately, it is unable to process what is in the queue. The Command window comes up when the BG Render button is pressed and disappears after about 20 seconds with nothing processed.
Anyone else experienced this.
Thankss
All of these issues have been fixed in the new BG Renderer 2
can i launch 2 instances of b renderer? can i use bg reneder at the same time as the regular after effects render?
in v2 Pro you can select the “Save BG Launcher file” option and simply double click that file to launch as many additional instances of the render as you want. If you want to distribute the render across several machines you can choose the “Make portable app” feature and use this file to launch the renders on the other machines.
Does BG Renderer work well with Vista 64 bit Home edtion OS?
Thanks.
Absolutely! It works great with Vista 64. Let me know if you experience otherwise.
Running BG Render on Mac OS X 10.4 8 Core, AE CS3. With Multiprocessing on, it runs great for about 1500 frames and then the system halts. Rendering continues SLOWLY and the rest of the system is just locked up. I’ve tried reducing Max Memory and the number of cores being used. Same issue occurs. Any ideas?
Works fantastic in non-multiprocessing mode.
Thanks
Adam
@Adam – The MP option requires a min of 2GB per core to operate successfully, unfortunately the number of cores pref in the main app prefs does not work with BG Renderer so unless you have 16GB or more you are likely to see slow performance when using multi-processing. Also, you dont want to lower Max Memory as that will only make things worse.
Firstly, thanks for an AWESOME script. It makes AE sooooo much more powerful. Great work!
Is it possible to get the source of the script? I use it all the time and would like to customize it to my particular needs and whims (chief among those being targeting another machine on the network for rendering).
Again, thank you for providing an excellent resource to the AE community.
-Matt
v2 Pro now includes a portable app/folder feature that allows you to create an ad-hoc render farm by copying the portable app to the other rendering machines and launching the render by simply double-clicking it.
Is there a way to add the “render and email” script to this? that would be great!
v2 Pro now includes the ability to send emails after the render is done plus much more
This is a great plugin, and I highly recommend it. However, everytime I have the BG Renderer frame docked on my panel, and I close CS4 traditionally, it says After Effects CS4 has crashed. Now, when I take off BG Renderer off my interface panel, and I quit, AE doesn’t give me a “it has crashed” dialog box. I’m not sure if this caused by After Effects or BG Renderer. It’s not really an issue, just an annoyance. Anyways, thanks for the great plugin!
@Brian – This is a known Adobe issue with CS4 on mac that was fixed in version 9.0.2. Please read this knowledge-base article: http://www.adobe.com/go/kb408103
i just compared the performance of this script against Nucleo Pro 2 in CS4 just for curiosity and was surprised to find that Lloyd’s script was at least twice as efficient in CPU usage and used a little more than half the RAM that NP2 was taking up (running on OSX 10.5.5, Macbook Pro 2.5GHz 2GB RAM). Way to go, Lloyd! have a beer on me! (and everyone else buy him one too!)
Woww.. amazing. thanks for this script.
These scripts are awesome. Thank you so much for providing them! I have one request for the BG renderer script. If possible, could you add the 8, 16, and 32 bit toggle to the BG renderer? That way, you can be working in 8-bit, and render in 16-bit without having to change it in throttle to render, then change it back to keep working. It gets hard to remember to do that every time.
Thanks!
You can force the color depth for rendering in the render settings in the render queue. This means you can work at a lower depth and always render at the higher one.