Very very fast. Dramatically reduced render times on an 10 core iMac , and really crushes it on an 18 core PC.
A few bugs getting this up and running, make sure your extension installer is up to date and your AFX preferences are set right. If it acts weird, usually a reboot or an AE restart fixes it... this is a typical bug with using this many cores/resources on a work machine. Would gladly pay for v2 if it is released!
Very very fast. Dramatically reduced render times on an 10 core iMac , and really crushes it on an 18 core PC.
A few bugs getting this up and running, make sure your extension installer is up to date and your AFX preferences are set right. If it acts weird, usually a reboot or an AE restart fixes it... this is a typical bug with using this many cores/resources on a work machine. Would gladly pay for v2 if it is released!
Hi Nicholas,
Well, basically this is a "v2" and we are going to add more features over time.
Error 205 definitely can be caused by this plugin due to crashes multicore-experiments can cause.
(Solution is easy, go to your Keychain Utility, type "adobe" into the search field and delete the 2 most recent objects, no restart needed)
Of course the first thing you'll do is irresponsibly testing the limits of your system. That is why you came looking for this plugin. Mine is iMac i9/72 GB of Ram. Using half of possible 16 Processes was not stable at all. After Effects is soo hungry for RAM, don't underestimate that - the most stable render is often the one which safes the most time. Also, handling image-sequences may or may not be practical to your workflow. If you are close to deadline, I wouldn't recommend playing around with it.
But still, MC rendering works fine and fast - until everything crashes. So maybe the plugin can be improved. Saving some RAM to the machine - just like AE does - maybe using the very same value that is set up in the AE preferences?
My testing results on this specific project were:
2,38 f/s AE Render to ProRes 4444 (not Media Encoder)
3,5 f/s BG Renderer Max to png-seq. (BG Renderer Max takes about 60 seconds time to start MC-rendering, this is not calculated.)
When I hit render error message shows up : Can't import templates, please check your write permissions" Not exactly sure what to do with this.... Please help.
Error 205 definitely can be caused by this plugin due to crashes multicore-experiments can cause.
(Solution is easy, go to your Keychain Utility, type "adobe" into the search field and delete the 2 most recent objects, no restart needed)
Of course the first thing you'll do is irresponsibly testing the limits of your system. That is why you came looking for this plugin. Mine is iMac i9/72 GB of Ram. Using half of possible 16 Processes was not stable at all. After Effects is soo hungry for RAM, don't underestimate that - the most stable render is often the one which safes the most time. Also, handling image-sequences may or may not be practical to your workflow. If you are close to deadline, I wouldn't recommend playing around with it.
But still, MC rendering works fine and fast - until everything crashes. So maybe the plugin can be improved. Saving some RAM to the machine - just like AE does - maybe using the very same value that is set up in the AE preferences?
My testing results on this specific project were:
2,38 f/s AE Render to ProRes 4444 (not Media Encoder)
3,5 f/s BG Renderer Max to png-seq. (BG Renderer Max takes about 60 seconds time to start MC-rendering, this is not calculated.)
Hi Mathias, thank you for detailed feedback! We are absolutely working on improving BG Renderer Max and idea to sync AE RAM settings with BG Renderer is something we are still exploring. It sounds like a correct way to handle this case, but there are a lot of limits to deliver this to multi-threaded rendering experience.
Regarding Error 205, just to clarify the situation so the others would not be confused, Error
205 is the inherent Adobe After Effects error that BG Renderer Max
can't really trigger directly: (https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2595742 and https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2535527). But as far as I understand it's happening when new thread starts. It's something we are also trying to fix, but I wasn't able to repro it on any or our machines yet
When I hit render error message shows up : Can't import templates, please check your write permissions" Not exactly sure what to do with this.... Please help.
Hi Kuni,
Sorry to hear it didn't worked straight away.
Please open a support ticket so we can help you directly.
But I will also shortly describe what's happening here and how it can possibly be fixed.
Bg Renderer Max have some templates inlined to provide better rendering experience, they are rendering templates and they are stored in files and then imported. Usually this error means that AE can't import those files or execute those rendering templates. If AE creates something in RenderQueue for you when you see this error, just executing this render queue manually via AE render will be enough to unblock youself and everything should be working after.
Today I am getting some amazing results on a Project which has little footage but much computing (camera lens blur + motion blur, trapcode form)
AE Render: 0,16 Fps
BG Renderer Pro: 0,78 Fps
iMac i9 8C / 72 GB of RAM
6 processes
I believe that one problem is (and has been forever) that the amount of used RAM in every aerendercore process increases slowly while rendering. I manually stop and restart the render once in a while to avoid choking my system to death. Would be cool to have the processes automatically stop and restart - working in relays so to speak. The new one should start just a tiny bit before an old one retires - so no rendertime gets lost.
I really appreciate the minimalistic approach of the interface. I think the "cancel-cross" should be red so you really understand that this cancels the process. (And, I would like to get some feedback to know if i really clicked it.) Of course it is wise that they all finish off their actual frame.
Maybe you bring MC-Rendering back to After Effects after all!
If you need to open a support ticket, please also attach a log file.
Click to generate log file.
There was an error with Aerender and we can not create
communication channel. Please try to restart machine. If it
will not help please open support ticket
If you need to open a support ticket, please also attach a
log file.
Click to generate log file.
Log file is empty.
Pleas - help
Hi Paweł,
This issue is fixed in 1.0.5, but you may still experience as a leftover from the previous versions. Please follow the path to the bgrenderer.aep file and remove it, then reload BGR.
Today I am getting some amazing results on a Project which has little footage but much computing (camera lens blur + motion blur, trapcode form)
AE Render: 0,16 Fps
BG Renderer Pro: 0,78 Fps
iMac i9 8C / 72 GB of RAM
6 processes
I believe that one problem is (and has been forever) that the amount of used RAM in every aerendercore process increases slowly while rendering. I manually stop and restart the render once in a while to avoid choking my system to death. Would be cool to have the processes automatically stop and restart - working in relays so to speak. The new one should start just a tiny bit before an old one retires - so no rendertime gets lost.
I really appreciate the minimalistic approach of the interface. I think the "cancel-cross" should be red so you really understand that this cancels the process. (And, I would like to get some feedback to know if i really clicked it.) Of course it is wise that they all finish off their actual frame.
Maybe you bring MC-Rendering back to After Effects after all!
Hi Matthias,
Thanks for your feedback. We never considered making a relay-process system, I guess we can discuss this in the private messages or via email. As for the cross – what confirmation do you think would be sufficient? A pop-up message of sorts? As of now, BGR cleans its render queue and resets the main button state, so we believe that should be enough. If you have better ideas, please share them with us!
Love your product, but today I realized two things. The ability to set up a post render action chime is not there any more is that correct?
Also, with the previous version I was able to have multiple instances of BG Render rendering at the same time, this meant that I was able to render different comps at the same time essentially cutting render time x4 sometimes. I dont think i'm able to do this anymore correct?
Hi, I am getting the same error as some other people have encountered (file already exists) and the path to the bgrenderer.aep file that you are supposed to delete. But I cannot seem to find that file anywhere. Even when just searching for it in my entire Mac that aep file is nowhere to be found.
Love your product, but today I realized two things. The ability to set up a post render action chime is not there any more is that correct?
Also, with the previous version I was able to have multiple instances of BG Render rendering at the same time, this meant that I was able to render different comps at the same time essentially cutting render time x4 sometimes. I dont think i'm able to do this anymore correct?
Hi Jesus,
1. We are working on our own render chime now
2. Next releases would have the option to add more comps from different projects. Now it's impossible, yes.
Hi, I am getting the same error as some other people have encountered (file already exists) and the path to the bgrenderer.aep file that you are supposed to delete. But I cannot seem to find that file anywhere. Even when just searching for it in my entire Mac that aep file is nowhere to be found.
I'm running to trial on a mac pro Mojave 10.14.5
Hi Rickard,
This issue occurs on 1.0.5 and prior when you first render anything and then delete the original .aep file. We aimed to fix it in the 1.0.6 that's out today. Please download it and check whether the issue persists. In any case, removing the bgrenderer.aep file helps, but we try to avoid it at all in the new releases.
I've updated it to the latest version, and out of rendering 2431 frames, BG-Renderer seemed to only render out 260 of them somewhat randomly, some of which were 0kb files. This was using Multi-Processing and only 12 of my 32 cores... Buggy to say the least!
I've updated it to the latest version, and out of rendering 2431 frames, BG-Renderer seemed to only render out 260 of them somewhat randomly, some of which were 0kb files. This was using Multi-Processing and only 12 of my 32 cores... Buggy to say the least!
Hi Seb,
Sorry to hear it didnt worked for you as expected. By reading your comment I am assuming you have Amd Threadriper processor since its the only available consumer 32 cores processor. Threadriper is special in case that cores are not fully physical thats why setting it to 12 is probably killing the experience. If its possible for you please help us to debug and fix this issue by opening a support ticket so we can communicate with you directly.
Thank you again,
Extrabite Team
Am I missing something? With old BG Renderer, which I am happy to not use anymore, I could start additional threads with the external batch file saved on a convenient place anytime. How can I do this here?
Started the queue with one Thread, wanted to launch another and some error occured that the .aep was not found.
Since this plugin is one of the more expensive ones I'm wondering about the UX here.
Am I missing something? With old BG Renderer, which I am happy to not use anymore, I could start additional threads with the external batch file saved on a convenient place anytime. How can I do this here?
Started the queue with one Thread, wanted to launch another and some error occured that the .aep was not found.
Since this plugin is one of the more expensive ones I'm wondering about the UX here.
Hi Jonas,
BGR MAX is a completely new product that is based around the idea of multiprocessing and post-render actions in its core. These things are quite hard to reproduce with a .bat file and we've released the product without this functionality. We plan to deliver it later, and you may vote and comment on it using our pubic Trello board: https://trello.com/c/NQHxLiuI/21-creating-a-macro-file-that-can-be-executed-from-any-machine
If lack of this feature is crucial to you, please send us a support ticket and we are going to handle the full refund to then personally inform you about the release of this feature.
Hey. The latest version seems to have a bug, the UI is non-responsive. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling bg render max but to no avail Additionally, I should mention before that the app often got errors with "xyz.aep" already exists" or folder permission errors. I gotta be honest while I love your past work, I feel disappointed by how much I spent on this purchase because it still seems like it's in beta with several kinks to work out.
Hi Chris,
I am sorry BGR gives you bad time and its UX now is not as smooth as GifGun's or other tools we made. I admit that despite almost 2 months of beta testing with over 40 professionals, on start BGR had lots of issues that we've been fixing with each next release. This is definitely our fault and I am grateful for the users who let us make up for that. At the moment we have all (hopefully) the major ones fixed and only weird bugs left, that will eventually get fixed in the upcoming releases.
As for your issues – are you referring to the "EEXIST" issue? If so, it should have been fixed on 1.0.7. Please send us a support ticket with more information about your system and some screenshots if it is indeed 1.0.7, or if it is a completely different one.
As for the folder permissions error, we've recently discovered that rendering to Google Drive, Dropbox or other cloud provider folders might result in this kind of issues. We got similar results while rendering sequences directly from After Effects to those folders as well. If that's not the case, please let me know.
Sweet plugin! The ability to render with an audio is a game changer! One thing I miss is the option to automatically delete all the PNG's and WAVE's after the render, leaving just the compiled file. Thanks!
After trying to obtain support for this, I'd suggest you guys look elsewhere. I've tried with and without GPU support under project settings, and have unpredictable results. Even went into my project and disabled GPU plugins. The renders constantly fail, or if I start with 5 or 6 instances for multi-processing the renders start fine but then go down to one instance. Many frames are also rendered at 0kb, forcing me to go back and fix patches for a fully rendered sequence. I've submitted a ticket with log files and have not heard back for a week. I feel like we are beta testers at this point, and disappointed after spending so much to upgrade.
This have help me to render those otherwise nasty 4k projects. Thank you. Here is a little feedback:
I'm rendering across 22 cores. It can take a long time before it starts and the interface looks idle. It would be nice with some feedback on what is happening, so you know it haven't stalled or anything.
Sometimes it fails. Interface looks idle for a while like it normally does, then after a while it claims to be finished but it haven't rendered anything. I retry and then it works. I'm on win10 and newest AE.
Sometimes the status is jumping back and forth. So 150/200 to 140/200 to 160/200.
I purchased the Old version and I loved it, used it everyday for many years.
Somehow I couldn't install it for the CC 2019, is it possible to keep using that on the new AE versions or I have to move to this one?
Thanks
Hi Mauricio,
Unfortunately I don't know much about Old BgRenderer with CC2019, this one is a full rewrite from scratch and we are planning to update it with new features and fixes regularly.
Regarding Old BgRenderer, could you please open a support ticket so we can forward it to an author?
This have help me to render those otherwise nasty 4k projects. Thank you. Here is a little feedback:
I'm rendering across 22 cores. It can take a long time before it starts and the interface looks idle. It would be nice with some feedback on what is happening, so you know it haven't stalled or anything.
Sometimes it fails. Interface looks idle for a while like it normally does, then after a while it claims to be finished but it haven't rendered anything. I retry and then it works. I'm on win10 and newest AE.
Sometimes the status is jumping back and forth. So 150/200 to 140/200 to 160/200.
Jakob
Hi Jakob,
Thank you for a valid feedback.
I would assume that you are using Threadripper from AMD?
We are having some of the issues with AMD processors and I am currently working on possible fixes for it, the main problem is that threads are sometimes report broken results and UI updates incorrectly. I am definitely trying to fix that with a new updates, one of the recommendation is to lover amount of threads, I would assume that if you are running 22 threads, you will be hitting I/O limit, and if you lower it to 14-16, there will be same speed, but more stable. But I am not 100% sure, there is no best setting since it's really depends on composition and project.
Idling interface is something that should be fixed too, I am working on possible solutions and hope to get it with 1.0.8 version.
After trying to obtain support for this, I'd suggest you guys look elsewhere. I've tried with and without GPU support under project settings, and have unpredictable results. Even went into my project and disabled GPU plugins. The renders constantly fail, or if I start with 5 or 6 instances for multi-processing the renders start fine but then go down to one instance. Many frames are also rendered at 0kb, forcing me to go back and fix patches for a fully rendered sequence. I've submitted a ticket with log files and have not heard back for a week. I feel like we are beta testers at this point, and disappointed after spending so much to upgrade.
Hi Eric,
I am very sorry for not following up with your case,
We some issues with ticketing systems and I promise to keep an eye on it better.
Regarding failing and logs, I will respond you with related details in ticket soon.
Regarding 0kb files, there will be an option which will check for broken files and try to rerender them, on top of that, I am working on fixes for iddle threads, so they will be no hassle for users. An estimate is 1.0.9 or 1.0.8 version of BgRendererMax.
We definitely run a private beta test for 2 months before the release with 100 users including production environments, but the problem is that there is just so many options and configs on user machines and each plugin can crash something without us knowing it or interfering with BgRenderer. We definitely working on many fixes and the plan is to have as stable version as possible and in short period of time.
Thank you and sorry for not a great experience with a plugin,
Sweet plugin! The ability to render with an audio is a game changer! One thing I miss is the option to automatically delete all the PNG's and WAVE's after the render, leaving just the compiled file. Thanks!
Hi Cezary,
Thank you very much an amazing feedback! I am glad you find it useful
Regarding deleting of PNG's, there is an option exactly for it, just click on Settings -> Post Render -> select Sequence To Video in left panel -> [ ] Remove sequence files after render
If lack of this feature is crucial to you, please send us a support ticket and we are going to handle the full refund to then personally inform you about the release of this feature.
Nik
Thanks Nik, I did not see your response until today (no notification by aescripts if you get quoted or a reply).
In the meantime, I actually did kind of a rage quit because in this stage of the project the script behaved buggy a few times, and that I could not start additional threads after starting the first is the main functionality what I need, the other functions are awesome but I see them as convenience and not necessity. I did not even think about that this feature could not be included in your new version, that's why I just bought it without testing.
So that's why was happy to get a refund for now but I will definitely follow this project since I understand there's lot of work in it. When the feature is added again, I will buy again.
Best
Jonas
Edit. Thanks for the link, I sent the suggestion to the trello board.
If I understood correctly from the documentation here: https://bgrenderer.com, it only renders image-sequences, which can be automatically sequenced to a video file. So
to work with alpha, you may choose for example png to be the output format,
and then automatically sequence the file to Quicktime Animation.
There are presets for H264, Quicktime Animation and ProRes 422LT and 422HQ, but no ProRes4444. Seems strange, but I can´t be sure if these presets are the only ones that can be used.
The documentation doesn`t mention Alpha anywhere. ProRes4444 with straight alpha would my preferred option.
Is it possible to shut down AE or switch projects when you run BG Renderer? It used to be possible in the previous version, but I assume that now that the window is part of the UI it changes things?
is there an option, like in previous version, to start render another composition, or another part of this same comp when one process in bg renderer is still in progress?
Is this able to see 2 processors? .... I have 256 gigs of ram. would be great to slave other machines or have something like the executable file to launch on other machines like in previous versions. Rendering frames its FAST! trying to use the movie wrapper after rendering frames for me is slower then just importing the frames back into AE and exporting frames to movie. Did I say RENDERING FRAMES IS FAST! Our current project comp is 6000x830
Is this able to see 2 processors? .... I have 256 gigs of ram. would be great to slave other machines or have something like the executable file to launch on other machines like in previous versions. Rendering frames its FAST! trying to use the movie wrapper after rendering frames for me is slower then just importing the frames back into AE and exporting frames to movie. Did I say RENDERING FRAMES IS FAST! Our current project comp is 6000x830
Hi Mat,
At the time we don't have a macros option like a previous one.
There is one workaround though. Point a custom folder on both machines to a network location and start render. The frames should not be overwritten and both would work on a same project. Multi-machine workflow in scheduled for 2020.
is there an option, like in previous version, to start render another composition, or another part of this same comp when one process in bg renderer is still in progress?
Hi Paweł,
We are still working on this feature, it appeared to be a bit harder to implement with our current task scheduler system. For sure it won't appear in the upcoming 1.0.8, but definitely coming no later than 1.1.0
Is it possible to shut down AE or switch projects when you run BG Renderer? It used to be possible in the previous version, but I assume that now that the window is part of the UI it changes things?
Hi Alex,
We actually have been working on this feature, but forgot to finish somewhere along the way.
Will bump it in our backlog.
Regarding your second question, it's not possible at the moment, but we are thinking about a possible solution. Like making 2 or more output files with one sequence.
If I understood correctly from the documentation here: https://bgrenderer.com, it only renders image-sequences, which can be automatically sequenced to a video file. So
to work with alpha, you may choose for example png to be the output format,
and then automatically sequence the file to Quicktime Animation.
There are presets for H264, Quicktime Animation and ProRes 422LT and 422HQ, but no ProRes4444. Seems strange, but I can´t be sure if these presets are the only ones that can be used.
The documentation doesn`t mention Alpha anywhere. ProRes4444 with straight alpha would my preferred option.
Hi Timo,
You are right, we did not account for the Alpha option at all. Will run more tests and try to squeeze it into 1.0.8 release. If it's not possible due to the time constraints, we will implement sequence with alpha support in 1.0.9.
Does it support rendering any output format, including alpha channel (like MOV with transparent background)?
Also adding to the card it say I need to pay $83.29, so could you make me a BF offer or so?
Thanks
Hi Silus,
If you already own a BGR PRO license, you are eligible for a discount upgrade and should see that on the product page. If that's not working for you, please open a support ticket and we will figure out how to help you.
Error: EEXIST: file already exists, symlink
‘/Volumes/path-to-source-file>
'/Users/username/Llbrary/ApplicationSupport/BgRendererMax/bgrenderer.aep·
If you need to open a support ticket, please also attach a log file.
Click to generate log file.
There was an error with Aerender and we can not create
communication channel. Please try to restart machine. If it
will not help please open support ticket
If you need to open a support ticket, please also attach a
log file.
Click to generate log file.
Hi Seb, Sorry to hear it didnt worked for you as expected. By reading your comment I am assuming you have Amd Threadriper processor since its the only available consumer 32 cores processor. Threadriper is special in case that cores are not fully physical thats why setting it to 12 is probably killing the experience. If its possible for you please help us to debug and fix this issue by opening a support ticket so we can communicate with you directly. Thank you again, Extrabite Team
Since this plugin is one of the more expensive ones I'm wondering about the UX here.