EXR compositing After Effects

[hellobard]

Hey,

I'm working on an animation with 16/32 bit multichannel EXRs and am realizing how immensely slow it is to comp in After Effects. I put them into Nuke too to see if it was any better, but it was just as slow there.

So what's the ideal compression mode to use on the EXRs for more responsive comping? Any tips would be of great help.

thanks...

[kimgar]

i just use zip compression, composite 2011 handles it pretty good

[joconnell]

Two choices depending on how you save your files. If you use the standard max file save dialog, use zip s compression as it'll save the exrs as a series of lines drawn from top to bottom. If you're going out via the vray frame buffer, the exr files will automatically save as tiled exr files, similar to how vray renders the buckets which is the opposite of how nuke wants them. Here at the moment what I do is render my files to vrimg, and then use the vrimg2exr tool to convert to scanline exr files with a datawindow (this means that nuke can skip any parts of the image with nothing in it) and it's really quick. Try rendering some files to vrimg, and then use this script to pick one of the vrimg files in a folder and it'll run through and convert the lot for you. This is hard wired to use the max 2010 install of vrimg2exr so you might need to edit the line that says:

format ("\"" + "C:\\Program Files\\Chaos Group\\V-Ray\\3dsmax 2010 for x64\\tools\\vrimg2exr.exe" + "\"" + " " + "\"" + theFileList[i] as string + "\"" + " -compression zips -datawindow -bufsize 100" + "\n") to:TheBatfile

With the proper folder for your install.

macroScript VRimgBat_0_05 category:"Johns bits (snigger)" tooltip:"VRimgBat_0_05: Make a bat file to convert vrimg to exr files"
(
	local theFileList = #()
	local TheVrimgPath
	local TheVrimg2exrpath
	Local OutFile
	
	rollout ConvertVRimgBatFile "VRimgBat_0_04: Make a bat file to convert vrimg to exr files"
	(
		button ImageFileFolder "Rendered file folder" width:300 Align:#right
		
		on ImageFileFolder pressed do
		(
			TheVrimgPath = getOpenFileName types:"Vrimg(*.vrimg)" caption:"Pick the folder with your renders"
			ImageFileFolder.text = getFilenamePath TheVrimgPath
			theFileList = (getFiles ((getFilenamePath TheVrimgPath) + "*.vrimg"))
			print ("the files are " + theFileList as string)
			print ("There are " + (theFileList.count as string) + " vrimg files in the folder")
			
			if theFileList.count != 0 then
			(
				MyOutFile = "c:\\convert_vrimg_files.bat"
				TheBatFile = CreateFile MyOutFile
				for i in 1 to theFileList.count do
				(
					format ("\"" + "C:\\Program Files\\Chaos Group\\V-Ray\\3dsmax 2010 for x64\\tools\\vrimg2exr.exe" + "\"" + " " + "\"" + theFileList[i] as string + "\"" + " -compression zips -datawindow -bufsize 100" + "\n") to:TheBatfile
					format ("\n") to:TheBatFile
				)
				
				Close TheBatFile
				ShellLaunch (MyOutFile as string) ""
				
				messagebox "Your bat file has been created at c:\convert_vrimg_files.bat - Happy now Vadim?"	
			) else (
					messagebox "There are no vrimg files in that folder"	
			)
		)
	)
	
	CreateDialog ConvertVRimgBatFile width:450
	
)

[hellobard]

thank you both for your replies!

joconnel: thank you for taking the time to help me, but i'm afraid i'm using Maya (this is the maya forum, so I'm not sure how much of what you say is relevant to Maya...? do you know if After Effects prefers scanlined zips too?

[joconnell]

Eek!

I'm not exactly sure which after uses but I'd imagine scanline is better. The data window options make a big difference too since the compositor can effectively ignore large sections of the image. Nuke definitely prefers this but I'm not sure how heavily optimised after effects is!