AFTER EFFECTS < Ways of cropping because of a to large 30000 pixel buffer ....

[KURI]

Is there a way of cropping ( resize the comp.) where you can ask for a specific region , instead of what AE now does when resizing a comp, to take the middle of the comp, and than you have to replace your footage because it is out of the screen.
My ( precomp) footage is in one side of the comp, and i have a lot of blanc space on the other side.
Because of a render problem which says:Transform Cannot allocate a buffer largerthan 30000 pixels in either dimension error

. I want to remove the blanc space so the pixel buffel gets smaller.
BUT because AE takes the middle with resizing a comp. i have to replace the footage, and my whole animation gets a mess because the position & ancor points dont fit any more....

O yah, and one time it DID render the whole comp. ( prob. because the buffer was empty ... or something ), and with restarting everything, it works longer. But i cannot risk editing further because i dont have time to redo everything when finished ...
Hope it makes sence to someone !


Working with CS5 / windows / 8 gb / i7 2.30gb

[cutter]

You could probably create a null and parent all layers to it to reposition them easily.

[KURI]

Im not sure how your mean, because every precomp has a different position and is animated differently ... so with a null object it is not solved i think.
for example. do i need to select all the keyframes ( anchorpoint/ position ) when moving the key frames ?
i will try anyway! so thanks

but still, looking for solution to resize your comp without that it automaticly takes the middle of the comp.
Would be nice as in Photoshop, to choose how to crop / resize, to do it with handles, not automaticly

[cutter]

As far as I know that "Photoshop solution" that you wish for doesn't exist, unfortunately. If you attach all precomps to a null you can scale the null and the precomps will all scale accordingly without losing their animations and relative positions. You don't need to change any keyframes. At least that worked for me when I needed to upscale a large After Effects project with over 200 comps (working in the other direction compared to your problem)...

However I think I misunderstood your problem: Were you trying to resize several precomps (not the master comp)? Then I fear you will have to resize and reposition the seperate precomps using the null trick. After that you will have to painstakingly repair the master comp so your ancor points, scales and positions work again. You could also use nulls and expressions in the master comp to reposition the precomps. That way you can avoid messing up keyframes. However you can also select multiple keyframes, position the CTI on one of them and shift all their values - this is a lot riskier though and I wouldn't recommend.

[david walsh]

It is quite tricky to get what you mean, but if I'm on the right track this should work.

Create a new comp, the size you want to crop to (am I right in thinking this would be the same size as your main Comp?). Put your Pre-Comp in there and position it to suit. Then put your new Comp in your main Comp.

David.

[cutter]

It is quite tricky to get what you mean, but if I'm on the right track this should work.

Create a new comp, the size you want to crop to (am I right in thinking this would be the same size as your main Comp?). Put your Pre-Comp in there and position it to suit. Then put your new Comp in your main Comp.

David.

I suspect that the render error can't be fixed this way if the problematic precomp keeps its size (behind the new cropping comp).
Otherwise this would clearly be the best solution.

[david walsh]

Thanks, I just re-read from the start and I see now. Sorry I can't help with the targeted crop question, but something still doesn't seem right.

Does After Effects really create the full alpha data that isn't going to be used for each layer? On export it renders each layer individually before putting together the composite, and to do this it seems like it must need to read the full data for large images in layers, whether in or outside the Comp size area. But it doesn't create anything that isn't going to be used, that's what doesn't feel right about how it deals with blank space in Pre-Comps. Surely it's only the size (or resulting size due to scale/effect adjustments) of the images within the Pre-Comp that would cause this error.

I could well be wrong on this and would love confirmation either way, but blank space probably isn't where I would look. The first place is in the Memory and Cache Settings. If you haven't tried it already enabling disc cache might just make the difference you need.

David.