1. After Effects Playback Is Choppy
2. After Effects Playback Error

1. Looping video in After Effects is a useful way of making a repeating pattern with footage or animation. What’s also helpful about looping is that you don’t need to have several layers or keep copying and pasting a clip to drag it out.
2. Each layer on your timeline is an element After Effects needs to prepare for playback. The more straightforward this information is for your device to interpret, the better quality playback you will see. Rendering the process your computer does to prepare your composition for playback.

Adobe After Effects Tutorial: Previewing footage in After Effects. Media that has been imported into a project is often called footage. You can preview footage by using the Footage panel, which is one of the panels hidden by default. You can easily display the Footage panel by choosing Window Footage: (none).

This tutorial is on the different options to play (preview or playback) your composition in After Effects. I’ll show you how to do a RAM Preview, how to preview just the audio, some keyboard shortcuts and more.

By the way, big announcement below! Mac for less. Keep reading after the tutorial!!

Recapping Tutorial on How to Play a Composition in After Effects

There’s a number of ways to play a composition but to get started in After Effects you really only need to know two: RAM Preview and Preview Audio Only.

You would think that just hitting the spacebar that After Effects would play your composition like normal (just like every other video program) but it doesn’t 🙄. Civilization 5 for mac steam. So what do we do?

First, open or find the Preview panel. If you can’t find it go up to the Window menu and find Preview. The keyboard shortcut is Command+3 if you’re on a Mac or Control+3 if you’re on a PC. In the Preview panel I really like to have From Current Time checked. This plays the composition from the time position indicator, not from the very start of the comp. From Current Time may be different in later versions of After Effects.

Note: In AE CC 2017 “From Current Time” is now the “Play From” dropdown

There may be other options you’ll want to eventually explore in the Preview panel such as changing the RAM Preview button but to get started in After Effects the only thing you might want to change is the Play From option.

RAM Preview

To preform a RAM Preview hit the zero (0) key on the number pad. The zero (o) key on the top row numbers (the ones above the letters) does something else. Alternatively you can click the RAM Preview button in the Preview panel.

You’ll see the green bar at the time of the timeline start to fill. If you wait long enough, or if you have enough RAM in your computer, the entire composition will load green and After Effects will play your composition. If you don’t have enough RAM, After Effects will load as much as possible into your RAM and start to play when there’s no more room.

Instead of waiting for the entire composition to load or if you just need to play a small section, hit the zero (0) key again on the number pad and your composition will start to play.

Play Audio Only in After Effects

To play just the audio hit the period / decimal point (.) on the number pad. Hitting the period key in the regular keyboard, the key next to the comma, will do something else. This takes no time at all and begins playing right away.

Below are useful links related to the tutorial:

Announcement!: The Command+Edit Podcast

HEY! I’ve been working on this secret project for the past few months. I haven’t announced it anywhere but on Twitter and now right here. If you’re reading this then I know you’d be interested in it. It’s a podcast about video editing and life. It’s me and another editor, Nick, unfiltered and talking about all the struggles and successes about life as a video editor. Anyway, we JUST went live on iTunes. I’d absolutely love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. The link is below. I’m going to have a ton more about this soon. Give it a listen! Please?

Reach out to me if you have any questions on this tutorial or anything else After Effects, motion graphics, video or post production-related. I’m here to help you emotionally, mentally and technically as a video editor.

• Video can be exported with the After Effects Render Queue or with Adobe Media Encoder.
• Video with a transparent layer needs to be exported with an alpha channel.

After Effects

Export with the Render Queue

1. Select the composition in the Project Window
2. Go to File > Export > Add to Render Queue.
3. In the Render Queue window change the Outfit Module by clicking on Lossless.
4. For Format choose Quicktime.
5. In Video Output set channels to RGB for regular video. For a video with an alpha channel choose RGB + Alpha.
6. Click Format Options and choose Apple ProRes 422 (LT) for regular video and or Apple ProRes 4444 for an alpha channel.
7. The Audio Output setting defaults to Auto. Audio will only be exported if the composition has audio. Audio can also be set to on or off.
8. Click OK
9. Set the out put destination by click on the composition name next to Output To. Browse to your folder and click OK
10. Click Render in the top right corner to start to exporting the video.

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Export with Adobe Media Encoder

1. Select the composition in the Project Window
2. Go to File > Export > Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue.
3. Adobe Media Encoder will open with the composition added to the Queue.
4. To change the preset drag the desired preset on top of the default preset.
5. * Use 1920 Screening ProRes 422 LT for regular video.
6. For an alpha channel use CCAM ProRes 4444 Playback.
   1. Click on the CCAM ProRes 4444 Playback setting in the Queue to open the settings.
   2. The Video Codec should be Apple Pro Res 444.
   3. Set the Render at Maximum Depth setting to 16-bpc + Alpha.
   4. Click OK
7. Click the text in the Output File column to set the export location. Browse to your folder and click Save
8. Click the green play button in the top right corner to start to exporting the video.

After Effects Playback Is Choppy

• Note: Always export the file to the local computer, watch the export and then copy your file onto the server after it is finished.

After Effects Playback Error