Separate UI and Render Threads
This release of After Effects includes major architectural changes to separate the UI (main) thread from the render thread.
These changes are to improve interactive performance and responsiveness. At the same time, the new design introduces some new requirements and may break assumptions that existing plug-ins relied on. See the What's New docs for testing and troubleshooting tips.
The Need For More Efficient Sequence Data Handling
Starting in 13.5, as effect changes are made, serializing/flattening happens even more often. Why? AE needs to serialize/flatten project changes to send from the UI thread to the render thread, to keep them both synchronized. To optimize, a new selector, PF_Cmd_GET_FLATTENED_SEQUENCE_DATA, has been introduced.
On a Mac, this is as easy as holding 'CTRL+CMD+P+R' during boot up. For PC users, the process to do depends on the motherboard brand. More often than not, the option to do so can be found in the motherboard's BIOS settings, which can be accessed by clicking the key displayed in the BIOS Access Prompt (usually the first thing on-screen. Download trial Media Encoder. Rock solid rendering. Ingest, transcode, create proxies, and output to almost any format you can imagine. Automate your workflows with presets, Watch Folders, and Destination Publishing. Use Time Tuner to invisibly adjust duration, and apply LUTs and Loudness corrections without having to re-open projects.
Changes to Caching of Rendered Frames
The new function GuidMixInPtr() allows an effect to mix any additional state that affects the render into AE's internal GUID for the cached frame. We recommend reducing usage of PF_OutFlag_FORCE_RERENDER where possible, and instead triggering re-renders using GuidMixInPtr(), arb data, or PF_ChangeFlag_CHANGED_VALUE.
FORCE_RERENDER is still needed for certain situations where sequence_data needs to be copied from the UI thread to the render project/effect clone to keep them matched.
Request Frames Asynchronously Without Blocking the UI
For cases where frame requests were formerly triggered by side-effect or cancelled implicity (such as custom UI histogram drawing), and lifetime is less clear from inside the plug-in, use the new 'Async Manager' which can handle multiple simultaneous async requests for effect Custom UI. A new sample, HistoGrid, demonstrates its usage.
Get Rendered Output of an Effect from its UI
Effects such as keyers or those that draw histograms of post-processed video can retrieve the needed AEGP_LayerRenderOptionsH using the new function AEGP_NewFromDownstreamOfEffect() in AEGP_LayerRenderOptionsSuite. This function may only be called from the UI thread.
AEGP Usage on Render Thread
We've tightened validation of when AEGP calls could be used dangerously (such as from the wrong thread or making a change to the project state in render). You may see new errors if code is hitting such cases. The solution is to move these calls to the UI thread.
PF_Cmd_SEQUENCE_RESETUP Called on UI or Render Thread
There is now a PF_InFlag_PROJECT_IS_RENDER_ONLY flag that is only valid in PF_Cmd_SEQUENCE_RESETUP that will tell you if the effect instance is for render-only purposes. This can be used to optimize away any UI-only initialization that render does not need.
Changes to Avoid Deadlocks
During development, it was noticed that deadlocks could occur in specific call usage. Seatbelts have been introduced to avoid this. See the What's New docs for details.
Deprecated
AEGP_RenderAndCheckoutFrame() (on the UI Thread). This call should generally not be used on the UI thread since synchronous renders block interactivity.
After Effects Aegp Plugin
Miscellaneous
Support for Effect Version up to 127
New Installer Hints for MacOS
PF_CreateNewAppProgressDialog() - new in CC 2014 (13.1)
See the section What's New in CC 2015, in chapter 1 of the After_Effects_SDK_Guide.pdf, for more in-depth information on the changes above.
Today Adobe Media Encoder CC suddenly stopped working and I was unable to render my After Effects projects (.aep) with Adobe Media Encoder CC. Whenever I had tried to access Adobe Media Encoder CC, it simply didn't open at all.
Fix Adobe Media Encoder CC Not Opening Error
There is a bug in Adobe Media Encoder CC, and it can be fixed by removing a file named as 'X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc' from SLCache folder as shown in the following path.
Open the file (C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeSLCacheX19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc) in any text editor, delete all of the contents, save it, and set the file to read-only.
Easy way to do it, create a new .txt document, paste the following commands into that .txt file and save it as a batch file with .bat file extension. Now whenever you will run Adobe Media Encoder CC, the file 'X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc' will be automatically removed. If you had set the file as read-only in the above mentioned method, please make sure to uncheck read-only box before using the following batch file.
The Need For More Efficient Sequence Data Handling
Starting in 13.5, as effect changes are made, serializing/flattening happens even more often. Why? AE needs to serialize/flatten project changes to send from the UI thread to the render thread, to keep them both synchronized. To optimize, a new selector, PF_Cmd_GET_FLATTENED_SEQUENCE_DATA, has been introduced.
On a Mac, this is as easy as holding 'CTRL+CMD+P+R' during boot up. For PC users, the process to do depends on the motherboard brand. More often than not, the option to do so can be found in the motherboard's BIOS settings, which can be accessed by clicking the key displayed in the BIOS Access Prompt (usually the first thing on-screen. Download trial Media Encoder. Rock solid rendering. Ingest, transcode, create proxies, and output to almost any format you can imagine. Automate your workflows with presets, Watch Folders, and Destination Publishing. Use Time Tuner to invisibly adjust duration, and apply LUTs and Loudness corrections without having to re-open projects.
Changes to Caching of Rendered Frames
The new function GuidMixInPtr() allows an effect to mix any additional state that affects the render into AE's internal GUID for the cached frame. We recommend reducing usage of PF_OutFlag_FORCE_RERENDER where possible, and instead triggering re-renders using GuidMixInPtr(), arb data, or PF_ChangeFlag_CHANGED_VALUE.
FORCE_RERENDER is still needed for certain situations where sequence_data needs to be copied from the UI thread to the render project/effect clone to keep them matched.
Request Frames Asynchronously Without Blocking the UI
For cases where frame requests were formerly triggered by side-effect or cancelled implicity (such as custom UI histogram drawing), and lifetime is less clear from inside the plug-in, use the new 'Async Manager' which can handle multiple simultaneous async requests for effect Custom UI. A new sample, HistoGrid, demonstrates its usage.
Get Rendered Output of an Effect from its UI
Effects such as keyers or those that draw histograms of post-processed video can retrieve the needed AEGP_LayerRenderOptionsH using the new function AEGP_NewFromDownstreamOfEffect() in AEGP_LayerRenderOptionsSuite. This function may only be called from the UI thread.
AEGP Usage on Render Thread
We've tightened validation of when AEGP calls could be used dangerously (such as from the wrong thread or making a change to the project state in render). You may see new errors if code is hitting such cases. The solution is to move these calls to the UI thread.
PF_Cmd_SEQUENCE_RESETUP Called on UI or Render Thread
There is now a PF_InFlag_PROJECT_IS_RENDER_ONLY flag that is only valid in PF_Cmd_SEQUENCE_RESETUP that will tell you if the effect instance is for render-only purposes. This can be used to optimize away any UI-only initialization that render does not need.
Changes to Avoid Deadlocks
During development, it was noticed that deadlocks could occur in specific call usage. Seatbelts have been introduced to avoid this. See the What's New docs for details.
Deprecated
AEGP_RenderAndCheckoutFrame() (on the UI Thread). This call should generally not be used on the UI thread since synchronous renders block interactivity.
After Effects Aegp Plugin
Miscellaneous
Support for Effect Version up to 127
New Installer Hints for MacOS
PF_CreateNewAppProgressDialog() - new in CC 2014 (13.1)
See the section What's New in CC 2015, in chapter 1 of the After_Effects_SDK_Guide.pdf, for more in-depth information on the changes above.
Today Adobe Media Encoder CC suddenly stopped working and I was unable to render my After Effects projects (.aep) with Adobe Media Encoder CC. Whenever I had tried to access Adobe Media Encoder CC, it simply didn't open at all.
Fix Adobe Media Encoder CC Not Opening Error
There is a bug in Adobe Media Encoder CC, and it can be fixed by removing a file named as 'X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc' from SLCache folder as shown in the following path.
Open the file (C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeSLCacheX19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc) in any text editor, delete all of the contents, save it, and set the file to read-only.
Easy way to do it, create a new .txt document, paste the following commands into that .txt file and save it as a batch file with .bat file extension. Now whenever you will run Adobe Media Encoder CC, the file 'X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc' will be automatically removed. If you had set the file as read-only in the above mentioned method, please make sure to uncheck read-only box before using the following batch file.
del 'C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeSLCacheX19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw.slc'
Aegp Plugin Aedynamiclinkserver Download Mac Installer
start 'AME' 'C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe Media Encoder CCAdobe Media Encoder.exe'
After Effects Aegp Plugin Aedynamiclinkserver
This way your Adobe Media Encoder CC will be fixed and you will be able to start working on it normally. Are you also facing the similar bug? Follow the method mentioned above and I am sure it will fix your issue. Let me know in the comments section below. 🙂
