Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 131

Use standard preview
Standard preview (commonly called spacebar play) plays video in the active Composition, Layer, or Footage panel
from the current time. Standard previews play at a speed as close to that of real time as possible; however, for complex
compositions, the speed of the preview may be much less than that of real time.
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Click the Play button
Use RAM preview
RAM preview allocates RAM to play video and audio in the Timeline, Layer, or Footage panel in real time. The
number of frames that can be stored for real-time playback depends on the amount of RAM available to the appli-
cation and the settings in the Time Controls panel.
In the Time Controls panel, you can specify two sets of RAM preview options: RAM Preview Options and
Shift+RAM Preview Options. For example, you may decide to set RAM Preview Options for full frame rate and full
resolution, and set Shift+RAM Preview Options to skip one out of every two frames and preview at half resolution.
In the Layer and Footage panels, RAM previews play untrimmed footage.
To modify RAM preview options, click the RAM Preview Options menu in the center of the Time Controls panel
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and choose RAM Preview Options or Shift+RAM Preview Options. You can change any of the following:
Include or exclude audio from RAM preview.
Mute Audio
Choose Auto to use the composition frame rate.
Frame Rate
The number of frames to skip between each rendered frame. Choose 0 to render all frames.
Skip
Choose Auto to use the composition resolution.
Resolution
Select From Current Time to play from the current time; otherwise, RAM Preview will play the
From Current Time
work area or from the beginning of the composition, layer, or footage item.
Play RAM preview at the full size of the composition, layer, or footage item on a screen that is the
Full Screen
background color. You can change the panel's background color using the User Interface Brightness control in User
Interface Colors preferences.
Do one of the following:
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• To preview using RAM Preview Options, click the RAM Preview button
0 (zero) on the numeric keypad.
• To preview using Shift+RAM Preview Options, Shift-click the RAM Preview button
panel or press Shift+0 (zero) on the numeric keypad.
Press the asterisk key (*) on the numeric keypad during a RAM preview to place a layer marker on the selected layers
at the currently previewed frame. This is a convenient way to place markers corresponding to important points in an
audio track.
Note: The performance of RAM previews performed with the Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously preference
selected may be decreased if antivirus software is running. (See "Render multiple frames simultaneously" on page 36.)
Save a RAM preview as a movie
After Effects can save RAM previews as uncompressed AVI files (Windows) or MOV files (Mac OS). When saving
a RAM preview, keep the following in mind:
• After Effects uses the composition frame size and resolution setting to determine the final dimension in pixels of
a saved RAM preview. It doesn't consider the zoom level.
in the Time Controls panel, or press the spacebar.
AFTER EFFECTS CS3
in the Time Controls panel or press
in the Time Controls
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User Guide