most efficient pipeline for rendering large documents in after effects

Question

I've been making a lot of videos using multi-page A4 size PDFs in AE. What's the most efficient way to do this? The renders take a while. Things I've tried:

1) Split PDF to 1 file per page 2) Convert to PNG? Or jpg? (which is more efficient?) At high dpi (like 600 dpi so I can zoom in nicely on them). 3) Paper texture beneath, then pre comp then parent all the pre-comps together so I can scroll up and down.

I think this is faster and looks as good as Collapse Transformations on a PDF file layer, but I'm not sure.

Final output is HD 25fps - turnaround time on the videos is an issue, so any speed up would be welcome!

Any advice welcomed - some examples of the videos below:

Answer 1

I believe that using pngs from the pdf is the best compromise between quality and speed. Your main concern being the render-time? If so, (I am sure you have, but just to be sure) have you checked if you're using Hardware-acceleration? You should also purge your cache frequently and have both the footage as well as your cache-directory as well as the project files on a fast medium, like an ssd.

I'm not certain with how familiar you are with those standard optimization techniques, so I'm just throwing this out there. If there's a different problem, please elaborate.