HitFilm uses GPU acceleration and intelligent caching to maximize performance across a wide range of hardware. However, some intensive visual effects will always be too complex to render in real time.
Proxying creates a full quality, pre-rendered version of a composite shot or video asset, providing faster performance. This is particularly useful when using embedded composite shots or using composite shots on the editor, as you can maintain fast performance.
You can adjust proxy storage and render settings in Options.
Creating Proxies
To create a proxy, right-click an asset in the Media panel and choose Make Proxy from the asset’s menu. You can also choose Make Proxy from a layer’s menu on a timeline.
This progress wheel indicates how far along the process of creating a proxy has come.
This play icon replaces the progress wheel when the proxy is complete, and indicates a completed proxy is ready for use in playing back that asset.
Proxying is carried out in the background, so that you can keep on working while proxies are created. You can keep track of proxies in the Processor panel, which can be turned on in the workspaces menu.
Once a proxy is complete it will be used in place of the original on all timelines. This also enables a composite shot to display frame thumbnails on the editor timeline.
Invalidating Proxies
Making any changes in a proxied composite shot will cause the proxy to be invalidated. Therefore it is best to use the proxying system once you have finished work on a composite shot, or when you do not expect to be making regular changes.