Animation Woes
Tastiger
Posts: 76
Recently I have been doing a fair bit of animation for use in debunking videos on YouTube, however I am finding Carrara to be very frustrating, I setup the animation and run the simulation no problems, however when I actually render the simulation, I can't seem to get the avi to actually show up, there is simply no output, Carrara tells me the animation is done but all I have is a blank screen where the animation should be, I have had some success by only rendering portions of the animation one at a time (20 min video rendered in 2 minute segments and then joined), but the problem seems to have gotten worse, as an example, yesterday as a test I tried rendering the included solar system sim, which is about 58 seconds - the result was no output after render. So this morning I tried rendering the first 30 seconds but alas same story - no output despite 34 minutes of watching it render each frame.
I am at loss as to why it won't produce avi's, I have the settings at uncompressed avi, 1920 x 1080 72dpi. Is it my resolution (which is full HD) or could it be something has happened to the codecs?
It's very frustrating, I'm running Carrara 8.5 latest update on an ntel Core i7-4790 @ 3.60 GHz, 32 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760,
Windows 10 Pro X64
Update just tried to run the first 20 seconds of the Solar System sim and it appears to finish but is still showing 1 frame left to render?????
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Comments
I am afraid I am out of my depth. Others here will chime in with answers more directly to your questions.
In the meantime, I encourage you to also reach out to the good folks a carrarators, whic is a site dedicated to people who render animations with Carrara. Check back here for other expert replies, but see Carrarators in the meantime.
http://bond3d.wixsite.com/carrarators
I have not had this problem, but a couple of thoughts.
A 20 minute video in uncompressed AVI format at 1920x1080 will be a huge file, but I dunno if that's a problem.
When I "Save As ...", the avi file starts out in the DAZ TMP folder, i.e. Steve/My Documents/DAZ/DAZ TMP. (See attached screenshot) Then I pick my work folder and save it there.. Have you looked in the DAZ TMP folder?
I'm not an expert either, but I seem to remember that there was a thread about this (couldn't find it of course). There's a problem with saving AVI's. Try exporting numbered jpegs and then assembling them into an AVI.
Also, you might try one of the sequenced image formats, like "Sequenced JPG", which most folks recommend anyway vs. avi. Then create the video in your video editor - most will import sequenced images.
Well - seems like I answered my own question - I knocked back the resoltion to 1280 x720 @ 34dpi - seems as if it has some issues @ 72 dpi - not sure why.....
I did a quick upload and 34 dpi looks OK on my 55" HD TV, so looks as if that is it, not quite as crisp as my Poser videos rendered @ 72 dpi though.
Would be interested to here from others though and their experiences..
Yea - did that but same story a blank file...
Even rendering in 2 minute segments would make big files and very lengthy movie scenes .I have rendered at 300dpi to avi but only with short scenes of a few seconds. 30 seconds would be a long scene for me. I dont think you could ever render a 20 MINUTE movie in one go so breaking down into short scenes is the right thing and as others have suggested,assemble the clips in your video editing software [mine is Magix ] .
Do yo have the same problem with just a few seconds - say 5 or 6 - rendering ?
A video that long could be part of the issue, and the other could be the AVI video codec. I assume you are using Carrara 8.5 Pro? That would be 64 bit. If the codec is 32 bit that could be the problem. As has been pointed out, render to an image sequence and then compile that for editing. If you need alphas, render to a sequenced .png, or another format that supports alpha channels and that your video editor supports.
As someone with experience editing video, I kind of wonder why you aren't breaking your shots up? I know even with practical, real world video, a 20 minute video without edits, cut-aways, angle changes, etc. would be visually really, really boring. With the advent of digital editing, clips have tended to get shorter between edits. However, if you go back and watch movies made when they still had to edit film by hand, they still edited it so that the clip was relatively short before switching to another clip.
Hi Tastiger
In the Output settings,. in the 'File Name' section,. there's an option to select "Named file",. this is normally set to "Default file name" .
When you select (named file) carrrara opens a window where you can browse to a location and type a file name for your clip. .. (See pic)
If you leave it at the default settings,. Carrara will create the output file in the DazTmp folder.
Users/Documents/Daz3D/DazTmp.
check there for your AVI's.
NOTE: Carrara doesn't delete crashed scene files (.compo) which should be deleted manually, often.
those are all saved in the DazTmp folder,. so it's a good to occasionally clear that out to avoid a build-up of trash.
Set your render res to 72,. and the IMAGE size to 1080 or 720,.
As others suggest,. rendering to a sequenced set of "frames" is a much better option for editing and compositing,. and much easier to deal with re rendering sections or single frames if needed.
AVI's can be seriously big files without compression,. and when you use a codec you're loosing quality,.
rendering as png or jpg is a better option
also agree with EvilProducer,. render out small sections or sequences,. rather than trying to render a single shot movie
You can also load your source video into carrara as a Scene/ Background, (uncompressed AVI) . which will fit it into your Camera's production frame, so you can add 3D objects in the scene and render out the composited frames.
hope it helps :)
I always do image series and combine with virtualdub as avi is fraught with issues esp in the 64 bit
_And there are Professional quality Video editors for Free_ thanks