David Sander Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 I've encountered what may be little bit of a bug with Renderama and I'm wondering if there's a way to address it or if it's something outside user control. I'm rendering multiple passes for animations running at 25fps, some of which exceed the malignant 2Gb limit and must be brought in as frame sequences (after tediously converting from image files to TGA as After Effects will not recognise EI frame sequences), others stitch to a single .img file. When the stitched final .img file is brought into After Effects Pro (CS5), the frame rate is interpreted as 26.087fps, which is ... unexpected. When I scrub through the animation, I am finding what could be considered duplicate frames. If I adjust the frame rate to 25fps in AEP, the duplicate frames crop up elsewhere in the timeline, which adds a regular 'tic' to otherwise smooth motion. The duration of the clip when first brought in is correct, so adjusting the frame rate causes separate passes to slip out of sync because of consequent alteration to duration (when you decrease the frame rate, the length of the clip increases). In one other job, there even appears to be frames that have been stitched out of order. These problems have now cropped up in three separate jobs, which is beginning to become a problem. Are these problems something I should be thinking are coming from Renderama's stitching process, or is there something else potentially awry? Animating/Renderama EIAS 8.0.0 on Apple Mac Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5, OSX 10.4.11, 4Gb RAM Rendering on Apple Mac Pro 2 x 2.93GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon, OSX 10.6.6, 32Gb RAM, with 7 renderers (using 7 of the 8 processors available). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livewire_scott Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 I'm rendering multiple passes for animations running at 25fps, some of which exceed the malignant 2Gb limit and must be brought in as frame sequences (after tediously converting from image files to TGA as After Effects will not recognise EI frame sequences), others stitch to a single .img file. When the stitched final .img file is brought into After Effects Pro (CS5), the frame rate is interpreted as 26.087fps, which is ... unexpected. When I scrub through the animation, I am finding what could be considered duplicate frames. If I adjust the frame rate to 25fps in AEP, the duplicate frames crop up elsewhere in the timeline, which adds a regular 'tic' to otherwise smooth motion. The duration of the clip when first brought in is correct, so adjusting the frame rate causes separate passes to slip out of sync because of consequent alteration to duration (when you decrease the frame rate, the length of the clip increases). Are these problems something I should be thinking are coming from Renderama's stitching process, or is there something else potentially awry? When your Camera(s) finish, do you have the expected number of images that match your frame count in EIAS? If so, then I suspect the conversion process. My method is to open up the rendered .img's in Quicktime Pro as an image sequence and convert from there- usually to a Quicktime movie, animation codec, lossless with alpha, which AE can read just find. Set the frame rate to 25fps in Quicktime Pro Player, then re-interpret in AE if you need to. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 Ola, “I've encountered what may be little bit of a bug with Renderama and I'm wondering if there's a way to address it or if it's something outside user control. I'm rendering multiple passes for animations running at 25fps, some of which exceed the malignant 2Gb limit and must be brought in as frame sequences (after tediously converting from image files to TGA as After Effects will not recognise EI frame sequences), others stitch to a single .img file. When the stitched final .img file is brought into After Effects Pro (CS5), the frame rate is interpreted as 26.087fps, which is ... unexpected. When I scrub through the animation, I am finding what could be considered duplicate frames. If I adjust the frame rate to 25fps in AEP, the duplicate frames crop up elsewhere in the timeline, which adds a regular 'tic' to otherwise smooth motion. The duration of the clip when first brought in is correct, so adjusting the frame rate causes separate passes to slip out of sync because of consequent alteration to duration (when you decrease the frame rate, the length of the clip increases).†- We dont know Why, But After Effects CS5 is not reading .img sequence, I sent yesterday a Bug report to Adobe. You will need to pay attention when you are converting to have your sequences imported as “25 fps†and your AEffects Composition as “25 fps†when you are converting to TGA, otherwise, will not match. Btw: EIAS Quicktime plug-in to Quicktime Pro is the best option like Scott wrote. “In one other job, there even appears to be frames that have been stitched out of order. These problems have now cropped up in three separate jobs, which is beginning to become a problem. Are these problems something I should be thinking are coming from Renderama's stitching process, or is there something else potentially away?†- This is an old bug from Renderama which we are aware but its really hard to catch, if you make a really simple project which can reproduce it, we will be really glad squash it. Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Sander Posted January 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 - This is an old bug from Renderama which we are aware but its really hard to catch, if you make a really simple project which can reproduce it, we will be really glad squash it. Thanks Tom Hi Tom, A non-disclosure agreement prevents me from sending the actual project, but when I have a project that presents the problem I'll be sure to send it through. Thanks! David Ola, - We dont know Why, But After Effects CS5 is not reading .img sequence, I sent yesterday a Bug report to Adobe. Thanks - much appreciated. You will need to pay attention when you are converting to have your sequences imported as “25 fps†and your AEffects Composition as “25 fps†when you are converting to TGA, otherwise, will not match. Btw: EIAS Quicktime plug-in to Quicktime Pro is the best option like Scott wrote. Yeah, it really does look like that's the best option (or converting IMAGE to DPX or TGA via GraphicConvert), rather than trusting Renderama to stitch properly. Are there any plans to work out a way to enable IMAGE files to exceed 2Gb? I'm doing cinema work at the moment and it's not hard to create sequences that are bigger than 2Gb... David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 Ola, Camera render PNG sequences when you render directly to Camera (which exceed 2GB limit), but Renderma is not rendering PNG sequences with slaves (its not a implemented feature yet). Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interstellar Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 Are there any plans to work out a way to enable IMAGE files to exceed 2Gb? I'm doing cinema work at the moment and it's not hard to create sequences that are bigger than 2Gb... David Hi David, I have a work-around which will save your rendered project even when it results in an Image file that is over 2 Gb. My work-around always worked with EIAS v6.5; I haven't had to use it yet in EIAS v8 with my Mac Pro but if Renderama v8 operates like v6.5, this will work. After Renderama stitches a file that is over 2Gb, it still saves the sequence of individual "img" files in the Renderama Jobs Output folder (the Renderama Jobs folder is in the EIAS8 folder). Let's assume Renderama has produced a 2.5 Gb Image file. First, you quit Renderama, throw the 2.5Gb Image file into the trash and delete it. When you restart Renderama, you'll see that your project is still in the queue in "Waiting" mode. Hitting Renderama's "Go" button will start the stitching process again. Let the re-stitching process begin but carefully watch the size of your Image file. When it approaches a size of 2Gb, quit Renderama. Actually, you start quitting Renderama when your Image file gets to about 1.7 Gb because Renderama reacts VERY slowly to commands when it is stitching! After Renderama has fully quit, rename the resulting file; open this file in After Effects and see how many frames it contains. For example, let's say it has 300 frames. You should now go to "EIAS8/Renderama Jobs" folders, open both the "Output" and "Control" folders and delete the first 300 files in each of these two folders. When you restart Renderama again, it will once again show your project in "Waiting" mode. Click the "Go" button in Renderama and it will once again start stitching your project but this time it will start stitching at frame 301. When Renderama has finished this second re-stitch, you'll have two Image files that are both under the 2Gb limit; these can be pulled into After Effects and set back-to-back in the Timeline. It is crucial that you rename your first re-stitched file; otherwise Renderama will simply copy over it during the second re-stitching process! This is a great way to rescue a big project that may have taken days to render and your client wants immediately! Joe T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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