#Targas Won't Load
23 messages in this thread
Nik,
I did try loading other .tga's and I have no problem with single .tga's. The
.tga's which won't load into AAS were generated by 3DS and there are about 300
of them in the series. They are all compressed .tgas. When I try to open them,
the process continues until about 39% is completed and then I get the "internal
error" message.
I copied about 30 of the targas into another directory and tried loading them
and they all loaded fine. I'm wondering if one of them is corrupted but they
were all generated in the same 3DS rendering job and they all went into the PAR
just fine. I don't know how I could send all 300 targas to you for testing.
I'm going to try to re-render the entire series again tonite and I'll try
loading them again in the morning.
Alec Jason
Alec,
You've probably checked this already, but make sure you have a large enough
(permanent)swap file. A swap file that is too small can cause internal errors.
Jh
Jeremy,
I think you might be right. I did increase my swap file to 100megs and I got
further in the loading process before the "internal error." (I don't know if
this matters but Windows only allows me to have a temporary swapfile because it
tells me that I don't have a "13h" hard drive. Is this something I need to
fix?)
Alec Jason
Alec,
Hmm….that's an intersting one. I've never run across a 13h problem before.
Out of curiosity, how big is the entire file?
Jh
Jeremy,
<< How big is the entire file? >>
There are about 300 targas (752×480). I'd like to know how much swapfile/RAM
one would require to load that many targas.
Alec Jason
Alec,
I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but WOW! You will need ALOT of
swap space to load those files. It's just the nature of the beast. (Try loading
this many files, at once, into another paint package!)
Animator Studio will load in each file one by one into RAM (physical or
virtual). If it runs out, which I'm sure it is in your case, then you will get
Animator Studio's graceful way of not crashing("Internal Error"). After all,
each file is probably about 1Mb. This means you'll need about 350Mb of RAM just
to load the suckers. Sad, but true.
If you must work with this resolution, your best bet is to work with it in
small segments(maybe about 75 to 100 each). Hope this helps. Good luck…
Jh
Jeremy,
Thanks for your response. I understand what is happening now. So, I can't load
an animation segment that large. Loading in small segments of a long animation
means I would have to identify the frames I need, rename them, load them in to
AAS, do my work, save them, and rename them again.
Hmmmmmm. . . . . AAS is becoming less and less useful the more I learn about
it. I thought and hoped that AAS would be an updated AAP but I realize now that
it isn't and can never be such a thing.
What this means to me is that I have to go back to .flc's so I can use AAP for
final editing, titling, and compositing for forensic use.
Thanks for your help.
Alec Jason
Alec,
I'm sorry to see it won't work out like you had planned. I wouldn't give up on
Animator Studio, though. There are still several effects you can do with
Animator Studio to use with 3DS and AAPRO, that neither can do or do easily.
I personally use AAS to do 24 bit animated textures. Try engraving something
into a 3D nameplate using sequential .TGA's created by signing your name in
AAS!(Way cool!)
Until the processing power(P7<g>) is there, AAS won't be able to handle large
segment video resolution .TGA files. This is probably a bad comparison, but my
only defense on performance with 300 files is to try loading those things into
some other paint package-all 300 of 'em. I'd be willing to bet most packages
would croak after about 20. It's not an excuse, just plain facts. Hopefully we
can find a way to load in several files at once without eating so much
resources.
Jh
Jeremy,
I'm not complaining about AAS, just facing the facts. It is pretty nifty and as
you pointed out, it can be pretty useful. But, as I've been saying, I really
wanted an updated, 24 bit, Animator Pro and I had talked myself into believing
that AAS would be a new, improved AAP.
<< Until the processing power is there (P7), AAS won't be able to handle large
video resolution .TGA files >>
Seems nutty to me that AAS won't work with the PAR (.ani files) – especially in
view of the PAR's popularity around here.
Thanks for your help on all this.
Alec Jason
Alec,
I think several people were expecting that. Might be the reason for some of the
complaints I've seen around here. In any case, I'll pass along your comments to
the development team.
Jh
<<I personally use AAS to do 24 bit animated textures. Try engraving something
into a 3D nameplate using sequential .TGA's created by signing your name in
AAS!(Way cool!)>>
Jeremy,
Could you elaborate on this please???
Will
Will,
Well, actually, it's pretty simple. Anytime I need a animated(or static)
texture map that's 24 bit, I animate it in AAS. AAS has the ability to save out
sequential still files like .TGA, so that's how the animation is saved.
Next, in 3DS, I specify in the "MAP" file slot the sequentially numbered .TGAs
I just created(ie. ANIM*.TGA). And we're off. Works great for bump maps,
opacity maps, anything requiring an animated texture or surface.
Is this what you were looking for?
Jh
PMJI, and I'm not trying to be contentious here, just curious: it's my
understanding that a product like Razor does what people are expecting of AS —
namely, load and process enormous quantities of TGA images without crashing
(the specs on Razor suggest that even with 16 meg the program will be happy).
Are they simply using a different technology, or something? (Note: I'm not
talking about using a PAR drive with Razor — that is optional).
Personally I wouldn't care if AS couldn't display full screen true color
animations at any speed — but I would want it to be able to process those
frames (for single frame recording later). From what I read, I can't even do
that.
<<Personally I wouldn't care if AS couldn't display full screen true color
animations at any speed — but I would want it to be able to process those
frames (for single frame recording later). From what I read, I can't even do
that.
I would like to second this. I find it so easy to use a par to look at
animations that I never make FLCs or AVIs. I was looking foward to getting AS
but the diffulcty with lots of files has stopped me. Massive swap files dosnt
seem like the optimum solution.
Ed
<<massive swap files doesn't seem lik ethe optimum solution>> Exactly. Razor,
Elastic Reality and Painter3 have each addressed this problem in their own way,
specific to that software's functionality. I need to load full res graphics and
manipulate them with a certain degree of crisp tool response. If I can't get
certain functions from one software, then I'll use it in tandem with other
software – but that means that each software I do use has to do what it does
very very very well. I'm clearly not looking for a multi-media toy to entertain
my enemies with thumbnail vid-clips of a beach ball bouncing off my mother's
intellect. Jeffrey
Mike,
By process(in Razor), what do you mean? Splicing, transitions, what? Animator
Studio loads entire sequences so you can paint on them over time. Right now,
the only way to do this is by loading them into RAM.
Jh
>By process(in Razor), what do you mean? Splicing, transitions, what?
Clearly, Razor is not a paint program. However, just like the line between
Desk Top Publishing programs and Word Processors is blurry, there is quite a
blur between AS and what I read about Razor.
Razor does blue screen composition, wipes, fades, picture in picture
(compositing apparently four or more layers of images at once.) Obviously
there is more than one way to defur this particular feline. Why would you have
to load all images in at once to paint over them? That's kind of like saying
you have to have an entire program loaded into memory in order to use it. If
you'll excuse me, that's @!#$@#. I can swap portions of programs in and out of
memory as I process them, and I'm sure it's possible to do the same with images
— it may be more difficult (although I kind of doubt it) but it's surely
possible.
Even if the trade off was time (which it usually is in these cases) that would
be far more acceptable than not being able to do it at all. For example, if
you use Avid non-linear editing it takes some time to build the transitions
(probably because all the images aren't in memory at once!). I wouldn't care
if I had to wait minutes (or more) while AS processed the thingee.
Either AS will do these things or it will clearly be a niche product that will
lose any chance of becoming viable as the days of full-screen, true color
animations become commonplace (and they will just as surely as 16 colors is
disappearing from Windows). As many have pointed out, not too many people need
to make quarter screen (or less!) animations nowadays.
IMHO.
Your comments questioning the necessity of loading everything into RAM before
AAStudio can work are being looked into by the programmers. Thanks.
Thanks, Nik, for AD at least making the consideration. It doesn't look like
I'm alone in the desire to have AS be a 24bit full screen paint program —
certainly it would nicely compliment 3DS as well as be well positioned for the
future in computer graphics.
Alec,
It sounds like you are running out of space. How big are the .TGA's each?
Will
Will,
The targas are compressed, about 800k each. I think I am running out of
mem/swap file space. I increased the swap file to 100megs and I was able to
load more .tga's before getting the "internal error."
Have you ever loaded 4 to 5 hundred targas? (Has anyone?)
Alec Jason
<<Have you ever loaded 4 to 5 hundred targas? (Has anyone?)>>
Alec,
No, I haven't allthough I have worked with AVI files in the 250 – 300 mg range.
Also I work with fairly large single images [ 200 – 250 ] mg. I maintain a 750
meg partition as a temp area.
Will