#video post slowing down
20 messages in this thread
I ran into a problem last night that strikes me as alittle mysterious.
I have a 1200 frame animation that was 512×486. I loaded it under bitmap in
video post, witht the option to resize to a custom size of 286×273 to the whole
flick. I set it to run at 9:30 last night and it was taking 4 seconds to resize
each frame.
To my suprise, I came into work today at 1:00 pm to find it still running and
taking between 2 and 3 minutes to load the frame. it was at frame 972 when i
killed it.
It seems to me that this should not happen.
The computer is a 90mhz pentium with 64 megs of ram with two scsi 2 hard
drives, one is 1 gig, the other 2 gig. The video card is a Matrox MGA with 4
meg of ram. I am running DOS 6.2 and 3DS version 3.
Why is this happening? There is plenty of disk space and 3DS was only reporting
using 7.7 megs of ram.
I've had this experience also. The only thing I could think of was that it was
a problem of memory fragmentation. Could you work in smaller segments then
piece them? Ian.
I suppose I could try cutting it into pieces, but it doesn't quite seem
satisfactory as solutions go. Better than nothing, I guess.
Were you using an IFL to load Targa files, and is your USE-TGA-GAMMA set to
yes?
If those are both true, you might be looking at the Video Post memory leak
problem in R3. Just set USE-TGA-GAMMA to NO and you'll be fine.
– G
Actually it was just a big flc file. I wanted to just shrink it to fit in ram
to record on the vcr.
Then the use-tga-gamma memory leak wouldn't be at work here.
There are absolutely no other reported memory leaks or performance problems
like that. That usually means that it's a system environment problem on your
end. As always, if you can identify a 3DS problem, send a reproducible case to
Jonas, Nik or Brian.
– G
<<There are absolutely no other reported memory leaks or performance problems
like that. That usually means that it's a system environment problem on your
end. As always, if you can identify a 3DS problem, send a reproducible case to
Jonas, Nik or Brian.>>
If it is a system environment problem, whereabout to I look for the problem?
Memory managers? Set statements? Other drivers? My config.sys and autoexec.bat
aren't a nightmare quite yet, but any pointing you can do in a particular
direction might save me a little grief and would be appreciated.
I wish I could help you, but I'm a hardware idiot.
– G
>>The problem you are having may be
>>that 3DS must read that flic file each
>>time from frame 0 to wherever you are.
>>Going from 0 every time will add a bit of overhead!
Greg is right. I was warned a long time ago that FLICs will go from the start
frame to the desired frame for every frame rendered when used as a material or
VP entry. On long and/or hi-res FLICs, this can just about stop the job (as you
found out with 1200 frames!). As you know, FLICs are delta compressed, so I
guess that the program sort of re-builds the image during each new frame by
taking it from the top every time. Anyway, the solution is easy. I use a
utility to break a flic into all of it's single frames (in one shot), and then
use an IFL. If you have the hard drive space (which it sounds like you do) then
this is the most elegant and easy way to handle any motion-bitmap. The utility
is shareware, it's on the Rendering Plant BBS.
Jim
What might be the number to the rendering plant bbs?
>>What might be the number to the rendering plant bbs?<<
It's 816-525-5614.
Jim
>>>What might be the number to the rendering plant bbs?
It's 816-525-5614.
Jim<<<
Thanks, got it.
Jim:
>> Greg is right.
A first! Someone please mark this down, time & date included! But don't
expect anything else for the rest of the month, I've used up my quota! <g>
Greg Pyros
>>I've used up my quota! <g><<
Oh, Greg… you're not going to tell us you get 'no respect' around here!
Jim
Jim:
>> Oh, Greg… you're not going to tell us you get 'no respect' around here!
Around here? Why should 'here' be any different than anywhere else?
Greg (asking for it, again) Pyros
I've experienced unusually long image loading times when specifying too many
paths in 3ds.set and/or CONFIGURE. Nothing as dramatic as what you describe,
though.
John Tissavary (LUNA cie, inc)
Tim:
The problem you are having may be that 3DS must read that flic file each time
from frame 0 to wherever you are. Going from 0 every time will add a bit of
overhead!
Try breaking your flic into 100 frame pieces and adding them to different lines
in Video Post should solve it.
Greg (I've been there before) Pyros
I will probably end up doing it this way anyway, since 972 frames are already
done. I'd like to just set it up and let it go it's merry way all at once (now
that I think of it, I suppose I could just have multiple video post entries for
each segment), but it is not to be, I guess. Thanks for the tip. By the way, I
picked up Inside 3D studio when it first came out, and it has been very useful.
Thanks for putting forth the effort.
Tim:
>> I picked up Inside 3D studio when it first came out, and it has been very
>> useful. Thanks for putting forth the effort.
We're all glad you like it!
Greg Pyros
This is to note that I missed the middle segment of your message
(**Try breaking your flic into 100 frame pieces and adding them to different
lines in Video Post should solve it.**)
and stupidly just echoed your statement back to you without realizing it until
5 seconds after posting it.
Brain fry, I guess…