crash help! part 2

[hisko]

Hi,

I'm working on a scene that is approx. 8000 x 5000 pixels big and contains 10 layers. While trying to save it it got stuck at 4%.
Is there any trick to make tvp save the other 96%?

[Hervé]

Close all your opened projects, reduce the cache size and undo size to the minimum, close all unused windows, pick a small custom brush, set the proxy to realtime...

[hisko]

Thanks. But it is still stuck on 4%, so I can't do anything in tvp itself.

[hisko]

O.k. I'll remember for the next time. But now I have to move on so I'm closing the whole thing now.
TVP normally is very reliable. It would be nice though to have some sort of warning before a thing like this can happen, because I couldn't save anything now.

[slowtiger]

I usually avoid to work with such big projects,mainly because my G5 PPC isn't the fastest machine. If I need to, maybe because I have to zoom into a scene with lots of movement, I start with the big BG, then crop it to several smaller projects where I animate. After all these are finished, I export each as a PNG sequence, then import it onto the original BG. Thus I reduce the time working in the big project to a minimum.

[hisko]

Yes, that's the wise thing to do. I'll export all aniumations that were already done in seperate smaller scenes, and then composite them in after effects.
Still, the strange thing is that I have 4 gigabyte of working memory, but still tvp crashes at 800 mb????

Maybe it's a Windowsproblem, does anyone know?

[slowtiger]

My own experience with big projects in TVP is much better. Even a file of 7 GB was no problem to work with, aside from the expected long saving times.

I did experience crashes, however, quite regularly if I had an extraordinary large brush in use, like a complete BG which I wanted to position easily. That's why I do most BG movements in Anime Studio now: much faster for my improvising kind of workflow, easier to change things. Sometimes I test a movement in AS first, then re-do it in TVP for the finished version.

[malcooning]

I did experience crashes, however, quite regularly if I had an extraordinary large brush in use, like a complete BG which I wanted to position easily. That's why I do most BG movements in Anime Studio now: much faster for my improvising kind of workflow, easier to change things. Sometimes I test a movement in AS first, then re-do it in TVP for the finished version.

I'm intrigued. What's your workflow (if you don't mind sharing)?

[slowtiger]

Drawing big stuff in TVP, exporting as PNG (with alpha if needed), import into AS, play around. You should give it a try, right now the standard version of AS is only 30 $.

I've noticed that AS isn't slowed down by pics in bigger dimensions (greater than 1000 x 2000 px) as much as TVP (on my machine). Other advantages for my workflow are:
- better overview of assets bigger than project because they aren't cut off
- immediate replay (instead of applying FX keyframer or multiplane to several frames and waiting for the rendering)
- greater flexibility because nothing is rendered, I can always change stuff
- orbit view of multiplane setups
- smaller files, again because nothing is rendered

It's just a different concept, but it has advantages in some areas. AS is a pretty restricted set of functions, it can't do frame by frame or any decent drawing, and I have several issues with the UI, but for doing cutout style animation and multiple layer pans I say it's faster than anything else I know. I will continue to use it, it's like having one additional precision screwdriver (AS) in an already well-equipped toolbox (TVP).

[hisko]

I used MOHO (Anime Studio) for a MTV-ident that I made 3 years ago. Nice program. My brother just made an entire cut-out film with it, which shall be released in april. It's called Magic Show.

[malcooning]

Thanks for the details.
I was quite interested in AS at the time (actually Moho time) because I was compelled by the idea of making fulsome imagery and then animating rather easily. As well, I liked it's nicely rendered "boiling" effect on vector strokes and paths. It offers quite a lot in the way of non-rendering. But I kind of left it there when I found myself veering to experimenting with bones too much and therefore things started losing soul (for me). But still I think it is the 2nd most appealing animation program out there for me. After Affects has the puppet tool for 2 versions now, which is a great way of setting up and animating any image, or set of layers, but I can't stand the slowness of AE. I'm just hoping that TVP will soon have a similar way of distorting/animating bitmap. That will be the perfect addition to frame by frame.

[slowtiger]

Well, I use both TVP and AS, and I follow discussions about missing features in both support forums a lot. My opinion is to optimise the functions which are already there and optimise the UI is enough, but the developers shouldn't add features which just don't belong into a certain program. I don't see any program as the holy solution to all my programs. Each program is just a tool. Some tools are mightier (like TVP), some are more specialized (like AS), and all have their place in my workflow.