Having two (or more) TvPaint windows open at the same time.

[Brusen]

Hi TvPaint,

It has been bugging many people I know and I just couldn't have it anymore, so I hereby ask if it is possible to have more than one TvPaint Window open at the same time.

You can have more than one project open, but the moment you want to export anything you are blocked, in some cases, for an hour or more. Since TvPaint is hardly using the engine it takes ages to work and export big files.
The solution for now has been having two or three additional computers exporting all day long, so we could be working instead of waiting.

I know that other programs like Autodesk Maya can have a ton of windows opened at the same time, during different tasks. Why can't TvPaint?

-Best regards Troels
(Ps. This post have been written meanwhile waiting for an 5 hour long export!)

[Peter Wassink]

excellent request!

Because you can have multiple projects open, what would it take to be able to continue working in one project while another project is saving/exporting?

[Thierry]

(Ps. This post have been written meanwhile waiting for an 5 hour long export!)

5 hour long export ? O_O That's.. well, incredibly long, I've never seen that !
I have to say I'm curious. What are your project's dimensions ? Its size ? And in what format are you trying to export ?

Concerning your question : TVPaint cannot do that, because its current engine doesn't allow it.
This would be a nice feature indeed, but that would require a very long development time.

[Brusen]

The project dimension is even just small hd, but whenever you have a big layout with camera movement, it of course have to go up in size.

Last week we had a shot with multiple layers and it ended up taking 11 hours to get out.
Then whenever we fix something spotted later on, we have to spend another 11 hours.

The file size is low, even just 100 mb - 500 mb, depending on the layers.


It would be a big game changer if you could work in multiple windows!

[Fabrice]

11H
there is a problem somewhere ...
Are you exporting through a network or locally ? what format are you trying to export ?

[slowtiger]

I habitually run a CPU measurement tool when rendering or exporting, and this shows me that my computer is really well-used by TVP. So multiple windows will not help you much because nearly no processor power is left. I'd recommend to use a second computer.

[Brusen]

Hardware is really not an issue, the network shouldn't be the issue either, as I have had the case tested a couple of times with the same files, exporting to the network or to local.
The Process is using around 3 percent of the the CPU and 10 percent of Memory (also the network is not overloaded).


We are exporting PNG sequences with alpha, and exporting every layer separately (with a custom script).
However, during it manually (without the script), it takes the same time.

Can you somehow integrate TvPaint to the hardware better?



Still I think it would help us tremendously in the future to have multi-window sessions open at the same time.

[Fabrice]

It sounds very very strange to me, I never ever experienced so long export durations.
May I ask you both your script and projects, so we can run some tests ?

[Brusen]

Thank you, that would be very helpful!

I have made an online link that will last for 7 days:
The script will only work with the right folder structure unless you set it up differently.
Feel free to implement any ideas/processes from this script and implementing it to your own projects or even into TvPaint. (Those who have contributed to the script are credited in the script. Except for myself).
Link to one of our files, and the script:
https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/3a ... 352/bc6593" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Thierry]

So, after meddling a little bit with the project and the script, I have a few questions/remarks :

• You said that the project was in small hd, so I assumed that it was in 720x1280p, this is why Fabrice and I thought that there was something very wrong (because exporting in 720p with a file varying from 100Mb to 500Mb should never take 11 hours. But after opening the project I noticed that the project is in fact in 8105x4595, which isn't really small hd, but > 8k This makes me wonder : what are the specs of your computer ? What version of TVPaint do you use (10 ? 11 ?) ? Standard ? Professional ? 32-bits ? 64-bits ? Your computer's power can really make a difference there. With my late-2012 iMac, when I export all of the images in PNG (export -> clip display), it takes approximatively 30-35 minutes.
• I've also noticed that you only have one clip. Why not split into several clips ? With the dimensions of the project, having only one clip with ~30 layers can really slow the export process.
• Regarding the script : 949 lines for exporting images seems way too much. I haven't fully understood what result you want to have, perhaps you can tell me what is the result you wish to achieve ? (filename, folder structure...) That would help a lot.
  I got an error at line 157 : layer_save(expDir,namSeq,namShot,lepos,namVer,inpoint,outpoint). In this function, the instruction versionLabel = addZeros("v",verNum,3) (line 194) causes an error.

[Brusen]

So, after meddling a little bit with the project and the script, I have a few questions/remarks :

• You said that the project was in small hd, so I assumed that it was in 720x1280p, this is why Fabrice and I thought that there was something very wrong (because exporting in 720p with a file varying from 100Mb to 500Mb should never take 11 hours. But after opening the project I noticed that the project is in fact in 8105x4595, which isn't really small hd, but > 8k This makes me wonder : what are the specs of your computer ? What version of TVPaint do you use (10 ? 11 ?) ? Standard ? Professional ? 32-bits ? 64-bits ? Your computer's power can really make a difference there. With my late-2012 iMac, when I export all of the images in PNG (export -> clip display), it takes approximatively 30-35 minutes.
• I've also noticed that you only have one clip. Why not split into several clips ? With the dimensions of the project, having only one clip with ~30 layers can really slow the export process.
• Regarding the script : 949 lines for exporting images seems way too much. I haven't fully understood what result you want to have, perhaps you can tell me what is the result you wish to achieve ? (filename, folder structure...) That would help a lot.
  I got an error at line 157 : layer_save(expDir,namSeq,namShot,lepos,namVer,inpoint,outpoint). In this function, the instruction versionLabel = addZeros("v",verNum,3) (line 194) causes an error.

Hi Thierry, Yes our project is in Small HD/wide format, plus a little safe frame (2304*965), but since this scene is supposed to have a camera zoom, the layout has been scaled to fit without loosing information.
The scenes we have without any Layout panning it takes less than 10-20 minutes,

We all have Pc specs suiting high end 3d productions, so I doubt the system is the one to blame in this case.
Specs:
Windows 7 -64 Bit
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v2 " 2.00GHz (2Processors)
2.00 GHz (2 Processers)
64 GB ram
Nvidia Quadro K2000
We are using TvPaint 10.5.7 64-bits


The reason we are using the script is because we want to have all the layers in TvPaint to come out in individual PNG sequences, instead of merging everything. Because then we have more control when we are doing the compositing. Since it was not an option in TvPaint, we got this script running.

I am not sure how much I can shave of the script, and I know that there is more than necessary build into it.
But even doing the export manually takes quiet some time.
A lot of the lines are for TvPaint to find and export our images to the right l´place and name the files, plus putting it into folders.
(Maybe it does not work for Mac)

[Fabrice]

What is exactly your CPU model ?

[Brusen]

That would be,

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v2 " 2.00GHz (2Processors)

[tokejepsen]

Is there no way of getting two instances of TVP running on the same machine?

We currently have a lot of dongle licenses, that is being used by artists during the day. We don't want them to stop working to render.

I tried with virtual machines, but the usb can't be shared simultanously between the host and the vm image. So is there any other licensing option than usb dongles?

[Fabrice]

There is no render calculations in TVPaint.
Please give us more details.