[Plugin Beta] Animator - v4.0a - 02 Apr 24

fredo6

Difficult to tell what is going on. It may be related to the fact that you run a trial version of Thea.
But anyway, if it freezes with no rendering, there must be a problem somewhere.

The best is to send me the model so that I have a look.

Fredo

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

Difficult to tell what is going on. It may be related to the fact that you run a trial version of Thea.
But anyway, if it freezes with no rendering, there must be a problem somewhere.

The best is to send me the model so that I have a look.

Fredo

Hmm, I've run the animation again, and so far I haven't been able to recreate the issue of parts moving incorrectly. In the meantime, I did change from 1.3b to 1.4c, so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it.

That said, the freezing and Script Popup issues are reliably happening with many models, not just Trinity, so I'm confident it's not isolated to Trinity's animator file nor model file.

https://youtu.be/vK0Fj5jWXXY

*Note: Video is unlisted, and not linked to from pages related to Trinity. Thea's trial version is used solely to beta test Animator.

I managed to get a computer to process part of Trinity's animation with Thea Rendering (392 out of 1000 frames), with freezing occurring roughly once every 40 frames or so. At Frame 392, it finished the frame, then Sketchup became "Not Responding". I left it in Not Responding state for 30 min, but then force closed Sketchup. The video above is the result of those 392 frames hastily thrown into Movie Maker. To be clear, these frames were made using Animator to call Thea.

So far, all I can conclude is that, on my end at least:
Animator calling Thea -> Renders animation correctly, but Script Error popup and freezing abound.
Thea calling Animator -> Renders animation weirdly (but sometimes correctly), no Script Error popup nor freezing.

Thea's trial version doesn't seem to be a problem as far as I can see; it generated the images just fine whenever Animator called it. It seems to me that whenever it freezes and Animator shows "Rendering Frame 390..." without showing a time in seconds, that Thea just hasn't been told it needs to render anything. Equivalently when it repeatedly generates the same frame, Animator shows "Rendering Frame 390...62.0s", then shows "Rendering Frame 390..." (at which point it does nothing until I click Interrupt then Cancel), then shows "Rendering Frame 390...0.0s". My guess is that Animator has not iterated to the next frame, so after I click Cancel, it calls Thea to render the frame it's on, completely unaware it's rendering a frame it already did.**
**Obviously I have no idea how Animator is coded behind the scenes, this is just my guess based on the behaviour so far. Out of curiosity, does Animator operate at all similarly to [Calculate Movement(s) For Frame -> Call Thea ----Thea responds Frame is complete---> Iterate to Next Frame -> Calculate Movement(s) for Frame ->...], in terms of a very abstract flowchart? Because its behaviour seems to indicate that when Thea responds, it sometimes fails to iterate to the next frame, or fails to call Thea afterwards. /If i'm completely off then just ignore my random guessing/

Tested on [Windows 8, SU8Free] along with [Windows 10, SU8Free]. Video above generated with [Windows 10, SU8Free].

fredo6

Actually, Animator waits for Thea to finish to go to the next frame. So the freezing is likely to be related to Thea not answering it is finished (or not finishing).

By the way, you can also follow the process by opening the Thea rendering window, because the status of rendering is also displayed (time, frame and completion).
Also, it may depend on the rendering mode you choose. In any case make sure that the Interactivecheckbox is off (for instance with IR Presto). Low samples/px (like 15-30) is also advised.

I also suggest you keep the Ruby Console opened to see if there is any error.

What was puzzling me is whether you get freezing when you generate a video WITHOUT rendering.So thanks to confirm.

Finally be aware that with Thea trial version, there may be a small problem. Because the resolution is limited, Thea may have to redimension the images and, bad luck, end up with odd resolution in X or Y. Unfortunately, there is a bug in FFmpeg, which prevents it to generate MP4 from images with odd dimensions. So I strongly advise that you do a "Preview video" at the beginning of the generation to see if everything is fine (otherwise, you would wait for long and for nothing and get frustrated).

Fredo

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

Actually, Animator waits for Thea to finish to go to the next frame. So the freezing is likely to be related to Thea not answering it is finished (or not finishing).

By the way, you can also follow the process by opening the Thea rendering window, because the status of rendering is also displayed (time, frame and completion).
Also, it may depend on the rendering mode you choose. In any case make sure that the Interactivecheckbox is off (for instance with IR Presto). Low samples/px (like 15-30) is also advised.

I also suggest you keep the Ruby Console opened to see if there is any error.

What was puzzling me is whether you get freezing when you generate a video WITHOUT rendering.So thanks to confirm.

Finally be aware that with Thea trial version, there may be a small problem. Because the resolution is limited, Thea may have to redimension the images and, bad luck, end up with odd resolution in X or Y. Unfortunately, there is a bug in FFmpeg, which prevents it to generate MP4 from images with odd dimensions. So I strongly advise that you do a "Preview video" at the beginning of the generation to see if everything is fine (otherwise, you would wait for long and for nothing and get frustrated).

Fredo

Thanks for the tips Fredo, I hadn't remembered to pull up Ruby Console so that's definitely very useful.

Trinity Test 240117 6X.png

As we suspected, Animator is not currently receiving responses from Thea correctly. Above screenshot is the result of Animator freezing after Frame 2 ("Rendering Frame 2...62.0s", then "Rendering Frame 2..."), at which point I clicked Interrupt then Cancel. Can confirm Thea started on Frame 2 again, but Animator believes it's on Frame 3. I am receiving a Duration value in Ruby, but I have no idea if that duration is calculated by Thea or by Animator.

Note: The reason Sketchup and Animator are 0.5s out of sync in the image is because of Snipping Tool freezing the screen output, so I think that's just event handling and the scheduler updating different programs at different times.

/as always...my guess could be wrong/

EDIT: I've hit Interrupt and Cancel again, it's done the same thing: Rendering Frame 2 in Thea, Animator shows Frame 3. Thrice in a row this has happened, so it's reliable at least.

EDIT: Oh, completely forgot to mention, I didnt' realise Thea's default was 512 samples/px in earlier testing; the above test was set with 15 samples/px, so far I have not gotten Script Error popups. That said, it's stuck on very early frames, so I'm not celebrating just yet. Also, I'm generating Image Sequence (FFmpeg isn't installed on the test computer), so I don't think resolution limits should be affecting it.

fredo6

Can you at least confirm whether you get freezing situations when you do not use Thea.

For Thea, I'll have a look, but it may depend on the rendering mode you use. In past tests, I have noticed that 'unbiased' and 'adaptive' always had problem with the API of Thea (on top of being slow), maybe because the calculation is progressive. So the Thea API may miss the signal for termination.

In general, for an animation, IR Presto is good enough.

Fredo

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

Can you at least confirm whether you get freezing situations when you do not use Thea.

For Thea, I'll have a look, but it may depend on the rendering mode you use. In past tests, I have noticed that 'unbiased' and 'adaptive' always had problem with the API of Thea (on top of being slow), maybe because the calculation is progressive. So the Thea API may miss the signal for termination.

In general, for an animation, IR Presto is good enough.

Fredo

Confirm: No Freezing with Natural Rendering.

Restarted Trinity's animation with Natural Rendering on two machines again to confirm; both animations were successful with no freezing, no frames repeated. Script Errors happened on both machines for Frames 1-10 on both; one machine also had Script Errors for the last 3 Frames, the other had them for the last 10 Frames.

You're right on the rendering mode, I had left it Unbiased which definitely added to the rendering time, IR Presto - AO with Interactive unchecked works fine. Tested Thea rendering with IR Presto, using a different model to make sure Trinity wasn't the issue, appears to me Thea has finished a render, Animator and Sketchup move the the next frame, the Thea doesn't start. This is after I get a Script Error.

Anyway, I'll keep testing on my end. Sorry to keep pointing out problems, hope it'll all work soon.

fredo6

@treadshot a1 said:

Restarted Trinity's animation with Natural Rendering on two machines again to confirm; both animations were successful with no freezing, no frames repeated. Script Errors happened on both machines for Frames 1-10 on both; one machine also had Script Errors for the last 3 Frames, the other had them for the last 10 Frames.

Could you tell me which Script Errors you get in Natural rendering.

Fredo

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

@treadshot a1 said:

Restarted Trinity's animation with Natural Rendering on two machines again to confirm; both animations were successful with no freezing, no frames repeated. Script Errors happened on both machines for Frames 1-10 on both; one machine also had Script Errors for the last 3 Frames, the other had them for the last 10 Frames.

Could you tell me which Script Errors you get in Natural rendering.

Fredo

Consistently get "Invalid Argument" Script Errors. Not sure what that means though.

fredo6

Which version of Windows do you have?

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

Which version of Windows do you have?

Happens on both Windows 8 and Windows 10. Internet Explorer is up to date, Ive unchecked the 'Display a notification about every script error' box in settings, and checked both 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Others)'.

mike_fr60

Hello sorry with my English, I will try to make a question regarding this post. I have also freezing screen, when I launch "Generate video for the film".

I have Windows 10 and sketchup 2015 and 2016 and that is the same problem.
I have 2 computers laptop, and with same project and same configuration one works( Samsung ) and not the other ( Asus ).
I made the film on the Asus, and copy to the Samsung , the generate panel open immediately.
I tried to delete the Lib and the animator plugins and reinstall, and nothing happend.

That is a problem, with the processor ? with the video program missing or something else ?

Thank you for your help.

Michel ( France )

fredo6

@michel,

Could you open the Ruby console and check if there are errors.

Also can you be more precise on the 'freezing'

is this with Natural rendering (i.e. no rendering) ?
do you see some frames process before the freeze ?

Thanks

Fredo

mike_fr60

Thank you for your quick answer.
I don't see any frame. I don't see the panel to manage the type of video or output to chose.
I have an error in the Ruby console. You are right !! I have SU Podium render on the computer where the problem is. And not on the other computer where all is working.
I didn't know that your Animator could be in accordance with a rendering program.
I thought it was only a simple rendering like the basic Sketchup rendering.

What can I do to generate basic rendering ? And is it possible to have a SU Podium rendering ?

Here the Ruby console's error message :
ambient init nil nil
ambient init nil nil
Twilight declare nil
Error: #<NameError: undefined method rendering_podium_frame' for class Traductor::VideoManager'>
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6videomanager.rbe:414:in method' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6videomanager.rbe:414:in block in rendering_init'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6videomanager.rbe:413:in each' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6videomanager.rbe:413:in rendering_init'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_animator/animatordialogvideogeneration.rbe:334:in dialog_invoke' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_animator/animatortool.rbe:1820:in movie_dialog'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_animator/animatortool.rbe:1790:in movie_clip_generation' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_animator/animatorpalette.rbe:771:in block in palette_clip_name_duration_video'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6palette.rbe:3407:in call' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6palette.rbe:3407:in execute_button'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/body_lib6palette.rbe:3212:in onLButtonUp' c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_!libfredo6/lib6palette.rbe:93:in onLButtonUp'
c:/users/michel/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2016/sketchup/plugins/fredo6_animator/animatortool.rbe:1159:in `onLButtonUp'

fredo6

@mike_fr60 said:

You are right !! I have SU Podium render on the computer where the problem is. And not on the other computer where all is working.

My fault! Animator detects Podium, but does not check whether animated rendering is supported.
I'll fix that in a next version.

Fredo

fredo6

New Release: Animator - v1.5a - 12 Dec 17

Requirement: LibFredo6 v7.5a

**Maintenance release

bug fixing and cosmetic changes
introduction of Trajectory Visual effect (see video)**

http://youtu.be/YAMf91Lhg4U

See main post for RBZ files

ntxdave

OK - Fredo, there is now another product for you to connect with. I do not know if you have seen the thread about Enscape but the product looks amazing and would really be awesome combined with Animator.

Treadshot A1

Well, I finally updated to Animator's newest version (thanks to the old version reminding me it was expired). I had a working animation before, but I can't access it now because v1.5a doesn't open. The Video Player and Clip Editor don't seem to load(?); at least, it never gets to showing the UI. Animator 1.5a is running with LibFredo 7.5b, SU8Free.

Ruby console output is attached; first section is what happens when I open a model, and try to open clip editor without doing anything else. The model_name.skp and model_name.animator files were functional in v1.4. Second section is trying to open clip editor again, since the first time didn't result in anything showing up on screen. The "(eval):249" line at the end seems to be consistently where it stops when clip editor is opened, except for not reaching that line the first time it's opened after opening the model.

*I have no idea what the TrajectoryManager it asks for is; is it something I need to install separately?

Capture X.png

fredo6

New Release: Animator - v1.5b - 15 Mar 17

Requirement: LibFredo6 v7.5a

Maintenance release

bug fixing for SU8 and SU2013, as reported by Treadshot A1

See main post for RBZ files

Treadshot A1

@fredo6 said:

Maintenance release

bug fixing for SU8 and SU2013, as reported by Treadshot A1

Wow, that was fast! Thanks a lot fredo, I'm almost convinced there's some wizardry/magic involved in how you fixed the code so quickly.

That said, I'm not sure if what I have for you is good news or bad news. I can confirm v1.5b works on SU8Free (which is awesome!). I still have the "Script Error" popup I mentioned before, difference is I see the actual consequences now. Previously, all it meant was I pressed "Interrupt", then "Cancel", and it would redo the frame (say, stuck on Frame 5, okay, Animator regenerates Frame 5). Now, same process, it regenerates Frame 5, but actually with Frame 6's data (I can see components move when I hit "Cancel" to their new positions). This gets saved as "Frame_004" (yes 004), even though it's actually Frame 6.

Let's say that it's stuck on Frame 5, then I interrupt and cancel to get it going again, then it gets stuck again. I repeat the process. Then I get a "Frame_004", but with Frame 7's data. It's consistent, each time it freezes, it moves one frame's worth of data ahead. I've attached to screenshots from File Explorer of the frames being generated, with 004 overwritten, while Animator says it is stuck on Frame 5 (the overwritten 4 is pictured 2 frames later, I think).

*I did check if maybe Animator was simply saving the picture before moving to the next frame and not actually stuck, just in case I wasn't patient enough; can confirm Task Manager shows 0% activity from Sketchup-related processes.

*This happens only with Thea rendering on; Natural rendering works fine, no glitches. I do recall suggestions that Trial versions of Thea may have issues with weird dimensions, so I tried 16:9, 4:3, Viewport settings. Glitch above still happens regardless.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to screenshot Ruby output. Attached are "test_2" images of frames overwritten, and ruby output.

fredo6

Actually, there is a problem with Thea which does not always notify Animator when it has finished rendering a frame.

Other users are encountering similar problems, even on SU2017. See this thread.

Fredo