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08/08/2012 05:39:21

EagleII
EagleII
Posts: 18 		After spending some free time ( finally had some today ) creating a HPD officer, HPD Cruser, editing music for a small show ( theme from Cops ) setting up a Houston landscape, preparing, then directing... when it
came time to encode to movie, CRASHED. No warning, no error message.. only win 7's blob on the program has stopped working. I immediately went to see if any thing was saved.. nada. I even checked the temp file area ... zip. Not complaining... my bad for not seeing auto-save was not an option and saving as changes were made to the scenes. Other than .. it's been fun learning and playing with your toy.

Finally... I exported scenes from 3D Max Design 2013 to *.ase for import. 1st attempt - too large. Second attempt - stated I forgot items.. not so, -- all it stated wasn't there was checked for export. (g)
I can attach the last export if it will help you. I went to a stock biped with minimal dress and exported
with all items checked - same/same. ( oh.. I see I can not attach (g) )

I believe I am using your 64 bit version.
My basic setup:
Win 7 Pro 64bit;
HP Pavilion p7-1240 AMD Quad-Core A10-5700 Accelerated
Processor (3.40GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
10GB DDR3 system memory
AMD Radeon HD 7660D Graphics ( up to 4+ gigs )
edited by EagleII on 08/08/2012
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08/08/2012 12:12:39

Lev_Dynamite
Lev_Dynamite
Posts: 157 		EagleII wrote:
I immediately went to see if any thing was saved.. nada. I even checked the temp file area ... zip. Not complaining... my bad for not seeing auto-save was not an option and saving as changes were made to the scenes.
Autosaving is a feature that has been discussed a few times, but there's generally a strong argument against it in that there would be some hang in the application while it autosaved, and having an animation tool like Muvizu freeze-up even just for a wee while every 5 minutes would really disrupt the user's creative flow.

Regardless, I personally think that the strength of my absolute outrage when losing half an hour or more of unsaved work to a crash far outweighs the strength of my mild displeasure when having to wait a few seconds for something to back-up what I've done, so I'll re-propose the autosave feature idea to the devs and see if they can be talked 'round!
In the meantime, just remember to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! A quick Ctrl + S every few minutes will save you a world of tears in the event of a Muvizu meltdown.

EagleII wrote:
Finally... I exported scenes from 3D Max Design 2013 to *.ase for import. 1st attempt - too large.
Regarding this - did you try moving "up" in the Muvizu environment (clicking both mouse buttons at the same time and moving the mouse forward) before importing? If it is a large object you are importing, Muvizu's focus may be too close to the ground, so it's best to move way up in the air before importing objects just to make sure there's plenty of space for it!

EagleII wrote:
Second attempt - stated I forgot items.. not so, -- all it stated wasn't there was checked for export.
I'm not quite grasping the problem here, sorry. Could you link a screenshot of the error message, by any chance? As you noted, you can't currently upload attachments with posts on this forum, so if it'd be easier then you can just e-mail the screenshot to bugs@muvizu.com!
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08/08/2012 14:49:55

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		the "too large" is frustrating it has taken me a few times a good 10 minutes to find a spot until I realized that if you just go up into the air and try again it works everytime. (oops) The ground gets crowded very fast in muvizu for some reason. The out of bounds or too large is just a wierd message that is usually solved by leaving the ground and re-importing up in the air.

I haven't had muvizu crash often but I have developed the age old habit of saving every few minutes to the point I dont even notice it.

The only thing I found that is not functioning correctly in muvizu is some of the features on their cameras which I guess I should report when I figure how to get the error files out. when you try to use depth of field or blur I get a huge long long list of dll errors. The other issue is for some reason the first 10 seconds or so of video render in muvizu is never done properly so I always leave 15 seconds of nothingness at the beginning if I just start exporting my video at that point I never have an issue.

Also realistically it appears the longest clip to export without issue is about 1 minute 30 seconds long at the most I am exporting my scense in 1 minute clips and numbering them and then stitch them together in a video editing program. This last one reminds me of cgi lol so I guess I am used to it hehe.
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08/08/2012 19:19:23

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		EagleII wrote:
Second attempt - stated I forgot items.. not so, -- all it stated wasn't there was checked for export. (g)


I think I recognise this one - exporting anything to an .ase file tends to 'lose' the texture associations, and so Muvizu tells you that there are bits missing. You have to edit the .ase file, and specify the locations of the texture files. If they are in the same folder, then you just need the name - e.g.

*MATERIAL_NAME "Metal_Corrogated_Shiny"
*MATERIAL_CLASS "Standard"
*MAP_DIFFUSE {
*MAP_CLASS "Bitmap"
*BITMAP "metal_corrogated_shiny.jpg"
*UVW_U_OFFSET 0.0
etc

The textures must be available to Muvizu as an actual file, because .ase files are just text and contain no texture info except the location. You can specify a full path for the textures
(like "c:\users\my documents\metal_corrogated_shiny.jpg")
but that tends to get messy. Better to just export them from 3D Max as a straight .jpg or .png into the same folder as the .ase file. Hope that helps
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08/08/2012 19:25:18

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Lev_Dynamite wrote:
Regardless, I personally think that the strength of my absolute outrage when losing half an hour or more of unsaved work to a crash far outweighs the strength of my mild displeasure when having to wait a few seconds for something to back-up what I've done, so I'll re-propose the autosave feature idea to the devs and see if they can be talked 'round!


I must be more paranoid than most people, as I save before and after changing anything. But it does seem odd that we don't even get the chance to choose wether we want autosave or not. Give 'em hell, Lev!
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08/08/2012 19:50:49

mystoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
mysto
Posts: 471 		I've gotten in the habit of saving my work VERY often. I sometimes save 2 copies of the same set just in case something really bad happens!
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23/08/2012 10:14:29

JamieMuvizu staff
Jamie
(Account inactive)
Posts: 609 		urbanlamb wrote:
The only thing I found that is not functioning correctly in muvizu is some of the features on their cameras which I guess I should report when I figure how to get the error files out. when you try to use depth of field or blur I get a huge long long list of dll errors. The other issue is for some reason the first 10 seconds or so of video render in muvizu is never done properly so I always leave 15 seconds of nothingness at the beginning if I just start exporting my video at that point I never have an issue.

Also realistically it appears the longest clip to export without issue is about 1 minute 30 seconds long at the most I am exporting my scense in 1 minute clips and numbering them and then stitch them together in a video editing program. This last one reminds me of cgi lol so I guess I am used to it hehe.



I'm curious about these problems urbanlamb. Could you email us some more details to bugs@muvizu.com?

1. Camera effects & crashes. Could you send us your system info? Go to the ? icon on the top right hand corner of Muvizu and then go to About, there there will be a System info button, that once clicked will list all the details of your system and of Muvizu and provide a handy copy button. If you could paste this into an email to us it might help us track down the issue.

2. The first 10 seconds is never rendered properly? Could you send us the output AVI of the first 10 seconds as well as the .set file that you saved the AVI from?

3. The longest clip to export without issue is about 1min 30secs? Could you give us more details on what issues you have for clips longer than this time? Do you get crashes with Muvizu or is this a similar issue to the first 10 seconds not being rendered properly? Could you send us some example AVI files and the .set files used to render them?

4. Additionally could you tell us what codec you are using to render the AVI?

I think, with regards to the auto-save feature, every x minutes isn't a great way of dealing with auto-save. The locking up of Muvizu to allow the save to happen is poor usability. Imaging if you are in the middle of directing character movement and suddenly it stops recording, saves, and then you need to delete the movement and start recording it again? That's not to say I'm against the idea of an auto-save feature. I've had my fair share of frustration with crashes and lost work as well. I think there are key points where saves could be performed in a less intrusive way. For example, entering one of the direct modes could trigger a save before allowing you to direct anything. Possibly performing a save once you stop recording?

As for the import issues, too big or not enough space, well I think that's something you need to live with for now. The collision of an object can not intersect with the collision of another object, that just gives bad results. I find the best way to work around those issues are, as said, move up a bit away from the ground and other objects but also angle the directors view at about 45 degree angle to the sky dome or the ground helps greatly.

Ziggy makes a good point about the forgot items. You need to have all your images files used in the ASE available for Muvizu to load in at the same time. Personally I always edit the ASE file and remove the full path (the "C:\users\name\this_place\that_place" part) and leave only the file name. Placing all the .jpg or .png files in the same folder as the ASE file and you shouldn't have any problems. This also makes it work for anyone you want to share your ASE file with, as the full path to your image file won't exist on any other computer, so you could send a friend or upload a object to the Muvizu gallery and have all the right files within the zip but still have import issues with Muvizu as Bob's computer is looking for a image file in the folder "C:\users\john\ase\models\..."

Hope this helps

--
Direct, don't animate!
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