This is Pte Jack - HELP!!!! over (please!!)

[Pte Jack]

Ok, I have a perplexing render problem and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same problem or knows of a fix for it.

I'm rendering a video in SFM... MP4, MPeg or H264, 1080p or 720p. (doesn't matter, video does the same thing) It has 1 shot and 2 audio clips and is 21 seconds long. Render process is between 2 hours and 4 hours dependent on the res.

Render starts and goes fine until around the 3 or 4 second mark, then the render image freezes in place and renders the same frame for the rest of the clip. Audio turns out fine.

Anyone have the same problem and have you found a fix?

Thanks gang!!

[Pte Jack]

Oh, one other thing, After the render, the primary view port turns black, no matter where the playhead is put on the timeline...

[NieOrginalny]

To fix plack view port try to move the camera. I don't know about the rest though.

[The Resonte!]

how many CUSTOM ASS CRAP do you have (not to offend custom, i just use emphasis)

does the rendering process itself freeze on one image or does it happen when you play it back on some video watcher thing

[_sfm]

I've had that problem, but that just happened when my internet went out. Maybe it hits a point that's hardware heavy and hard to render? Like a ton of models or particles?
One idea is to turn sfm off and on again. Or your computer.

[Pte Jack]

@ resonte - The vid plays fine before I start the render. I always play vids through at least once to fix any offset gitches that can happen if you just render a vid right after opening it... the freeze happens while rendering the vid.

@sam - The only custom model in the vid is one of my own, and I know that it renders ok. I've already made a couple of vids using it. This particular vid is using the same map I've used before...

This is what I'm trying to render

http://youtu.be/xT07dFUGdR4

As you can see, it plays just fine in SFM

[Captain Cronut]

I have never seen this. I think the best way to troubleshoot would be to try a different map. Try removing the model (in a copy, of course). Also, if the video takes that long to render, maybe it's just crapping out because the render settings are too high? Try turning the render settings down to default.

If all else fails, you can send me the dmx and link me to the maps/models required, and I'd be happy to try to render it. That might at least tell us if the problem is with your system and the scene file, or the just with the scene file.

[raptornx01]

he was asking me about this earlier, h said the settings were dof 256 and motion blur 128. which are basically the mid level settings. and that this happens on two different comps.

[Pte Jack]

According to both AMD and Steam, my video drivers are all up-to-date. I'm starting to wonder if it might the the animated textures that sheen uses. I'll be checking that out, but I can't upload the model until I get this figured out.

[R234]

Animated textures?

[Pte Jack]

Yup, I've discovered that that is how they are doing the sheen effect. I've been searching the dag particle system for the sheen, but it's handled by the vmt and animated textures. This snip is from the v_wrench_sheet_gold vmt...

// Cloaking
"$cloakPassEnabled" "1"
"$sheenPassEnabled" "1"

"$sheenmap" "cubemaps\cubemap_sheen001"
"$sheenmapmask" "Effects\AnimatedSheen\animatedsheen0"
"$sheenmaptint" "[]"
"$sheenmapmaskframe" "0"
"$sheenindex" "0"

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedWeaponSheen"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$sheenmapmask"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$sheenmapmaskframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" "40"
}
"invis"
{
}
"ModelGlowColor"
{
"resultVar" "$glowcolor"
}

This was also my problem.

I "borrowed" the commands to try and spruce up the brass on the trumpet. I've commented out the animated textures in the vmt and I am not able to render the entire clip. I don't think SFM can handle this yet.

[PalmliX]

Damn it looks really cool! Have you tried rendering an image sequence just as a test?

[Pte Jack]

Yup, same thing... But what I thought was a texture problem, wasn't.

I had set the DOF and MB quality settings via the element viewer (the way you should)

For some reason the render time increase to over 8 hours on a 20 second video at a DOF: 256 and MB:128 at 1080p. The end result of the render was freeze at the 3-4 second mark while rendering a movie and at the 4 - 5 second mark when rendering Image sequences. Time increased to 4 hours to render a 720p and 3.5 hours to render a 480p. Image sequences predicted about the same amount of time to render with the setting input via the element viewer.

This occurred on 2 computers, my Laptop and my main computer (which I know both can normally handle SFM without problem).

First thing I did was check Vid Drivers on both and found that both AMD and Steam reported the drivers as Up-to-date. (Shock!!!)

From there i started investigating textures (see above notes!) and started testing renders with the DOF and MB set to 0 via the Element viewer. I started to get successful renders.

So I started to ramp up the DOF and the MB via the overrides in the Export Movie menu and had successful renders with the settings at DOF: 1024 and MB at 256 (max) and only minutes to render. This lead me to believe that it had been the sheen controls that I had commented out of the VMTs.

So, I set the DOF and the MB to 256/128 via the element viewer again and prepped for my final render... On pressing Export, my render time ramped up to over 8 hours again, so I let the computer render overnight only to wake up to a stalled video again.

So, back to the drawing board, I uncommented the sheen commands in the VMT, set the element viewer camera DOF and MB to 0 and ran an export and ramped the overrides for DOF and MB to the max in the export menu, set the camera aperature to .5 and ran the render. It only took like 20-30 minutes to render the complete 20 second video with fades on both ends at 1080p -- no frame freeze. ???????????????

So now I wonder if there is something broken within the Camera element viewer DOF/MB settings???

[yvanni]

wow
jack got stumped
we're all doomed

[Pte Jack]

Man that was a while ago... and I don't know if it is still a problem???