getting... so... very... frustrated.

[djembeplay]

Hey,

I'm at a complete stand-still on this project... I made an animation in AE that I am going to use as a background plate in C4D. The resolution needs to be at least 1920x1080, and it is about 45 seconds long.

So, I'm a bit frustrated because I have rendered this thing about 25 different times with different settings applied, just to I can get C4D to accept it. I keep getting a texture error.

I'm really disappointed that you cannot import an image sequence into C4D (or can you?). The only way I can get uncompressed motion into C4D is either a Quicktime or an AVI. I have tried all sorts of variations on both formats and have come to this conclusion:

There is a size limit to textures.

I have rendered fractions of the video that have worked, as long as the video file is under what looks to be somewhere around 2 GB. Any time I'm over 2 GB, I get a texture error.

The problem is... my full 45 second animation is something like 16 GB. I cannot find any information about this on the internet or in the help menu... so I'm completely bottlenecked.

Anybody know about this?

[triplej96]

I've never used a texture that big before but yes C4D does use image sequences in fact its runs faster with image sequences.

It the animation is used as the bg I would put the animation on a bg object. 16gb is pretty big mabye compress it some?

Render out of AE to jpeg sequence.

[djembeplay]

Hey,

Well I dont want to compress it as it will be rendered again.

Right now I actually have the whole animation rendered as a Tiff sequence... how can I import this into C4D? I've looked high and low for info on how to import image sequences, but have found nothing.

Every time I try to import a sequence, I can only import one singular image.

[Raptor365]

Download and have a look at this short clip I did. Ignore the first part about importing tracking data. The next part shows how to import an image sequence and assign it to a background object.

Because you are not importing tacking data, you should be able to ignore the part where I set the 'Range', just set the 'Exact Frame' and hit 'calculate'.

I don't know why you would have trouble with the texture size, but maybe.
Follow these steps anyways and shout back if your still having problems.

-see post below-

//hold on while I fix that link...

[djembeplay]

Woah, OK, now a movie with a size of only 650MB wont import... It just renders my color channel completely black and gives me a texture error on render.

I can't find a consistent pattern here...

[djembeplay]

Cool, thanks raptor... I'll have a look. Any idea why most of my video renders wont import? Now, I'm rendering an 800x600 AVI and MOV... total size is 650MB. Neither one will import.

Oh, and there are no alpha channels in them either... it's just a simple, straight video. I have no idea how I could be going wrong.

[djembeplay]

Hey Raptor - that link isn't working for me for some reason...

[Raptor365]

Maybe a codec issue. Image sequences avoid all of those and other problems.

Try this link instead, and look for boujou_c4d_2.zip...
It's taking me a few minutes to open the page for some reason (?)
Click on the name and in the new page, pick the big blue downward arrow, else you'll just download a web page or something.

http://www.freedrive.com/folder/b51ecba56e03d4181e0006ff1e8a5355

[djembeplay]

oh, there is goes

[djembeplay]

Ah, I just tried hitting 'calculate'... it was that simple... aah ha... hahaha .... HAHAHAHAHA... yea, I've been trying to figure out how to get these videos to import for like 3 days now... I'm slightly deranged at this point.

Well thank god I can import image sequences now... I would much rather work with them than video files... as you said, there seems to be codec issues.

Thanks for the help guys.

Long time no talk, BTW :)

[triplej96]

Glad you got it sorted. I remember the first time I was using video in C4D took me few hours until I saw the "calculate" button. I would recommend tiff sequences :).

[Raptor365]

Just make sure before you hit calculate that the 'Movie Frame Rate' located right above the calc button is at the frame rate you want. And that your project (Edit->Project Settings) frame rate is also set the same. Else you'll have to adjust and hit calc again.

Glad you got it going then.

[djembeplay]

Ya, what a relief.

It usually seems like the most simple things that we get snagged on, doesn't it?

[djembeplay]

Raptor - is there any negative to intentionally setting a frame rate of, say, 40 on the video when the project frame rate is 30? I want my video to be a bit quiker than how I rendered it, but I don't want to render it all over again....

Will I get jumpy frames?

[Raptor365]

Shoudn't be. But I would keep those the same as the original footage, generally set to 24 or 30. Then when you render, you can go to Render Settings->Output and you'll see another setting for frame rate there and you can change that one.

A bit confusing isn't it. It shouldn't matter though if you do it the other way. Been awhile since I've done it.

[Raptor365]

Oh, misunderstood the question. Yeah if they don't match up it'll be out of sync.

The Render Settings->Output one you can set to whatever you want.

//more.

Actually if you want your raw footage to be faster, your better off doing that in your NLE then exporting out a new image seq and use that.
Otherwise, C4D will just interpolate the frames and you'll get that jumped frame look.

whew.

[djembeplay]

Ya thats what I thought might happen... alright, back to the frame crunching then. Man, I could use a faster computer... or a render farm.

[Raptor365]

RenderTitan is really good. You'll need $250 to buy a bunch of credits but then get to use them up whenever you want. That's on my wish list also. Maybe next year, sigh. :)

[djembeplay]

So how many hours of rendering would $250 get you?

[Raptor365]

I used it a few months ago and it was 25c per ghz hour. They also have periodic sales deals that are huge bargains and the larger the purchase the better the deal.

But I used the $250 one courtesy of Fat Monster. So that's 1000 ghz hours.
How I understand it is that a ghz hour is how many ghz of cpu is used during 1 hour of rendering.

So in my case to try and predict the cost, would take how long it would take to render on my computer if it was running at 1 ghz and multiply that time by 25 cent. I run about 2ghz so I use time X 2 X 0.25.

In practice it was about 30% more than that because of different variable like different frames taking longer than others so it's just an estimate.

To give you an idea, one render I did was 144 frames at about 10 to 20 mins per frame on my PC, I forget now, but the entire thing was rendered in under an hour and costs 6 or 7 dollars.

//So in that case at 10min/frame on my PC my prediction would have been $12, so I came in well under there.

[djembeplay]

wow... thats cheap. I might need to use that for my current project. I'm looking at 1005 frames, unless I go 24 fps... which I probobly will, actually.

I've been rendering in layers otherwise my system would be totally clogged.

So, if you render uncompressed frames, wouldn't it take a long time to download those from the remote render farm? Or does it not work that way?

[Raptor365]

Downloading is seperate. There's no charge for it. Basically you get a folder and subfolders on an ftp site where you upload your project and texture files. Once you start the project, which is controlled by you at their site through a few buttons, then it dumps the renders to a folder which you can acess anytime. They render multiple frames at the same time.

So you can download them as they come out to save time, or wait until they're all done and download them as you would anything else. Whatever your download speed is that's how fast they download.

[djembeplay]

Cool. Is this a relatively new idea or has it been around for a long time?

[Raptor365]

I couldn't say. There's several online farms around though. I can only comment on RenderTitan. I'd also add customer service was excellent. 24/7.

[djembeplay]

I read a little bit about RenderKing... I think they are based out of Florida... not sure though.

If I recall correctly, they charge about $650 for 25 days of unlimited render usage. I like the way RenderTitan works more... then you pay for only what you need.

I don't see how these guys can actually make much money. I guess it just seems like there aren't enough professional CG artists in the world who will need their services. My perception may be off though...

I mean, then you have to pay for the hardware and the electricity... and maybe the rent for a space to keep the servers in...

[Raptor365]

I just visited they're site again and I see they now have a minimum charge of 100 credits per job ($25) so some things have changed since I used the service.

Best to talk with them ofcourse.

[djembeplay]

Ya.

Well, thanks again for the info man.

[djembeplay]

I'll share this project with you guys when it's done. At the rate I'm going, I should be done sometime around January of 2014.

[Raptor365]

I just visited they're site again and I see they now have a minimum charge of 100 credits per job ($25) so some things have changed since I used the service.

Best to talk with them ofcourse.

I was just speaking with RenderTitan and wanted to update my above statement since it's been awhile and I didn't fully understand it.

RE:100 credit minimum:

That's not a setup fee and only a minimum charge. It applies only for applications that they have to manually administer. I'm told that since I render with C4D I never have to worry about the minimum. I wasn't aware of that. Coool. Thought I'd pass that on.

Also they mentioned they have launched a budget render option that right now is only for C4D and it's basically 50% off. If I understand correctly it's low priority rendering but it still usually gets finished in 24 hrs. Pretty good deal.
And they still have the regular service.

I wanted to mention that. I have no connection with them or anything.
Just someone I'd recommend. It's always best to speak with them though.

[djembeplay]

Hey Raptor-

Thanks for the update. I've been thinking about this project again... the animation is all done... but the rendering was going to take so long that I just sort of went on to a new project and put this one on the back burner.

Well that sucks... I do all this work and don't get to see the end result. So, I think my next project will be ripping back into things and reducing poly counts and texture sizes where I can... I didn't know then what I know now :-0.