Animated Textures

[martinfrench]

Hello

 

I'm currently doing a part time course at a local college learning the basics of 3D with C4D (R13), they also have VRay, not sure which version it is but I imagine it is the most recent one.

 

Applying animated textures (my background is in video editing) I've found that the texture will randomly disappear when the final animation is rendered out. The textures are working when individual frames are rendered.

 

Are there specific guidelines for animated textures? The ones I'm using are pro-res video files. Couldn't find anything in the VRAY docs and not even sure this is an issue with Vray or C4D. As it is an open access course access to tutors is limited but they don't seem to be able to resolve the issue.

 

many thanks for any help.

[John Dollus]

sounds like it can't find the source video during random frames. This could be due to network speed/simultaneous access or network path issues if you are not rendering locally. You can check teh render logs to determine if it's a specific system dropping teh file or if it is indeed random. Personally, I always add video through tracking in post production and haven't rendered it into the base sequence in the last 15 years or so. With a background in video editing, I'd strongly suggest you go that route.

[martinfrench]

thanks for that. I have learned the process of rendering with compositing tags with good success. Then ran into issues with transparency materials and the transparency pass in After Effects and the learning curve was starting to get a little steep. Will overcome that hurdle eventually but just wanted to learn the ins and outs of animated textures where I seem to be having more success with Tif image sequences.

[erickdt]

Not knowing how exactly C4D works, I would recommend you use image sequences for animated textures as opposed to an avi of mov file. This way the renderer only has to load one frame as opposed to a ~1GB movie for every frame. I understand where John is coming from, but I've found this method to be very reliable.

 

E

[Scott Schroeder]

Black frames with video files in rendering is almost always 2 things. Either your network is clogged and the file can't stream, or your system runs out of memory for that frame.

 

Erick is right on the money though, using an image sequence is much easier on your rendering as opposed to the video file. It's a simple thing to make an image sequence out of a movie in AE, so I'd go with that route for now. Just render out a sequence for as many frames as you need. If you only need 2 minutes of frames from a 10 minute video, only do those 2 minutes. No need to render and store frames you will never use.

 

One thing, what exactly are you using your video file for? A TV in the background certainly doesn't need super high resolution video files.

[martinfrench]

hi, thanks for helping out. it's more of a learning experience than anything else and having switched to JPG sequences everything is rendering fine now. i think i was perhaps being a little lazy just dropping in video files for the textures to see if they would work, which they do but as you point out it is neither efficient nor reliable. from a work point of view i'm interested in creating video/film installations for large scale building environments, to demonstrate the possibilities, hence learning new skills before deciding on the significant personal investment in software. Having used 3DS Max many years ago I've found C4D to be perhaps one of the easiest to learn pieces of 3D software but the myriad of tools, options, settings is still a touch overwhelming.

 

thanks for the help.