Motion is constantly crashing when exporting a huge project
Hi Folks,
I just started with Motion a few weeks ago.
After making a lot of rookie mistakes, I think I got the basics now.
Motion opened up a new world of working with videos for me.
But I reached a point, where playing around does not help any more.
I need some advise from a skilled Motion designer.
My question:
Generally - What are the limits of a Motion 4 project regarding size and complexity and how I can expand it.
In particular - How can I produce a video of my really big motion project.
My small problem:
When working in Motion, I have to watch the memory usage (I use "istat menus" for this).
When memory becomes almost used up, I save the project then close and re-open Motion.
In the meantime, I have a detailed knowledge of the actions that I should avoid to maximize
the time between the close & re-open actions.
This helps reducing Motion crashes. I think Motion has a bug with memory handling somehow.
Although working with Motion this way is exhausting, this is only my small problem.
My big problem:
Motion does not export (render) my project. I don't mind waiting 24 hours for the result, but there is no result.
Motion 4 always crashes after some time. Typically after 4 to 5 hours. The whole computer gets stuck,
the only thing I can do is recycle power. I can not show the result of my work. All I can do is blame "the software".
For this I need a solution, and I need it ASAP!
What I did so far:
I tried everything. Really…
I do not run any other software parallel with Motion. No Mail, no Safari, no nothing -> this helps a lot while editing !
Disabling render options motion blur, shadows, reflections and DOF helped in the beginning when the project was not finished.
Reducing quality helped in the beginning but I did not tried it again because the results are unusable.
Trashing preferences with "option-CMD Park+Ride" did not help.
Deleting the preference file did help making the software more responsive. Almost no beachballs after that.
Repairing permissions…. Checking filesystem… playing with preferences… nothing helped.
Then I was at a point, where I was mentally prepared for the ultimate step:
I wiped the hard-drive and installed Snow Leopard and FCP from the original DVDs.
Did not help. (BTW this takes a whole working day and half of the night).
Of course, I always apply the latest updates and patches.
Last night, I ordered a new iMAC (27", Quadcore, 8GB Ram) to be sure it is not a hardware defect.
Unfortunately its ETA is 2 weeks.
The machine I am actually using: 24" iMac 3,06MHz core2 duo with 4GB of RAM and GT130.
About my project:
length: 42 seconds
Format: 720p50
Contents: approximately 10 greenscreen videoclips 720p50 ( 10 to 20 seconds long) with Primate RT filter, 100 images (PDF), 500 rectangles.
Camera: one camera with 8 non-overlapping framing behaviors.
plugins: some filters from noise industries and FxFactory. No dubious untested 3-rd party plugins.
Untested ideas:
- Output parts of the project and assemble them in final cut. (I got this idea 1 second ago while writing this post). Anyone tried this?
- Single-stepping through the project and capturing a screenshot of every single frame (42*50 = 2100 oh my god!) Maybe by using a macro?
- Using a new computer with faster graphic-board and more RAM. As far as I know, Motion is a 32bit application and can not address more than 4 GByte of RAM. Also it will not use more than one CPU core. Will it help anyway?
- Installing some secret Pro-App beta-patches to fix Motion. Are there any? If so, how to get them?
- Searching for some hidden file that lists the filter, action or object that caused the last crash. Maybe I only have to rearrange or remove something to make it work perfectly.
Anyone out there who has experience with complex Motion-projects ?
Byebye and Tschüß
Manfred
I just started with Motion a few weeks ago.
After making a lot of rookie mistakes, I think I got the basics now.
Motion opened up a new world of working with videos for me.
But I reached a point, where playing around does not help any more.
I need some advise from a skilled Motion designer.
My question:
Generally - What are the limits of a Motion 4 project regarding size and complexity and how I can expand it.
In particular - How can I produce a video of my really big motion project.
My small problem:
When working in Motion, I have to watch the memory usage (I use "istat menus" for this).
When memory becomes almost used up, I save the project then close and re-open Motion.
In the meantime, I have a detailed knowledge of the actions that I should avoid to maximize
the time between the close & re-open actions.
This helps reducing Motion crashes. I think Motion has a bug with memory handling somehow.
Although working with Motion this way is exhausting, this is only my small problem.
My big problem:
Motion does not export (render) my project. I don't mind waiting 24 hours for the result, but there is no result.
Motion 4 always crashes after some time. Typically after 4 to 5 hours. The whole computer gets stuck,
the only thing I can do is recycle power. I can not show the result of my work. All I can do is blame "the software".
For this I need a solution, and I need it ASAP!
What I did so far:
I tried everything. Really…
I do not run any other software parallel with Motion. No Mail, no Safari, no nothing -> this helps a lot while editing !
Disabling render options motion blur, shadows, reflections and DOF helped in the beginning when the project was not finished.
Reducing quality helped in the beginning but I did not tried it again because the results are unusable.
Trashing preferences with "option-CMD Park+Ride" did not help.
Deleting the preference file did help making the software more responsive. Almost no beachballs after that.
Repairing permissions…. Checking filesystem… playing with preferences… nothing helped.
Then I was at a point, where I was mentally prepared for the ultimate step:
I wiped the hard-drive and installed Snow Leopard and FCP from the original DVDs.
Did not help. (BTW this takes a whole working day and half of the night).
Of course, I always apply the latest updates and patches.
Last night, I ordered a new iMAC (27", Quadcore, 8GB Ram) to be sure it is not a hardware defect.
Unfortunately its ETA is 2 weeks.
The machine I am actually using: 24" iMac 3,06MHz core2 duo with 4GB of RAM and GT130.
About my project:
length: 42 seconds
Format: 720p50
Contents: approximately 10 greenscreen videoclips 720p50 ( 10 to 20 seconds long) with Primate RT filter, 100 images (PDF), 500 rectangles.
Camera: one camera with 8 non-overlapping framing behaviors.
plugins: some filters from noise industries and FxFactory. No dubious untested 3-rd party plugins.
Untested ideas:
- Output parts of the project and assemble them in final cut. (I got this idea 1 second ago while writing this post). Anyone tried this?
- Single-stepping through the project and capturing a screenshot of every single frame (42*50 = 2100 oh my god!) Maybe by using a macro?
- Using a new computer with faster graphic-board and more RAM. As far as I know, Motion is a 32bit application and can not address more than 4 GByte of RAM. Also it will not use more than one CPU core. Will it help anyway?
- Installing some secret Pro-App beta-patches to fix Motion. Are there any? If so, how to get them?
- Searching for some hidden file that lists the filter, action or object that caused the last crash. Maybe I only have to rearrange or remove something to make it work perfectly.
Anyone out there who has experience with complex Motion-projects ?
Byebye and Tschüß
Manfred
iMac 24" 3.06 GHz 4 GByte memory, Mac OS X (10.6.2), FCP 7
