Why is render off (not the same as preview)?

[mmmaarten]

Hi,

An animation of a mesh that gets deformed and transported over a path, which shows perfectly fine in the viewport as well as when rendering a preview with File --> Preview animation is not the same when rendering (export to image sequence). For some reason it shows the mesh layer itself as transparent fill over the image eventhough that mesh layer (= warp) is set to invisible and even 'Don't render this layer' is checked... I would expect this layer to be hidden on the output just like the preview.

The background is fully opaque so this is not an alpha issue of the export.

[edit] Even when rendering with File --> 'Export Animation with Preview Settings' it's the same issue still, so rendering is not doing the same as preview. Is this a known issue perhaps?

Anybody could please help me on what I might be missing here?

preview/viewport (as it should be):


render(export) (showing some fill of the mesh itself while it's invisible and set to not render):

[Greenlaw]

A couple of questions:

Are you rendering to image sequence or to a movie file? Image sequences are very reliable for color accuracy, but I've had mixed results when rendering to a movie file. This is another reason I prefer to render to image sequence and compile the frames to a movie file in another program (usually from my compositing program.)

Are you importing images with high color depth (i.e., 16-bit color or greater)? If so, try reducing the color depth to the standard 8-bits per channel before importing. I've noticed that when I import a 16-bit image from Photoshop, the colors are always a bit off in Moho.

I think this is because Moho doesn't fully support higher color depths yet and I'm pretty sure it can't output more than 8-bits per channel anyway. (I hope this changes in the future because all of the productions I work on these days are 16-bits.)

[mmmaarten]

Are you rendering to image sequence or to a movie file?

I always render to image sequence, PNG.

Are you importing images with high color depth (i.e., 16-bit color or greater)?

Yes, I'm using 8 bit color depth input PNGs (just did an extra check with 'exiftool' to be 100% sure)

[SimplSam]

Are you able to provide a minimal example project file that exhibits the issue?

[Greenlaw]

What does Ctrl-R show? The same as workspace display or final render?

That won't explain the drastic difference but if Ctrl-R looks the same as the final render, I'm wondering if there's an effect or blending mode in use. Not all effects and blending modes are visible in the display or they may display differently from a final render.

[mmmaarten]

Are you able to provide a minimal example project file that exhibits the issue?

Thanks for taking the time. I'll create a smaller version and get back to you.

What does Ctrl-R show?

Ctrl+R as well as animated preview show the thing okay (this is what I meant with 'preview' in my post). That's why I don't get what's going on.

Also strange is that I use the exact same technique with a copy of the same image file elsewhere on the same scene which plays at the same time which is just rendering fine. I even have a third one with a different image, but also using the exact same technique (deformation of an image of a line over a path), and that one also displays just fine in the renders.

BTW that gray thing around/over the lines I saw before on all three of these (this is for some reason the mesh vector shape with some fill), but in viewport and preview it was gone when just turning that layer invisible and check 'don't render'. So it looks like it's ignoring the don't render part or something similar. (or I made a silly mistake, but so far to me it doesn't make sense logically)

[Greenlaw]

BTW that gray thing around/over the lines I saw before on all three of these (this is for some reason the mesh vector shape with some fill), but in viewport and preview it was gone when just turning that layer invisible and check 'don't render'. So it looks like it's ignoring the don't render part or something similar. (or I made a silly mistake, but so far to me it doesn't make sense logically)

For mesh layers, I uncheck the eyeball in the Layers Window as my quick option. Unless I'm editing during animation (like with the Magnet tool,) it's not necessary to see it.

That said, enabling Don't Render This Layer should do the trick--I use this option when I need to keep the layer visible in the workspace while I animate--so I'm not sure why it's not working in your project. If you haven't already done so, check the option again just to be sure it's enabled.

[Greenlaw]

BTW, you can probably move the mesh layer underneath the art layer. Moho doesn't care, and it might make the artwork easier to work with.

Another option is to use Hide In Editing View. This hides the artwork in the workspace but you can still see the wireframe of the mesh when you select the layer. Very handy if the fills of the mesh are distracting. This doesn't affect rendering though; that's what the other option is for.

I just checked here and both options are working correctly. I wonder if something is somehow corrupted for that one layer in your project, especially since other similar instances are working correctly in your project.

[mmmaarten]

BTW, you can probably move the mesh layer underneath the art layer. Moho doesn't care, and it might make the artwork easier to work with.

Another option is to use Hide In Editing View. This hides the artwork in the workspace but you can still see the wireframe of the mesh when you select the layer. Very handy if the fills of the mesh are distracting. This doesn't affect rendering though; that's what the other option is for.

I just checked here and both options are working correctly. I wonder if something is somehow corrupted for that one layer in your project, especially since other similar instances are working correctly in your project.

Yeah, I did both; turn the eye of the layer off as well as checking 'don't render' at the same time. But it doesn't work.
For the test I toggled and re-applied all these checkboxes again to be 100% sure it's applied. But also that didn't help.

I just sent you and @SimplSam a pm with a link to a stripped version of the file where the issue occurs.

I'll probably end up just rebuilding that failing part and I expect that to work than. But it would be nice to know what caused this and if I could've prevented this. And if this an issue in Moho Victor and team might be interested to know about this.

[mmmaarten]

Alright I just removed the part of the issue from the scene and rebuilt that part here and now it just works (with the exact same image). So it's starting to look like to me there is something corrupt in the file.

I wonder if you guys can find something wrong in the file and I'm all ears, but I'm doing the exact same thing here now and now it just works. Strange

[Greenlaw]

...it's starting to look like to me there is something corrupt in the file.

I took a quick look at the file this morning and saw the weird render issue too. It probably is corrupted data, but I'll take a deeper look this weekend and see if I can spot anything in the setup to cause this.

[SimplSam]

Looks like on Smoke1 group you had "Outline on". That particular effect only shows during render.

[mmmaarten]

Looks like on Smoke1 group you had "Outline on". That particular effect only shows during render.

Oh wow, great catch! Thanks! I've looked through and scanned these settings several times but didn't notice this checkbox being checked.
I believe I once tried that setting to see what it does in this case and switched it off directly after when I didn't see anything change on the preview. But maybe I did an undo too many later so it got back on or something or I didn't save after it being turned off an reverted the file. And I couldn't spot it in the preview.

I'm glad that this was my mistake and not a corrupt file or issue in Moho. On the other hand I hope this doesn't mean the preview can't be set to show a real preview of the output, because isn't that what a preview is for?
Is it true? Can't we set the preview to show a real preview of the output before exporting/rendering? Or is there a way to make the preview show the real output to see how things really look before exporting and to spot such issues during preview?