One of the things that slow down more than nothing is the current main window size. If you have a huge monitor (hi resolution) and maximize your main window, then Anime Studio needs to draw huge 2D raster images (remember that at the end everything (vector and raster) is going to be rendered (more or less accuracy) in the main window as raster images) and as well as it doesn't make use of 2D render capabilities of the modern graphic cads it plays very slow.
Try to play the same scene into a reduced main window (you effectively reduce its render resolution) and see how it speeds up.
In the right bottom corner of the main window there is a fps counter to watch meanwhile you play the animation. Look at it to compare.
-G
The fact that Anime Studio Slow's Down
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
A bit of an update:
I found something that has helped a bit. The setting on my video card was apparantly set to the highest quality. After I adjusted a few options to change it to highest performance, it was able to animate a few extra characters before getting as bad as it used to.
I have a Nvidia Geforce 7300 with 512mb. From what I've been told...this isn't really that great of a card is it? Should I get an upgrade. Do you all suspect that most of my problem may result from the video card. As a side note, I've checked my cpu while running my moho files, and my computer doesn't even slightly struggle. I can simultaneously surf the net or listen to a song with no lag at all. But at the same time, my animation is VERY SLOW. That's why I'm starting to think it's not about my processor and more about the video card. Perhaps...could I be missing drivers? Who knows. I'm an expert on sound production, not video production.
So if anyone out their thinks the video card is contributing negatively, can you guys list me off some excellent video cards to purchase? (Top of the line cards) I'm seriously prepared to spend a lot of money just to get the job done. I'm looking for any hardware advice at all at this point. p.s. I have a Dell XPS 400 with dual core processors and 4 GB of Ram. Yes, 4. However, I recently had someone at Geek Squad explain to me that my motherboard maxes out at 2.8 ghz. So, my 4 GB of ram probably isn't even being used.
Lastly, I'm in the middle of trying some of your suggestions. I already have been shrinking the main window. It's true that it helps, as does most of the suggestions, but that's a bit different than how slow things are now. I've made animations in the past that would slow down to keep up with the sound, that was a normal amount of slowing down. I was able to work with it. This is different though. Much slower...and if I put "allow fram skipping on", moho says 4 frames per second in the bottom right corner. That's too choppy to work with. In the past, it's said 11 or 12 frames per second. It has to be something either with my file as suggested ealier, or with my hardware which I'm hoping is the case.
Thanks as always. I'll keep testing various things.
I found something that has helped a bit. The setting on my video card was apparantly set to the highest quality. After I adjusted a few options to change it to highest performance, it was able to animate a few extra characters before getting as bad as it used to.
I have a Nvidia Geforce 7300 with 512mb. From what I've been told...this isn't really that great of a card is it? Should I get an upgrade. Do you all suspect that most of my problem may result from the video card. As a side note, I've checked my cpu while running my moho files, and my computer doesn't even slightly struggle. I can simultaneously surf the net or listen to a song with no lag at all. But at the same time, my animation is VERY SLOW. That's why I'm starting to think it's not about my processor and more about the video card. Perhaps...could I be missing drivers? Who knows. I'm an expert on sound production, not video production.
So if anyone out their thinks the video card is contributing negatively, can you guys list me off some excellent video cards to purchase? (Top of the line cards) I'm seriously prepared to spend a lot of money just to get the job done. I'm looking for any hardware advice at all at this point. p.s. I have a Dell XPS 400 with dual core processors and 4 GB of Ram. Yes, 4. However, I recently had someone at Geek Squad explain to me that my motherboard maxes out at 2.8 ghz. So, my 4 GB of ram probably isn't even being used.
Lastly, I'm in the middle of trying some of your suggestions. I already have been shrinking the main window. It's true that it helps, as does most of the suggestions, but that's a bit different than how slow things are now. I've made animations in the past that would slow down to keep up with the sound, that was a normal amount of slowing down. I was able to work with it. This is different though. Much slower...and if I put "allow fram skipping on", moho says 4 frames per second in the bottom right corner. That's too choppy to work with. In the past, it's said 11 or 12 frames per second. It has to be something either with my file as suggested ealier, or with my hardware which I'm hoping is the case.
Thanks as always. I'll keep testing various things.
Yes I am running XP...and wow, so this isn't that bad of a video card huh? Well, I guess I'm left with the conclusion that it's either a corrupted file or a poor approach to rigging a character. Thanks again...for now, I'll just have to compare AS to toon boom as well as reconstruct a bran new character in AS to see if it was the file all along. After all, I based all 21 characters I have on the original template that I first made, perhaps that file was messed up. I'll come back in a few weeks and post another message on the results of Toon Boom using the same character.
Hope all goes well for everyone.
Hope all goes well for everyone.
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Freakish Kid
- Posts: 168
- Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 8:42 pm
- Location: Budapest, Hungary & London, UK
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Vern asked how big you image sizes were.
We do a lot of cut out animation and the size of the images slows down the timeline a lot. It's best to set up all you shots as you need them. Keeping images sizes small.
Also, and you may not want to hear this - sometimes a software has a major flaw and unfortunately AS and sound is pretty grim. But its just a case of trial and error. Animate as best you can on all the lowest visual settings in the program. If you are using vector mouths (im sure you have them on seperate layers or use point animation) animate with just the mouths visable (this should help speed things up) finally, and this is something we do a lot of, animated a couple of seconds then do a preview render, look at it, go back and tweak your animation, then preview again - sooner or later you'll grow accustomed to they way sound and AS works, you'll even know what shapes are needed for each different sound. It's all a part of learning with the tools you have - however flawed they may be.
I'd steer clear of Toomboom, we've tried many different digital animation softwares and take it from me, AS Pro is the best out there. There is no way we could have produced the animation in La Riene Soliel without AS' point animation.
GK
We do a lot of cut out animation and the size of the images slows down the timeline a lot. It's best to set up all you shots as you need them. Keeping images sizes small.
Also, and you may not want to hear this - sometimes a software has a major flaw and unfortunately AS and sound is pretty grim. But its just a case of trial and error. Animate as best you can on all the lowest visual settings in the program. If you are using vector mouths (im sure you have them on seperate layers or use point animation) animate with just the mouths visable (this should help speed things up) finally, and this is something we do a lot of, animated a couple of seconds then do a preview render, look at it, go back and tweak your animation, then preview again - sooner or later you'll grow accustomed to they way sound and AS works, you'll even know what shapes are needed for each different sound. It's all a part of learning with the tools you have - however flawed they may be.
I'd steer clear of Toomboom, we've tried many different digital animation softwares and take it from me, AS Pro is the best out there. There is no way we could have produced the animation in La Riene Soliel without AS' point animation.
GK
I personally think, the render engine of AS needs a complete overhaul. It should take advantage of multithreading and graphics processing units (GPUs). I know both can be a pain in the behind, but once you get it right, the resulting application becomes much more responsive and user-friendly. Modern video and image editors prove that it can be done (real-time rendering), and that recent computers (no older than two years) are able to handle the load.
For all I care, make the super renderer a Studio version, with additional hardware requirements, next to the Normal and Professional versions. I think there is a market for three versions of Anime Studio.
Mind you, this is not the first time we had this discussion. There was a request for Moho to support OpenGL as a rendering engine. It is an open industry standard, available on all three platforms.
For all I care, make the super renderer a Studio version, with additional hardware requirements, next to the Normal and Professional versions. I think there is a market for three versions of Anime Studio.
Mind you, this is not the first time we had this discussion. There was a request for Moho to support OpenGL as a rendering engine. It is an open industry standard, available on all three platforms.
You didn't mention that you have any Particles in your animation. If you do, those will slow down rendering quite a bit (the more you have and the more particles you render per scene, the more the render slows down). Just wanted to throw that out there just in case. I also noticed a HUGE improvement when I would turn off Opacity (visibilty) of a layer as soon as it was out of the camera shot. Example: If you have a layer with point animation or switch layer anim that enters your camera shot from the left and pans across the camera to exit on the right. any animation that is happening or even the layer itself having to continue moving out of the camera shot requires the program to still calculate that movement. Turning off the opacity as soon as it's out of the shot will free up the computer to calculate just the movement you see in the camera shot.
FYI - I tried AS standard on my CrapTop - an old Compaq laptop with a 300Mz processor, 500Mb Ram and internal standard 64Mb video card running Win XP SP3. You wouldn't think it could run AS less do any rendering but it renders without any noticable slowdown for standard scenes!! That said, your computer and video card are screamin compared to that. I think it's your file.
FYI - I tried AS standard on my CrapTop - an old Compaq laptop with a 300Mz processor, 500Mb Ram and internal standard 64Mb video card running Win XP SP3. You wouldn't think it could run AS less do any rendering but it renders without any noticable slowdown for standard scenes!! That said, your computer and video card are screamin compared to that. I think it's your file.