Moho Forum

funksmaname wrote:Morphdials are working in AS8!
I don't know if multi proc is on though? I can't see the setting anywhere... but YAY!

Hey Funk,

I heard that Christchurch got hit with yet another round of earthquakes recently. Seeing as you've got time to test out the MorphDials script with AS8, I'm guessing you weren't too badly affected this time around.

The multi-processor bug is definitely fixed in AS8, but you still may experience problems with incorrect frames every so often, due to conflicts when frames are rendered in parallel. I need to merge the two embedded scripts into one single one to get rid of this problem.

By the way, the multi-threaded rendering check box is in the Export Animation dialog with the other rendering settings.

oh yes!
well, we moved to Nelson, so didn't get affected this time - although we're heading to Christchurch for a couple of nights tomorrow to see family and friends...

such good news it's working! Actually, so far I'm quite pleased with rounded corners, patch layers, and quick selection via the alt key (working with fazeks tools!)

I may buy your selection tool soon and support your development work I saw you said you can apply things to multiple selected shapes? does that include setting a style? (i have a million shapes I created without giving them a default style so if I can give them a style easily it will be worth it!)

Pleased to hear you took my advice then . I'm sure there are lots of other people who wish they could move, but are tied to property or a job. The government should really either offer compensation to support moving costs or go ahead and relocate the entire town!

To answer your question, sure you can apply styles to multiple shapes at once. This was an absolute must for me as well. Sure, using styles lessens the need to select multiple shapes at once when changing shape properties, but it definitely comes in handy when setting up styles in the first place.

It doesn't quite work as seamlessly as I would like, though, as the Style palette only affects the lowest selected shape instead of all selected shapes, but the tool includes a button/shortcut you can hit to update the rest of the selected shapes.

It does works seamlessly for hiding multipleshapes at once, however, and this can be a big time saver too.

Really!? OK that's partially a reason to upgrade - how's the performance go in AS8? I wonder if MeshInstance renders with no multicore issues as well?

The performance in AS8 is probably about the same. I mainly use baking as opposed to the realtime mode these days, so couldn't really tell you.

If you guys like using MorphDials and would like the performance to be faster, I urge you to submit a feature request to Smith Micro to add differential blending and support for point groups to the Blend Morphs tool.

MeshInstance may still have issues as it communicates data between layers using layer variables and this doesn't work well with parallel frame rendering. I believe SynthSin may have developed an alternate version which only requires an embedded script on one layer, but I could be wrong about that. In any case, AS8 also has the option to disable multi-threaded rendering, so there should always be a way to get it to render.

I have a question. Did they ignore a fix for embedded scripts to work with multiple core rendering in AS 8 or is it just impossible to fix so they just incorporated an on/off switch?

There was a bug in AS7 which stopped any embedded script from working when rendering on a multi-core machine, and this bug has been fixed in AS8. However, some embedded scripts still won't work well with multi-threaded rendering. This is not due to a bug, but rather a programming issue to do with the frames being rendered in parallel with each other.

In most cases, I think they could be modified to work with multi-threaded rendering like I did with my MorphDials script, but there's always the option to turn multi-threaded rendering off if they can't. So, basically we got a bug fix, plus a fail-safe. Can't ask for any more than that .

Rudiger wrote:There was a bug in AS7 which stopped any embedded script from working when rendering on a multi-core machine, and this bug has been fixed in AS8. However, some embedded scripts still won't work well with multi-threaded rendering. This is not due to a bug, but rather a programming issue to do with the frames being rendered in parallel with each other.

In most cases, I think they could be modified to work with multi-threaded rendering like I did with my MorphDials script, but there's always the option to turn multi-threaded rendering off if they can't. So, basically we got a bug fix, plus a fail-safe. Can't ask for any more than that .

So, you're saying your MorphDials script renders in multi-core machines with AS8 now?

sbtamu wrote:

Rudiger wrote:There was a bug in AS7 which stopped any embedded script from working when rendering on a multi-core machine, and this bug has been fixed in AS8. However, some embedded scripts still won't work well with multi-threaded rendering. This is not due to a bug, but rather a programming issue to do with the frames being rendered in parallel with each other.

In most cases, I think they could be modified to work with multi-threaded rendering like I did with my MorphDials script, but there's always the option to turn multi-threaded rendering off if they can't. So, basically we got a bug fix, plus a fail-safe. Can't ask for any more than that .

So, you're saying your MorphDials script renders in multi-core machines with AS8 now?

Well, my development version does, but I haven't updated the version I've released yet. Funk said above that even that version worked, though, but maybe he is only using 2 cores and got lucky to avoid any conflicts.

I'll try and release an update over the weekend.

OK thanks, One of the main reasons I have not upgraded to AS8 yet is I wasn't sure if they fixed the multi core rendering issues.

It rendered with 4 cores here, but I get funky results.

Looks like frames did not render in the right sequence!

GCharb wrote:It rendered with 4 cores here, but I get funky results.

Looks like frames did not render in the right sequence!

Aha, yes! That's the issue I'm talking about. I think you will find that it's not that they are rendered out of sequence, but every so often the embedded script isn't run on a particular frame. It's because multiple frames are trying to store information in the document at once which can cause the script on one of the frames to stop running. The update I plan to release on the weekend should fix this, and in the meantime you can try disabling multi-threaded rendering to see if it gets rid of the problem as well.

OK, I've posted the updated version of my MorphDials (v0.2) scripts, which should now support multi-threaded rendering in Anime Studio Pro 8 .

Just go to the original download post on the front page of this thread and click on the updated link.

Hello again!

Works perfect now.

Thanks a bunch rudiger, you're the man!

Okay I really want to utilise the morph dial. I've worked out how you install scripts into ASP. It's probably really straight forward and I've missed out a step or something - thats my excuse anyhow

I put the morph and tools into their anime folders. I loaded up the MorphDials.anme. And now I dont know what I'm supposed to do - do I select the bones go up to morph and select one of the options? - what are the next steps - someone put me out of my misery please

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Brooke