mac spinning wheel

[Nicohk92]

Ok my project is getting pretty loaded at the moment.

I generally uncheck al layers i'm not currently focused on, especially images (finding out about layer comps btw, pretty useful).


Still, I get the spinning rainbow wheel for a few seconds at almost every manipulation. It really slows me down. It was running fine a few days ago and I have the latest macbook pro, supposedly the most powerful laptop of all.

So I'm sure you'll tell me it's normal, any computer while reach limits when projects are dense. But what step would you take to make my project run more smoothly.

It's weird cause i can scrub along the timeline and playback with ease. It's just everytime I want to transform, add point etc.., it gets stuck for seconds at a time.

What should I be looking at first?


THanks

[heyvern]

It would help to know how big the project is. How many layers, are they mostly image layers or vector layers or both? How complex are the vector layers? Lots and lots of points and layers? If the file gets really really big and complex especially with lots and lots of points, it can slow things down.

First thing I might try is experimenting with the display quality settings. Turn GPU Acceleration on or off to see which is faster. Turn off transparency display, layer effects display etc... anything that will add to the draw time.

If the project is really really really big, you may want to find ways to break it up into smaller chunks or separate files that can be composited in post.

I have the same computer you do and don't see slow downs as you described. However, I've been using Anime Studio for a very long time and tend to keep things as simple as possible, very few points. I've found that you don't need a lot of points at all to do even complex characters and shapes. However, I will admit this is something that needs to be learned.

If you have a lot of layers that were created by importing from AI, EPS or you used image tracing, both which creates TONS AND TONS of points, and you don't clean those up, then you could start to see some slowing down.

[slowtiger]

Stuff that slows down:
- too many points (happens easily with imported AI stuff)
- too many images or videos (more than 100 images, more than 15 videos)
- linked stuff on a slow drive (images, video and sound)
- too many individual shapes (like after tracing)
- all layer effects - these should be applied to the highest possible layer, not to each lower layer individually
- lots of (nested) masks
- particle effects with anything larger than 30 elements.

Check your file for any of these. This doesn't mean you shouldn't use any of these - it only means, as Vern already poointed out, that you need to plan more carefully the more complex your project gets.

I should mention that sometimes it's just a matter of working on the wrong day, and the same file may work perfectly fast next day.

[Nicohk92]

Thanks guys, I was thinking along those lines as well.

I've always tried to use as few points as possible but have imported some svgs which I haven't all cleaned up so that's definitly a factor.

The project is over a minute so that's another one.

I've used multiple brushes quite a bit so there are tons of shapes. Tho if I uncheck those layers, they should not burden right?

I unchecked the audio track and that definitely helped. I only get the wheel once every 4 operations now and just for a couple seconds at a time.


Also, not all of my media are in the same folder. Some stuff are even on the desktop.Gathering everything would help wouldn't it? (I guess that's what the new "gather media" is for. I'll give it a try.

I organized my project folder in subfolders ("Textures", "Pngs", "project files" etc...). Maybe I should just put everything at top level of my project folder (project file included). I'll see how the "Gather Media" manages that.


Thanks again

[slowtiger]

Storing your assets in subfolders shouldn't make any difference, as far as I can tell.

You should also check your project window display options and turn off what you don't need.

[Nicohk92]

Huge problem now.

I cannot render out my video.


on my macbook pro retina display X.9.2, kernel task jumps to over 10Gigs during render!

Then it says that I ran out of application memory and have to force quit.

A nightmare!

[F.M.]

What format are you rendering to? when rendering to a Quicktime movie file, all frames are temporarily kept in memory, until the render is finished, then it is stitched into a movie clip. Rendering to a sequence of individual frames, would be a better way to go, if this is what is causing the bottleneck. HTH

[Nicohk92]

Thanks for the reply FM. That's good to know.

Yes it was quicktime.


I was trying to render a sequence of several quicktime clips with alpha I had just exported from asp.

I didn't think of rendering an image sequence (Which needs to be stiched back together, with the audio etc...)

Instead I just did my compositing in Apple Motion. It exported literally in seconds and allowed me to do some color correction (which could be useful to have in asp by the way). Got yelled at by my client for the delay tho...