Issue with exporting animation, flickering scene

[gmble922]

Hi guys,
I ask for help with exporting animations from Moho (I tried in version 13.5.2 and 13.5.3). In about 80% of the cases when I export an animation and "Depth of Field" is enabled, you see some kind of flickering in the final export of the animation (tried many video formats, also only frame sequence export).
While moho is rendering frame by frame I cant notice these artefacts. After a closer look you can see that these are random layers that jump back and forth in z-direction and get big and cover the whole screen. It is very frustrating because in almost all cases the time-consuming exports fail.

I uploaded a short clip (couldn`t manage to do this here)
https://ufile.io/h69gtt2c

My System:
Windows 10
AMD Ryzen 1600 6-Core 3,2Ghz
Radeon 1050Ti

Has anyone experienced this and know of a solution?
Thanks for your help!

[Greenlaw]

No, I haven't seen anything like this before. Are you sure there are no keyframes on the moving layer or it's parent group? How does it look when you hide the moving layer. Does the issue occur when DOF is disabled? How about when you disable multi-threading?

(For testing purposes, render with half-res enabled and Extra Smooth Images disabled to it speed up )

[gmble922]

thanks for your response!

Yes I am sure there are no keyframes on the moving layers. This occours very randomly. I try one export and then layer A and C is doing this flickering. Then I am trying another export without any changes and than it is Layer F that is doing this.. So hiding the layer is not an option because before the export I do not know which layer will be the buggy one next time.
I am also experiencing this with different scenes in different projects..

When I am switching off DOF it seems it won`t happen so often but often enough to destroy productivity (and I really need DOF )

Last night I testest disabling multi-threading and so far it works. I tested it for about 4 times, but knowing my luck after writing this it will happen again the very next time..

Thanks again for your help!

P.S. I am using Moho Pro

[Greenlaw]

Last night I testest disabling multi-threading and so far it works...

Hmm...that might be it then. Years ago, I ran into a random crashing problem whenever Multi-threading was enabled and I was using Batch Exporter (now called Moho Exporter.) That issue was fixed back then but maybe this is a new issue that's somehow related.

Have you tried changing the number of threads in Preferences? Try a lower number and see if it helps. The old fixed limit (in Moho 12.5 and earlier) was 4 render threads so I'd be surprised if you have to go lower than that. My guess is that you may not have enough RAM to render on too many threads, especially with processor intensive options like DOF enabled. If you still see this problem after lowering the number of threads, then I'd continue working with multi-threading disabled until this problem is solved.

In the meantime, contact Lost Marble and send them a copy of your project with a detailed step-by-step for reproducing the issue.

Good luck! If I have time this weekend, I'll see if I can reproduce the issue here.

[gmble922]

Again thanks a lot!

I was experiencing this issue with 4 threads activated. I played with it, also with more threads. Then I tried just 1 thread and so far it works.

my PC is from 2017 and now that i see I am having a lot of fun with animating (I am a beginner) I am considering in buying a new PC, since export times for a 1 Minute scene can get easily up to a few hours with my preferences and system.

Do You think a new modern CPU can improve export performance a lot? Never touched a Mac system but seeing these new high performance M1 Chips make me really consider to switch.

Regards

[Maestral]

To me, it looks like a graphic card issue - since you both already went through the possible obstacles and found the solution. Can't really pin the tail but that flickering looks familiar with cases where GPU was the culprit.
Could be a mileage of GPU (a few more over expected) but if there's some 'misunderstanding' within the machine, you could try setting the card as a default one for Moho / how-to: https://pureinfotech.com/set-gpu-app-windows-10
Of course, there's a somewhat more obvious one - check the GPU drivers and update if needed.

Your configuration sounds solid with the card included although it's not quite clear which is it - some Radeon or Nvidia 1050Ti (which is still quite fine for work, at least in Moho). RAM on your machine might be 4 or 8GB and adding some more could bring somewhat noticeable change. Apart from MacPro (older editions) I preferred win or other configs where the latest Mac's resonate with some sort of signed-in-blood customer relations/obligation. In your shoes, I'd wait with the renewal till you reach the professional demands.

[gmble922]

my graphic card is a Nvidia 1050Ti, sorry for the confusion.

after a few more attempts it seems that RAM demand increases to a critical limit with more threads activated. with 4 threads enabled my 8GB RAM is almost completely "full" according to task manager. I think 16GB would be worth an upgrade.
Also I do not notice any performance improvements with more threads activated, but maybe this just because my RAM is at limit, too. I can see that Moho is using more threads when rendering (lines upon the rendered images) but no performance boost.

[Greenlaw]

Yes, turn off multi-threading, at least for this project.

I believe when Moho renders with multi-threading, it's working on multiple copies of the project simultaneously, and this means multiple copies of the project are loaded into RAM and processed separately. With intensive features like DOF and Motion Blur, this can add up very quickly.

Also, if you're rendering a movie file, this adds up the CPU/RAM usage even further. It's always better (more efficient/stable) to render to image sequence and then compile the frames to a movie file afterwards.

[Maestral]

... It's always better (more efficient/stable) to render to image sequence and then compile the frames to a movie file afterwards.

+1
And making corrections, after render, is much easier since you'll edit and export just the corrected part and not the entire scene. From what I could recall, rendering time for a video file or Image sequence (of the same moho file) should not be that much different.

[gmble922]

You guys have helped me a lot. Thank You!