Does Moho make any use of GPU?

[ggoblin]

I have a laptop with a dedicated Nvida gpu as well as the built in Amd Radeon graphics. Nvidia comes with a console "Nvidia GPU Activity" which lists in realtime "applications running on" its gpu. With nothing much running, just browser etc, it shows nothing running on the Nvidia gpu, ie everything runs on the Radeon graphics. When I launch a graphic app such as photoshop, it appears on the Nvidia activity window.

Now when I run Moho it never appears on the Nvidia activity window suggesting it cannot make use of the gpu. It makes no difference if in preferences I select 'make use of GPU' and ensure display quality uses GPU acceleration. This is somewhat disappointing, am I doing something wrong?

Also during rendering it seems to make no use of the GPU.

I have now turned off 'make use of GPU' in preferences as I find the edit window preview animation is much better with it turned off. For example if I have a curved bezier shape, with GPU enabled it appears with straight lines when animated, if under display quality I disable acceleratio it looses the straight lines but then the antialiasing is srewed up (if I turn antialiasing on then it helps a bit but in this case the white eye shape and bubles still retains the straight lines). Am I losing performance by turning GPU off?

I've included test images below (need to click on it to see properly).



BTW the test image is from my mock up or trying to learn from Greenlaws latest 'bubbles' tutorial, each one of them is brilliant.

For fun I've included the gif of it below (not related to above question)

[synthsin75]

Moho only uses GPU in the workspace, not for renders.
Your Radeon is a GPU. But there's usually a setting to force a program to use your dedicated GPU.

On Windows 10, for example, Settings>System>Display>Graphics settings... lets you browse to a specific app and set which GPU it will always use. Otherwise, you may have Windows set to decide for itself. I have Moho set to use my high performance Nvidia instead of my integrated Intel GPU.

[ggoblin]

Thank you Wes for your swift reply.

Following your instructions Moho on my laptop now uses the dedicated gpu

I will settle with enable GPU in preferences but disable GPU acceleration in display quality - a good compromise. With the Nvidia it looks just like the Radeon did with GP disabled in preferences, so I'm not complaining

On my desktop I notice the motherboard disables the onboard intel gpu so only nvidia dedicated gpu is used, although there is an option for high performance so I changed it to that from system default. I guess on the laptop both graphics cards are enabled to conserve power.

Thank you Wes

[synthsin75]

Glad I could help.

I will settle with enable GPU in preferences but disable GPU acceleration in display quality - a good compromise.

That's what I typically do.

[Greenlaw]

@ggoblin, yup, that's what I typically do too: enable GPU Acceleration in Prefs, disable in the Display Quality list. Most of the time, I keep GPU Acceleration disabled in DQ because certain masking combinations won't display correctly when it's enabled.

Just keep in mind that GPU Acceleration can be useful when you need it. Enable this option in DQ when you...

1. ...have many large bitmap images in your project. The GPU can optimize the images and improve animation performance.
2. ...want to preview certain effects in the workspace without rendering.
3. ...when you need to view layers with reduced opacity when scrubbing and playing, or when tracing an image. With GPU is disabled the layer will otherwise become solid, which can get annoying while you're tracing a semitransparent layer.

(Side note: when you need to trace an image, it might be better to use Fade Unselected in DQ instead; this works with or without the GPU and is easier to set up. It's also better than Select Tracing Image because this feature doesn't allow transformations for the tracing image.)

[ggoblin]

Thank you for the tips Greenlaw.

But I'm surprised that Moho doesn't ask the system to have access to the dedicated GPU. If Wes hadn't told me I could have used Moho for years without the benefit of the dedicated GPU optimizing my images and improving my animation performance. Perhpas in a future update they might look into this. If photoshop can ask and get access to the dedicated GPU I'm sure Moho can also manage it.

[chucky]

Tou can tweak Moho's antialiasing using GPU settings

[ggoblin]

Thank Chucky!

Its interesting that the GPU setting are effecting the display quality even when you have set display quality not to use GPU acceleration. I don't suppose you have any tips on how to improve masking display quality (make it more acurate) by tweaking the GPU?

[chucky]

Sorry,
that whole experiment was hit and miss.
Any advances from that would be news to me too. I'd be very interested

[Greenlaw]

Yes, I'd like to see improvements to how Moho uses the GPU for display accuracy for masking and effects too...especially masking.

Over the years, I found that there is usually more than one way to get the same masking result, some of which may display more accurately. Typically, this involves breaking the setup into more groups, each with duplicated/referenced masks...that probably sounds like I'm complicated the setup but it's actually making each setup simpler and easier for Moho and the GPU options to deal with.

At other times, I set up one group using a masking setup that displays accurately and enable the layer option for Do Not Render This Layer, and create duplicate group that has masking set to render accurately but also set to not display in the Workspace.

But most of the time, I just ignore the masking error since it usually doesn't effect the final render quality. The Puss-in-Boots rig I made for the interactive episode several years ago is a good example:

My 'Puss-In-Boots' Reel.

In the opening demonstration, you can see how the eyes drift outside the head in the workspace. I could have spent time making this work but since I was the only animator on this task, I didn't bother. Actually, most of the animators I work with here wouldn't care either...it's more important to just get the task done quickly.

That said, I will be very excited when a future release of Moho can display this sort of thing in the workspace correctly.

Hope this helps.

[ggoblin]

Even though I'm a beginner, I'm used to pressing Ctrl-R at the first sign of unusual behaviour just to check if its for real or just on the workspace.

Unfortunatelty often its for real - usually my mistakes, or understanding.. part of the learning curve.

Just today I was surprised that when I scaled a simple two point vertical stroke line in the y-direction (Scale Y: 1 -> 2) it also grew horizontally even though it still reads Scale X = 1. Unfortunately Ctrl-R didn't solve this mystery.

[synthsin75]

Even though I'm a beginner, I'm used to pressing Ctrl-R at the first sign of unusual behaviour just to check if its for real or just on the workspace.

Good habit. I do it all the time.

Just today I was surprised that when I scaled a simple two point vertical stroke line in the y-direction (Scale Y: 1 -> 2) it also grew horizontally even though it still reads Scale X = 1. Unfortunately Ctrl-R didn't solve this mystery.

That's the difference between scaling the vectors, with the transform points tool, and scaling the layer. If you have scale compensation enable for the layer (which is on by default), any scaling of the layer will make the stroke width scale with the layer.

[lucasfranca]

That's the difference between scaling the vectors, with the transform points tool, and scaling the layer. If you have scale compensation enable for the layer (which is on by default), any scaling of the layer will make the stroke width scale with the layer.

Turn off the scale compesions option in the Layer property.

https://prnt.sc/59C2SntMDoYc

[ggoblin]

Thank you so much Wes and Lucasfranca, this really helped me out in my current project.

I had previously used scale compensation when I had designed a set of hands in one Moho file to be used in a switch layer in another Moho file and discovered after scaling down the hands to fit the character the strokes no longer matched - they were thinner than the stroke around the rest of the character. So I turned off scale compensation and it worked fine. But it never accured to me that that was the cause of the problem I experienced in the current project. The idea that I was only scaling in the y axis could effect what I was seeing in the x-axis threw me. Thank you for the explaination and solution, much appreciated.

[SuperSGL]

OK This is weird, I've used nvidia control panel before mostly games rpg's especially to get it running better haven't had to use it in awhile and I went to open it...and it's just g-force experience. ??? Didn't know I lost it any ideas? I see it now in the microsoft store (I have win 10) almost afraid to download it this way. Anyone else have this issue?