AWS Thinkbox Discussion Forums

Animation codec?

OK so here is text from an error log and a screen grab of an error window that pops up on the machine trying to render the nuke scene. We actually have a Quicktime Pro license so I installed it on this machine in hopes that it would solve this issue, but it didn’t. When I submit the render it will hang for a long time. If I remote into the render machine I see that error window pop up. If I close that another one pops up immediately and an error log is written in Deadline.
Nuke_QT_Pic.jpg
Nuke_QT.txt (5.55 KB)

Are you rendering to a network UNC path or a local drive? I think even through Nuke Quicktime won’t render to a remote path and you have to render locally and then move it as a post process.

Hmmm, seems like the QT plugin for nuke is trying to find .NET 1.1 and failing… Try installing the .NET 1.1 runtime (which contains MSCVR71.dll) on that Slave and see if it fixes it:
microsoft.com/en-us/download … aspx?id=26

Gavin - Yes, we are using network UNC paths. So this is what I’m trying to confirm. I’ve seen allusions to this fact that Nuke won’t render quicktime files to non-local paths ( I think we have this issue with After Effects as well).

Jon - Thanks, I’ll give that a try ASAP.

The .NET 1.1 did not work. :frowning:

Did you try saving the video to a local (to the slave) directory, and then use a post-process to move it where you want it?

Scratch that… the dll error probably doesn’t have anything to do with paths. (This is why I stick to answering Draft questions…)

This is the error I get when I try to render a Quicktime to a remote location:

[code]---------------------------
Nuke

Write1: Couldn’t open file


OK Hide Details…

[/code]

Yup, that’s the same error I get when I render from within Nuke.

Have you figured out how to run Nuke through deadline at all, or are you still getting the dll error?

Oh I’m running Nuke through Deadline. It’s the quicktimes that won’t run. So at the moment, we’re running exrs then encoding them as quicktimes locally. It’s a pain, but I don’t really have time to automate the process as of yet. That’s why Draft would have been perfect had it been able to encode Animation quicktimes.

Ah. So, for the Animation codec, are you using the alpha channel at all? I need to look into this to see how much additional work on our end it would be to enable the Animation codec for the next Draft beta. If you have time to let us know what features you require, and what features would be nice but optional, that would be great.

OK, so I was just talking to my editors and my moGraph artists. Apparently Apple is working to eliminate the Animation codec anyways. Our editor was mentioning how the new quicktime automatically converts Animation files to the new ProRes codecs anyways. So our use of the Animation is legacy. I’m starting to push for an all EXR pipeline so the addition of Animation may be unnecessary, at least from our end.

Thanks for the info! (We were sort of wondering about the Animation codec, given that it seemed to be moving towards being a legacy codec.) We’re still working on getting Apple to licence us to use ProRes.

ProRes would would be helpful in that we would have options. :slight_smile:

I’ll poke CB again to poke the guy at Apple. :wink:

Hmmm, not happy to hear Animation is getting killed. We need lossless encoding (w/ alpha) and ProRes does not deliver that.

Googling lossless encoding with alpha turned up the following alternatives on various forums:

“ProRes 4444 – lossless, supports alpha channels, 4-4-4 color resolution as the name implies. Not for realtime playback.”
“PNG – the codec, not the image sequence. Not for Realtime playback . At best quality, it’s lossless. Supports alpha channels.”
“JPEG 2000 seems to provide very good compression, has alpha, and is fast to encode. It is however the slowest of those I tested to decode.”

(These are direct quotes, not my own testing/opinion.)

It could be that Animation is sticking around, that’s just the impression I got from what I read online when I was looking it up.

So…I know I am REALLY late to this party. I am just curious about what the status of using the Animation codec with Draft is.

Currently on the wishlist, but that’s where it’s at. I’ve brought up the need for it, especially in 2D heavy deliverables for alpha channel goodness.

Great! Thanks!

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