Playback not accurate

[JQuinn]

I am noticing that the playback of my projects isn't frame accurate and am not sure why. I've done some tests and it happens in 2K and 4k projects and even when I reduce the preview rate to 20%. Any suggestions? At the moment I'm having to export movies to check the exact movement. Thanks JQ

[slowtiger]

I only trust exported movies to have accurate playback, not only in TVP.

[JQuinn]

Oh

[slowtiger]

It's simply a question of processor power. Some of my scenes tend to be pretty complex, I can't expect TVP (or AS) to play back in real time and still show all frames.

[JQuinn]

Yes I'd understand that but the scene I'm testing is only about 30 frames long and only 2 layers. Its a trembling arm on 1s which is why I noticed its not playing back correctly. I was surprised because its such a simple scene with hardly any data.

[slowtiger]

Ah, stuff like this is most likely not to play back correctly: staggers, stuff on 1's. I have the very same problem in AnimeStudio (AS), so it's really a question of processor power and maybe graphic card. I'm so used to just render a video that I really don't mind.

What I do in TVP: zoom out, so the screen area to be updated gets minimized, and let the scene run several times - eventually it will catch up to show all frames. There's also a checkbox for "show all frames" somewhere.

[NathanOtano]

Try to change your preview settings I always calculate all my images before preview (using the "force proxy render" option), that way you never have lags (you just have to wait a few seconds before seeing your images moving, i think thats better than skipping frames during preview)
I also use a low quality for playback cause you dont really see the difference while your image moves.

http://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index. ... xy&lang=en" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


From my experience, each time a tvpaint project is 2k or more it always lags on my computers. I tend to animate in 1080p (even 720), with some margin, and then i resize the project for cleanup.

But obviously all of this depends on your computer

[ZigOtto]

Try to change your preview settings I always calculate all my images before preview (using the "force proxy render" option), that way you never have lags (you just have to wait a few seconds before seeing your images moving, i think thats better than skipping frames during preview)
I also use a low quality for playback cause you dont really see the difference while your image moves.
...

idem here (always using "force proxy render" setting too), I check the anim/timing in low quality as well,
(sometimes, I double-ckeck tha animation with a reduced exported file, but not everytime),
then, I check the drawing/coloring in high quality, but here I don't care of "real time",
I'm just focusing on the drawing and coloring consistency, to track any hole or wrong detail.

[Thierry]

Try to change your preview settings. I always calculate all my images before preview (using the "force proxy render" option), that way you never have lags (you just have to wait a few seconds before seeing your images moving, i think thats better than skipping frames during preview)

Nathan is right, changing the preview settings can improve the playback a lot.
However, keep in mind that the higher the quality, the more ressources (processor power, RAM...) your computer will need to have. Working with projects higher than 2K requires an SSD drive and at least 16GB RAM.

- By activating "Background Proxy Render", the proxy will calculate the animation when you're not doing anything (when there is no activity from your part). If you activate it, I would advise you to wait a few seconds after finishing your drawing so the proxy can render the images.
- It is also advised to check "Force proxy render", because if not checked, the proxy will calculate the animation when you are playing it. While this isn't really a problem on projects < 2k, on projects higher than 2k it will cause issues.
- "Full Quality Preview" forces the animation to be played at full quality. You will need to have a very powerful computer to use this option.
- "Timing Warning" displays a red bar in the info bar if there is some lag in the animation
- "Play all" forces the software to play all images, but the timing might not be accurate.

For a good quality playback, activating "Force Proxy Render", "Play all" and "Timing Warning" should do the trick : you'll make sure it plays all images (and a red warning will be visible if timing / framerate is not good). "Full Quality Preview" is not really needed. You can always tweak the results by modifying the "Quality".

Joanna, having the specs of your Mac would be helpful : what processor do you have, how much power does it have, which amount of RAM .. ?
To do so, click on the Apple button on the top left of the main bar, and click on "About This Mac" :

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 18.07.37.png (21.22 KiB) Viewed 32892 times

A window will appear, looking like this :

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 18.09.50.png (60.32 KiB) Viewed 32892 times

With all the specs

[JQuinn]

Thanks everybody for all your suggestions. I have checked all the boxes in the preview panel as suggested and it appears to be playing all the frames but as predicted it is playing back in slower time.

What do my specs below tell you?

Thank you
Joanna

[Fabrice]

I have checked all the boxes in the preview panel

Try to remove "play all frames". As explained :

- "Play all" forces the software to play all images, but the timing might not be accurate.

So you would have a better timing with that box unchecked, even if one or two frames will be skipped.

Your Mac Pro seems ok to me.
Have you tried to update to the 11.0.3 ?
We improved the playback speed on Mac (thanks David !)

[JQuinn]

Hi there Fabrice - yes I updated to 11.0.3 when you made it live last week. If I uncheck 'play all frames' it misses most of them out. The thing I'm animating a a sort of tremble so I want it to play back on 1s and I also need to check the speed, so I need to see all frames and also playback @ 25fps. Don't worry I will torture Elodie with this problem when she visits me in 2 weeks.

Thx Joanna

[NathanOtano]

From what you say, I don't think you activated force proxy render? The frames should calculate and then all will play in real time.

I joined a jpeg with my settings if it can help

[Fabrice]

Hi there Fabrice - yes I updated to 11.0.3 when you made it live last week. If I uncheck 'play all frames' it misses most of them out. The thing I'm animating a a sort of tremble so I want it to play back on 1s and I also need to check the speed, so I need to see all frames and also playback @ 25fps. Don't worry I will torture Elodie with this problem when she visits me in 2 weeks.

Thx Joanna

ok !

That said, you can try Nathan suggestion.

[JQuinn]

Hi there - thx Nathan. I copied your settings but its still not playing back all the frames. PROXY 100% is continuously red at the bottom. No worries as I've moved onto another scene that's not on 1s and I will show Elodie when she comes. Anyway I've set my playback to match yours so thats a great help. Thanks chaps.