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General Previewing problem with Sapphire on AE CS4 Mac
Hi all,
I’m trying out a version of Sapphire to see if I like it (2.06). I like what the effects do, but I’ve had a LOT of problems trying to get them to run reliably on a Mac Pro with 14 GB of ram and After Effects.
1. Initially the plugin enables me to preview in my workspace window, but as soon as I start messing with the settings keyframes etc, then I lose my preview and the screen goes black. If I turn off the effect the preview comes back. If I ram preview with the effect on then I get a preview back. Is there something I’m doing wrong here, or is this a bug in Sapphire?
2. When I render I occasionally get black frames and some really weird artifacts that have a kind of 2 frame fluid/melting of the image effect.
Anyone have any idea why this is playing up, or are these effects too unreliable and belong in the bin (regardless of how potentially good they are, reliability and a lack of time consuming fiddling around to make these work is necessary for any professional)
Thanks in advance
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25 Replies
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Hi, Robin. Sorry to hear you seem to be having trouble with Sapphire. Please send the Sapphire log file from /Applications/GenArtsSapphireAE/config/s_log.text to support@genarts.com and explain the problems you’re having, and we’ll see if we can help get you going. If you can send a screen shot of your problem #2 (the fluid/melting one) it may help us diagnose the issue.
— Gary
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I too am having this problem (in both AE and Final Cut) and have decided that this set of plugins is not for me. I am running the trial version (2.06) on a MacBook Pro. Glad it was just the trial and I hadn’t forked out the $2,800 to buy. I know they are supposed to be good but I just can’t afford the down time stuffing around with buggy software.
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Hi Jezz; I believe we spoke on the phone yesterday. I’m afraid I didn’t get the log file you sent; please feel free to resend it and we’ll take a look and make sure everything’s OK on your system. I recommend using the FxPlug (native FCP) version on Final Cut, as you get a smoother experience. The same Sapphire license will work for both versions. You can download it from https://www.genarts.com/download-sapphire-fxplug.html.
— Gary
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I have trial ver. of Sapphire 2.07 and AE CS3 and have the same problem and in FCP with FX-plug too
Karel -
I have this same problem in AE CS3 and final cut on a mac, did you find a solution in the meantime?
The only one i found is switching the vignette off and then when i render the final production, restart the corresponding program and turn it on (this only works in AE), which for previewing is a bit of a hazzle. -
Hi Jezz; let’s see if we can get this figured out. Please send the Sapphire log file from /Applications/GenArtsSapphireAE/config/s_log.text to support@genarts.com and explain the problems you’re having, and we’ll see if we can help get you going.
— Gary
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I have an objection to the nature of the responses on this particular forum.
Creative Cow has always been a place wherein video users could share their experiences with one another and openly discuss their experiences with one another. From great to abysmal and everything in between. It’s a place where we share our problems and solutions and try to help each other out.
Most of the responses on this forum are encouraging users to email Genarts directly. This undermines the nature of this forum, and completely bypasses the principle of shared experience that has in the past made creative cow so great.
Genarts I have no intention of emailing you directly regarding this matter or any other. It is clear from my post and others that this is a serious problem and not a one off. If you can address it, please do so on here, for all to see and benefit from.
It would seem that the plugins are quite buggy, in this instance – previews, I look forward to you providing a solution or suitable upgrade if you can on the forum for all to see and either benefit from or to understand the limitations of your product so that they can make informed decisions as to whether to use it or not.
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Hi Robin; I’m not the management of this forum, but perhaps as VP of engineering at GenArts I can explain. I’m sorry you feel I’m not being helpful. We prefer if people email us with support problems like this: we can usually help them better that way because we can track them in our support system to make sure the issue is resolved correctly, put the affected projects into our regression test suites, see if other users are having similar issues, etc. I’m hoping this forum will be used to share experiences between users: tricks, ideas, images, suggestions, news, and interesting tidbits. Problems are of course welcome here too, but as I said if you email our support folks you’re certain to get a prompt resolution.
That said, if you’d prefer to post the information here, I’m happy with that. Please post a sample project that reproduces the problem and I’ll take a look at it, and others can try it as well. You (or anyone else with this problem) might as well email me the logfile anyway so I can see if there’s something in your system configuration that’s different from people who are having success. This forum, so far, is the only place where I’ve heard of this type of problem, so I’m not sure what to make of it. We haven’t seen the problem ourselves, and I’d like to get a handle on it.
— Gary
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One other thing: if you’re uncomfortable emailing us, please post a screenshot or QT of the fluid/melting artifact here so I can take a look.
— Gary
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Thanks Gary, I appreciate your helpful response. I’m not averse to emailing you. I just think that taking the correspondence away from the forum is unhelpful for the rest of the ‘community’. Apologies if my previous message was a bit strong!
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