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Motion 4 Slow
I’m working with particles in Motion 4 and I’m having issues with it (Not Responding) whenever I change a parameter. It seems the length of the lockup is directly connected to how many particles I am producing.
Is this normal? It seems like Motion is only using one of the cores on my Mac Pro, is there a way to let it use more?I’m producing maybe 500 particles, using a Octo-core Mac Pro in OS X Leopard.
Any help would be appreciated. I’m new to Motion coming from After Effects.
Luke Henry
Mac Pro 4,1 -
9 Replies
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Motion uses your graphics card primarily, not your CPU(s). A better card would increase performance if you have a stock card.
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Thanks for the quick response, I have an ATI Radeon HD 4870.
It pins the CPU to 100 in Activity Monitor whenever I change any parameter, Could that still be the Graphics Card holding it back?
Luke Henry
Mac Pro 4,1 -
No, that’s probably the CPU calculating the position of all your particles.
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Oh ok. So the CPU is calculating the position of the particles and then passing it off to the GPU to display? makes sense. So is there a way to allow Motion to use more of the CPU for those calculations?
Luke Henry
Mac Pro 4,1 -
Correct and no AFAIK
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Are your particles really large or complicated? There are a few tricks I use when working with particles, especially large numbers of particles.
One trick is to lower the number of particles by a factor of 10 or more while I’m working to get the animation right. Then crank up the number as I’m ready to export.
Also, make sure that your particles don’t have a life past the length of your project. It takes longer to do the figuring and you never see the result.
If applicable, checking fixed resolution on your group may help if your particles are flying off frame. That way, Motion doesn’t have to calculate their position off frame.
And if you are using a complicated shape or image or video for your particle, replace it temporarily with a simple one until you’re ready to export, or else at the bottom of the emitter controls, you can choose to view particles as either: points, lines or wireframes.
Having said all that, something’s not right to me. I use a stock card in my Mac Pro, and I don’t think I’ve ever really had a problem generating 500 particles. True, it doesn’t play in real time, but I’m not forced to use the methods above unless, I’m using video or large images as a source.
Andy
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Andy as usual is right on and takes the time to actually give useful suggestions 🙂
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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net -
Thank you so much Both of you for taking the time to help me with this.
I changed my particles to wireframes and it helped a little bit. Then I looked at the Life of the particles and lowered that to the time of my comp, it changed everything. Motion now works so much better.
So for future reference I now know that Particle life should not exceed the comp time.
Thanks Again!
Luke Henry
Mac Pro 4,1 -
Even the almighty Particle Flow in 3ds Max is still not
multi-threaded. So even if you have a i7 with lots of Ram,
it still processes particles on one core!Both Apple and Autodesk have their work cut out for them
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