[James Harris]

Hi Mike

Thanks for your reply.

I am using 32kHz wide screen PAL project – that is the one selected when you first start – Is that what you meant?

I have produced a DVD before with the same settings but ages ago – possibly something has happened.

Adobes own premiere_faq.pdf states Adobe Premiere 2 works on 64 Bit processors but is not optimised.

Jim

[James Harris]

Also

When I close PP2 I get a Windows Application Error window? Does that add to the clues?

Sigh!

[James Harris]

If you are using PI with a panning camera such as spaceships flying past the camera shooting at ground targets then the workflow becomes very difficult. Apart from that it great!

Try the demo!

James

[James Harris]

Hi

Not at my machine to confirm this but there are occasions when you need to have two segments that are considered as ‘one’ but are not connected by the usual ‘line’. For example a text spline for the letter O. Two seperate lines, but just one segment, or is that one spline with two seperate but connected segments?

Was that crap? Well who cares – I just love the sound of my own opinion.

James 🙂

[James Harris]

Thanks Alan

I’ll compile some example files and post later.

James

[James Harris]

Ha

I keep learning – no wonder I had so much difficulty with my approaching rocket!!

James

[James Harris]

Generally Zoom will ‘zoom’ the WHOLE emitter so all the particles zoom together whatever their individual sizes.

Notice that Zoom is only available at the emitter level, at particle level size is the same as zoom so only size is offered.

So you can alter the ‘size’ of one particle in a multi-particle emitter but the other particles would stay the same – example: the flames from a rocket are the same size throughout the flight but the smoke expands and disappears over the flight – the ‘sizes’ of the different type of particles therefore change independantly.

If you want to show that you are zooming in on the rocket, say through a zoom lens, then you would change ‘zoom’ over time. In that case all the particles whatever time they were generated would ‘zoom’, ie get bigger together.

If you used (emitter) size in the same way the particles would stay the same size as they were when they were created so that later particles are bigger than the earlier particles and the effect would look like the rocket was moving towards you – a very different effect.

I hope that wasn’t totally wrong as I’m no expert.

I have found that I approached PI confidently expecting all the different variables to do just what I predicted with a few micro-seconds consideration. What happened then was totally bizarre!! I found that you have to think VERY carefully not only about what you expect from PI but also about your own interpretation of what you think is going on in any effect.

The rocket example is a good one – imagine you are flying past some terroists on the ground and they fire a rocket at you and try to reproduce the effect with PI!! At first I was cursing the program but eventually I realised that I didn’t understand what the particles had to do.

James

[James Harris]

From the banner select View/Preferences and the OpenGL Tab.

Hopefully Use Hardware Acceleration will be ticked – if not try ticking and see what happens.

Also you might want to download the latest drivers for your card, I did it for my card and its Open GL performance went way up.

James

[James Harris]

Hi

This is probably usless advice but I do like the sound of my own opinion and you have posted twice!!

It would help if you explained what you mean by ‘not smooth’.

Does your video card support Open GL? If not then the image is rendered by S/W and that’s going to be slow, possibly erratic (not smooth?). PI would have whinged at you when you first loaded it, do you remember a whinge? There may be a help function in PI that tells you if it is using Open GL, I’m not at my machine at the moment so can’t direct you.

Your RAMs OK – You should be better than 1.5GHz on the PC at least I guess.

Hope that helps!

James

[James Harris]

Hi

I’m new to this too but the general advice seems to be don’t convert to avi (or your target format) until the very last moment. Render your animations as a series of TIFFs or some low loss still image file and work with them. This has several advantages:

1. Nice clear images all through your work flow.

2. The ability to always render ‘down’ to a suitable output quality even if your original target changes – remember, you can’t render ‘up’in quality!

3. Your PC may crash in a long render but you only need to pick up from the last good ‘still’ whereas an avi would have to be restarted and still present the same risk of failure.

4. You can edit individual images or even delete individual images!

I use Cinema 4D, PI and Premiere and they all handle/generate a sequential numbered series of images so while the avi is obvious the stills sequence is better. Animations made in cinema have PI effects added and then possibly some manipulation in Paint Shop before finally assembling the stills and sound track in Premiere Pro.

If you transfer between applications using avis you will soon find that image quality deteriorates as each program takes a compressed file and recompresses it then the next compresses again. The exception to this if you use a ‘lossless’ CODEC such as the (free!!) Lagarith one (works on 64 Bit too!!) The penalty is that the .avis are relatively Huge! and you only have to break them back into frames anyway…..

During your workflow you may wish to preview your work as an avi – no problem just do so and disregard the quality, look at the content. However use the stills for your formal output.

Hope that helps.

James