Activation & preload strategy for smooth timeline track activation

headfull 2019-08-21 05:30:25 UTC #1

Hi,
Please can you give me advise on the best strategy for preloading content for smooth playback when activating tracks?
Using Station, I have a timeline with compos all with their own animations in timelines. When a compo is activated from the main timeline there is a framedrop, even when using the preload setting in the track activation menu.
According to this post (http://forum.smode.fr/t/difference-between-unload-and-deactivate/627), the preload should be the cause framedrop, not the activation. But using the preload setting in the track activation menu doesn't seem to have any effect.
The only workaround I can find is to disable preload and activation in the track activation menu. This makes all the tracks active from the start of the show, but uses almost all my GPU memory (GTX1080 8GB), and doesn't seem to be the correct way of doing things, as all compos are actually visible even when not needed yet.
Below is a screen grab of my setup. Thanks in advance!
Jamie

Walter_heen 2019-08-23 09:47:07 UTC #2

Hello!
I don't think there is 1 best strategy for that. It depends of the complexity of your compositions, the organisation of your show, the weight of your medias, etc...

I can advise you to optimize some compositions and choose the best moment to preload them.
You also have the possibility to bake some compositions or some element inside. Remember that if the generative/realtime rendering can be converted in video, you often have interest in doing it

headfull 2019-09-02 00:37:38 UTC #3

Hi Walter,
the bake feature saved me this time. It works very well, and the proxy linking is great. The ability to quickly turn proxy on/off to test changes to the original compo is very useful.

There is one quirk meaning that the new bake file doesn't get linked to the compo (marked as null). For anyone with this issue, the easy workaround is to right click on the bake_folder in the files tab, and select update, then save your project.

There doesn't seem to be any way to set a custom bake folder path. I would really like to be able to set the bake folder to a different media directory/disk from the project, as it quickly becomes a massive amount of data, and very high bitrate video, so needed to use a fast nvme ssd.

also is there any way to change the encode settings for the bake files?

Thanks, Jamie

Walter_heen 2019-09-06 09:57:14 UTC #4

Hey!

There doesn't seem to be any way to set a custom bake folder path. I would really like to be able to set the bake folder to a different media directory/disk from the project

This need development for our part.
I'll report this features to our dev team.

Marked as null ? it's weird... can you provide a screenshot of this problem please ?

headfull 2019-09-21 01:09:08 UTC #5

Hi, sorry for the slow reply to this! To clarify what I meant by "marked as null"; on the layer that has been baked into a proxy, if you check the advanced section of the parameters editor > baker > bake file, that file reference said "null" rather than the path to the file.

I just tried to replicate the problem to get a screen shot for you, but after updating to 8.5 now I can't get proxy files to work at all! The proxy file always renders as a blank totally transparent video (even when checking the video file directly in another app). So there's another more serious problem to solve first

alex 2019-09-23 08:59:01 UTC #6

Hi Headfull,
I successfully made the backing of compo works in our Smode Station 8.5 edition.
Can you send us your project and point the compo you try to bake?
This will helping us understand what is going on.

May be you can tell use what is your GPU and driver version.

Thanks in advance for this.
Best regards.

headfull 2019-09-23 10:52:42 UTC #7

Sorry, I don't have access to the project that had the proxy issue. I tried to replicate the issue in a new project on 2 different PC with different spec, but couldn't see the problem again. So I guess it can be ignored.

headfull 2019-09-23 10:57:29 UTC #8

Please help me to understand another point about proxy files...
If I have a compo with resolution of 3840x2160,
send to a processor with resolution 1024x576,
send to the output with resolution 1024x576,
the proxy file is always rendered at 1920x1080. I've experimented with various pipeline resolution settings, and proxy is always the same resolution.
Shouldn't the proxy file be rendered at the same size of the original compo?

alex 2019-09-23 17:45:23 UTC #9

Hi headfull

You find a regression,
Backing should use the compo resolution instead of HD.
A new 8.5 release should be available in the download web site in 20 minutes.

Nice spot
Thanks to report.

All the best.

headfull 2019-09-24 07:32:48 UTC #10

Hi Alex,
ok, I'm glad it is supposed to work the way I hoped.
not seeing that update yet, when checking via the Station "check for updates" link in the preferences.
thanks,
Jamie

alex 2019-09-24 08:18:49 UTC #11

Ho that is because I build a beta version available here:
http://download.smode.fr/station/beta

The final release will goes out tonight,
If you can wait for this one.
See you on the Facebook live.

All the best !

headfull 2019-10-17 05:27:37 UTC #12

Hi guys,
Following up on my original issue reported in this thread. I can confirm that framedrop during activation is an issue, specifically when you have a compo with PNG or PSD in the timeline, it frame drops when the compo is made active. We found that activating the layer via cues does work as expected, so seems related to the timeline.
We made two projects, one demonstrating the bug, and one with a messy workaround. Please take a look when you have time.

tested on 2 laptops, with latest smode station version, one with GTX1080 and one with RTX 2060, both with the latest Nvidea Studio drivers, and fast nvme ssd drives.
This is an important issue for me as I use PSD or PNG in the timeline a lot in my workflow, where a master timeline is much more useful than a cue list for me.
Thanks,
Jamie

RBasile 2019-10-18 11:49:09 UTC #13

Hi Jamie
you can disable the activation preload and unload

and once and the picture are loaded inside the Gpu
the timeline will not freeze.

the preload don't work as expected so I reported it to the developer
Basile

headfull 2019-10-19 02:45:14 UTC #14

Thanks Basile. That kind of works if I have viewed the content once, so it's already loaded to the GPU. But how to load to the GPU during a show without the framedrop? I guess you are saying I should preview everything once before the show, so it's loaded into the GPU. But it looks like smode is unloading some compos after deactivating them, so they need to be loaded again during the show. I guess I need to wait for the preload bug to be fixed, or use the cue list instead of timeline for the time being.

RBasile 2019-10-21 13:42:44 UTC #15

Normally if unload is disable Smode shouldn't unload the compo.
how many compo do you have ?