Rotopen custom images

[sambucadog]

I have x10 Ultimate, and it's been nothing but problems. Tech support is trying to help me with constant crashing. In the meantime, I'm trying to clean up my project (which will not render in any setting I have tried) in spots where the program crashes. Where I use rotopen, it locks up a lot when rendering.
I have several custom images that were created in photoshop and imported with transparent backgrounds as psd files. This is the only format that seems to hold the transparency once brought into VS. I've tried tif and png, both are transparent in Photoshop, but when brought over they have a white background in the VS rotopen module.

Anyone have any success in bringing over custom images? Any pointers on how to create them so as to work in VS would be greatly appreciated. X10 is giving me so many issues, I'm sorry I upgraded from x4....nothing fancy but it didn't crash and corrupt image files.

Thanks in advance

Monica

[tletter]

Where I use rotopen, it locks up a lot when rendering.

To get around this problem, I create a separate VSP for images requiring RotoPen and after rendering, add the rendered images into the main project VSP.

I have several custom images that were created in photoshop and imported with transparent backgrounds as psd files. This is the only format that seems to hold the transparency once brought into VS.

To add a transparency layer, I use GIMP and then export as TIF file. These TIF files can be imported into VS with the transparency layer intact.

tletter
https://www.youtube.com/user/tletter

[sambucadog]

I went back and remade all images in GIMP and yes the transparency holds. Thanks on that. I also went in and created separate VSP for all rotopen images (10 total) and rendered them individually without problems. I replaced the original images in the project with the rendered ones. Still VS crashes. Corel suggested I create a new admin account in Windows and work from there. No luck, VS still crashes when rendering. I'm pretty disgusted at this point. I don't think tech support has a clue, they asked me for a lot of system files which I sent, and they never commented on them. Just told me to try a new Windows account. I can't render a project I spent weeks working on. Not in ANY format. Crash crash crash.

[gewb]

Just a long shot here...

I've had similar issues with crashing part way into rendering a project. Drove me nuts but I isolated my problem to a series of very short transitions back-to-back. After figuring out the problem I learned to greatly expand the timeline (zoom way in) in order to actually find where this condition existed (actually see them on the timeline), then delete the transition that wasn't supposed to be there. After that the render went fine.

[lata]

Monica

What else are you using in your project, any video files, if yes what are their properties?
What are the Project Properties
And when you render the files, what settings do you use? What type of video are you trying to create?

[lata]

Hi Monica

I am not exactly sure what you are trying to do with the transparent images.
I created a PSD and also saved as PNG, both retained the transparency when imported to Video Studio, of course we have to use the overlay track
I have attached a PNG, you can try using that in the overlay track.

right click image and Save picture

[sambucadog]

gewb, it's not short transitions, I've zoomed in many times. It's more like corrupt frames at this point, discovered in multi-trim.

Trevor, it's just a vacation video, I wanted to create a kayak image to move over a map. The GIMP treatment worked with a tif as a rotopen image (I feel more secure using a tif than a psd for some reason) whereas a photoshop tif won't work. Just a pain and really annoying that I have to take extra steps. The project contains video clips from 2 different cameras, plus jpgs and a few bitmaps...and now some mp4 clips from the rotopen renderings.

Project settings are 1920x1080 24bit 29.97fps
Video clips are mostly the same as above, maybe one or 2 that are 1280x720 24but 29.97fps
Rendering at the default MPEG-4 1920x1080 24bit 30fps, smart render on. When I try with "Same as project settings" it crashes IMMEDIATELY.
I must confess this part of the process is a bit of a mystery to me, I don't fully understand all the options and settings, so maybe this is my problem?

After many hours of examining video frames, VS seems to be also corrupting the last frame of many of the rendered clips. Lots of hours spent trimming them and oh what a pain keeping all the tracks in sync, ripple editing doesn't work so well when you use multitrim. I also found one replaced clip that still had the rotopen fx filter active on it...after I rendered the clip it shouldn't be there, so I took it off.

I also started paying more attention to the crash messages. Some made no sense, others crashed with specifics like certain New Blue audio filters. So I took the filters off the clips that used them, all the while being annoyed that yet another "Premium feature" was causing crashes and useless for cleaning up my audio.

So bottom line, I tried rendering the entire tweaked project today again 4 times. The first 3 crashed all in different places. Oh, and the rendering preview feature all of a sudden stopped working so I can't see the exact frame where it crashes. But I tried one last time and it made it through. Seems like it's totally hit or miss. Same project, 1 out of 4 makes it to the end. I guess I should guard that file with my life because it may not happen again!!

Confused...and tired..

[tletter]

The GIMP treatment worked with a tif as a rotopen image (I feel more secure using a tif than a psd for some reason)

GIMP works very well and it's free unlike PS.

Seems like it's totally hit or miss.

Indeed, if the VSP is reasonably complex, i.e. with certain problematic filters and/or a voice track and multiple music tracks, then rendering can be problematic. As there is no useful error log or error checking by the rendering engine, then you're largely on your own to determine the cause of rendering failure/errors. One tedious approach is to start disabling tracks and then re-rendering to see if there is a problematic track. I've sometimes found that the voice track and all the music tracks must be rendered separately from the other tracks to prevent crashes whilst rendering.

tletter
https://www.youtube.com/user/tletter

[sambucadog]

This is all confirming what I suspected...that x10.5 is unstable and problematic by design and there is no real solution for many things...just "work arounds". Very very disappointed in this company. Thanks for all your help in this forum.

[Scubbie]

One project I did last year incorporated a variety of images, video, graphics and more from various sources.

The project begun to become unstable and I was struggling to see where the cause was. In the end I traced it to the audio I had recorded. It would crash out during a few specific templates which I was using and I was blaming them. This kind of deflected me from the actual cause.

Being a cheapskate I used a mic and attached it to my mobile phone to record some audio. The audio was Ok, but the files created wth the Dictaphone app were the route of my problem. I managed to identify that it was the audio by muting it.

As a suggestion why not grey out a specific track and see if the video renders without it?

Do one track at a time, until you're sure that you've identified the cause. Perhaps you could grey out all but one track, and gradually bring in different tracks until it crashes too.

Also for any images I want to use with a transparent layer, I normally save a png file. They are a little smaller in size than tif files and produce good results.

I know that US & Japanese TV broadcass works at 29.97fps, but why not just switch to 30fps? It might be that your computer is struggling with the frame rate, but it would certainly make it easier to work out half a second in frames and things like that.

Here in the UK we have different frame rates for the TV (25p, 50i and 60p). Personally I prefer to work at 50p for stuff I'm producing for YouTube, but will drop to 25p. I've found that 50p flickers less and the titles move more smoothly. I could switch to 60p but with some of what I do it could end up showing in a more public space which requires 25p.