Carrara QT?
richard.chaos_91798ec102
Posts: 0
I have noticed that when I am rendering and test rendering in Carrara 8.5 PRO MAC OS 10.9 there seems to be an active application running in my DOCK "CARRARA QT"... What is this?
Comments
Are they animation tests? I suspect it may be Carrara interacting with Quicktime. I thought that QT and 64 bit Carrara didn't play nice together due to QT still being a 32 bit app?
Anywhoo, if you're having issues with rendering to QT movies using 64 bit Carrara, try rendering to an image sequence instead, and then use QT to compile it into a movie file.
If QT and Carrara 64 bit are working together, then forget I said anything.
That's interesting.
I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.8, and when I render an animation with Carrara 8.5 Pro 64 bit, a background item appears in my Dock that is identified as "QuickTime32.app". It is located inside of the Carrara.app package. I think it's a work-around that DAZ created to allow QuickTime renders on the Mac platform.
I'ts normal I think, each time we render an animation the Carrara QT is launched and appears in the Dock.
This is one of those times that it would be nice to have one of DAZ devs jump in and explain things.
I hope you guys figure out this Mac voodoo stuff. Or you could switch... :P
in fact, there are a lot of things that we would like to have an explanation.
I think soon open a discussion on Daz called: "I had a dream"
First dream (see attacment)
This first dream is to have colors in menu (like with Photoshop)
just a big font where the words fit would help
Good ideas from both of you but those dreams are not at the top of my list. There are too many other UI-based issues to even begin a list.
Carrara is wonderful but it needs major user interface surgery to keep it wonderful.
I might add. I have both the standard Quicktime player as well as Quicktime PRO 7 and I always save my animation fresh out of Carrara as a Self Contained Quicktime Movie.
Also I will ad when I render in Carrara 8.5 PRO the app thats starts to run says it is "Carrara Quicktime 32"
So I must assume that Carrara is NOT taking advantage of my 64 bit Mac System? IS that correct
There IS no Quicktime 64bit. Talk TO Apple. They deprecated THE format years ago IN favor OF coreimage/corevideo.
For anyone who is curious, Apple no longer uses QT to read/write video (the QT format itself has become the basis of MPEG-4), and ALLLLLL those old codecs in QT are in danger of becoming obsolete very very soon.
WARNING!! -- Any QT file you have now may or may not play in the future based on what combination of video and audio codecs (and any other container data, like QTVR, subtitles, chaptermarks, hotpoints etc).... If you are invested heavily in QT, like me, you have probable been horrified by that QTX thing… and even with the last great version of QT7 (still available, still works) you must "enable" the legacy codecs - Apple doesn't tell you but they are all 32bit.
What to do? Should we run around panicking, or passive-aggressively capitalizing emphasis words in our posts rather than go find out what is happening in the world?
The solution is pretty obvious (even though I DON'T do it most times…):
RENDER TO IMAGE SEQUENCE - the format is superior, it will shave a good percentage of time off your long animation renders (QT writes and rewrites the mov file at EVERY FRAME -- the entire mov file is read off the hdd, the latest frame is added, then the entire mov is rewritten to the hdd, while Carrara sits there and waits... if you don't have an SSD or the file is even a *little* large that takes a LOT of time)…. And maybe more important, the files are more than DOUBLE the HDD space:
I have a very large render 1500x1100px, 30fps, ~1min.
the folder of PNGs rendered to image sequence is 1.91GB
the Animation Codec QT (same alpha content, exact same pixels, "lossless" quality) is 4.76GB
Yeah, I render to QT most times, because I keep my animations short and in alpha layers and I like going direct to animation codec (with audio). It's convenient. I love QT. I'm disappointed that Apple isn't going to improve on it. I'm one of the 2 geeks in the world that still think QTVR is cool… It's a sad day but there will never be a 64bit QT.
And my QuickTime Pro utility languishes in a dark corner of my PC, slightly in front of my Flash applications. :)
TYPICAL!
Is not QuickTime X a 64bit app.
Ugh! Why would we want to do that?!? Because DAZ can't follow Apple's dev. toolbox? From some of the Windows issues I've read about here, I don't think they follow any OSes' toolbox. Besides, I'm like a bad maid- I don't do Windows! :P
Yes QTX and FCPX were both rewritten for 64bit - both lost many evolved features in the process.
The module that Carrara uses is called QTkit (I believe).... It's not the same thing as QT Player (QTX). QTX is able to read and write to the old codecs but you have to enable them, as I understand it it's basically using QTkit to support the old codecs.
As I understand it, Carrara would have to drop QTkit altogether (or just keep it as legacy) and write a new render export tool that used coreimage (which would only work on Mac)…. As a side benefit it could utilize any coreimage filter with almost no overhead, but it would be limited to the new sanctioned codecs. Apple seems to prefer everyone save in one of 3 (or so) "qualities" based on mobile, LAN, or "lossless". They aren't that interested in the supporting the smorgasbord of codecs anymore…. A lot of newer programs have very simplified video export - CrazyTalk for example was re-written for mac and it's export optionss are similar to QTX, but without the old QTkit "expanded" options.
Hahahaha!
I'll say this - you are a devoted lot! :-)
brainwashed?
(Alright, that was uncalled for! Bad Garstor! Bad Microsoft shill!)
Richard-
I think your frustration got the best of you in that thread. Smiles. But really----- Maybe post your exact specs. O/s, CPU, Memory, Video card ,ram
etc because maybe someone else shares your issues.
I personally do not have many issues at all with Carrara 8.5 .
I run it on Windows 7 64 bit, AN AMD 6 core cpu, 16 gb of ram, and a gtx460 video card. -------
So maybe share some of your specs and where in particular things are having you hang up.
rich
Good luck with that. ;-)
He's on a Mac Pro, but I don't know the specs. I also don't know how recent the OS is, and what causes the crashes. I've read other threads here where people ask if C8.5 works on this or that Mac, with this or that OS version, and usually, aside from some issues reminiscent of Vista or Win 7, having to enter the serial number as a Root user to install (Vista and Win 7 had to be entered as an admin. to take the serial #), and some Genesis and DIM issues, the people responding have said that it's pretty darn stable with the most recent OS.
In the past, just from my observations mind you, it seems as if Rich isn't one to take the easy road. ;-)
Well while writing my last response guess what! Carrara froze on rendering. So I hit FORCE quick and got an interesting result! SEE IMAGE! it says Carrara QUICKTIME was not responding Any thoughts on this?
As I recall every time carrara froze on rendering and I forced quit I got the same thing showing up carrrara Quicktime NOT RESPONDING
Here are my specs
YES!!! TRY RENDERING TO AN IMAGE SEQUENCE ALREADY! Try reading the responses for once. Holly's are particularly enlightening. You might actually learn something. :roll:
I recall Holly going into some detail about QT and 64 bit a few posts back. I also recall there being issues trying to write to QT from a 64 bit app - due to a lack of 64 bit compatibility? I never touch QT, so I have no clue. After seeing Holly's post, I can't see myself buying it either (I was kicking around the idea last year).
Most of the time, so far, I use avi without codec, which creates large files - but they're clean. Lagarith lossless codec didn't seem to play nicely with Carrara. But that could be my ignorance to codecs. Image sequence is constantly being recommended to me as the more professional way of doing it - and I may soon conform to that - since everything I use to work with video footage accepts image sequence footage. I just like the tidiness of a single file - and the simplicity of fast playback.
There was a lot of discussion going on regarding QT and 64 bit Carrara back during the beta, I think it was. Just try another method and see if you get better performance/results.
YES!!! TRY RENDERING TO AN IMAGE SEQUENCE ALREADY! Try reading the responses for once. Holly's are particularly enlightening. You might actually learn something. :roll:LOL
Cross posts exclaiming the same shtuff!
If the 32 bit QT translator hangs and can't write, then Carrara stalls. Plain and simple. Carrara hasn't hung, it can't send data to the program that has. So either use 32 bit Carrara, or render to an image sequence where you don't need to worry about a translator.
You can still get alphas by using formats that support it, such as .png, .tiff, etc.
YES!!! TRY RENDERING TO AN IMAGE SEQUENCE ALREADY! Try reading the responses for once. Holly's are particularly enlightening. You might actually learn something. :roll:
Yeah, I only replied to set the facts straight. It's obvious he is better at posting than reading, so normally I don't bother.
Dart, I am not sure how you can get through life without QTPro, lol. It is the Swiss Army knife of video. with the Perian codecs added in it can open just about anything (it use to even open Flash files but Adobe put a stop to that during one of their feuds)… If you need to just open a clip and trim the ends or extract a scene, I haven't found anything faster or easier… and it encodes to h264 (the "MPEG-4" codec faster and cleaner than anything else I've tried. It really was a super technology for its day, QT even had a scripting language and a (basic) 3D renderer built in…. They just kept developing these amazing things it could do, multitrack audio, cues, swapping videos depending on the player or internet connection…. But QTPro is something I use like 20-50x everyday just for trimming clips and quickly scanning through videos (my work is with videos so…). Honest, I can't live without it. We are so spoiled to think that 32bit means "broken".
Yeah, I only replied to set the facts straight. It's obvious he is better at posting than reading, so normally I don't bother.
Dart, I am not sure how you can get through life without QTPro, lol. It is the Swiss Army knife of video. with the Perian codecs added in it can open just about anything (it use to even open Flash files but Adobe put a stop to that during one of their feuds)… If you need to just open a clip and trim the ends or extract a scene, I haven't found anything faster or easier… and it encodes to h264 (the "MPEG-4" codec faster and cleaner than anything else I've tried. It really was a super technology for its day, QT even had a scripting language and a (basic) 3D renderer built in…. They just kept developing these amazing things it could do, multitrack audio, cues, swapping videos depending on the player or internet connection…. But QTPro is something I use like 20-50x everyday just for trimming clips and quickly scanning through videos (my work is with videos so…). Honest, I can't live without it. We are so spoiled to think that 32bit means "broken".
QT is definitely not broken! I use it nearly everyday as well. It also has a boatload of fun filters included. Best $30.00 I spent on anything, period.
Yeah, it was evilproducer that said some nice stuff about it - so I was planning on buying it. But I'm certainly not going to argue with the two of you... I'll buy it soon. Thanks for the tips!
Back in the day, I thought about QT. I just don't do much video/animation work though. Heck I bought that Sony Studio thing that you use Dart...and have yet to do a darn thing with it!
For shame! Yes...I definitely need you and evil down here for a visit. We'll get some hardcore modeling/rendering/animating done. ;-)
Well richard's spec's should not be a problem at all. Its a rather robust rig. 64 gb of ram is pretty nice. Unfortunately I do not have any Mac experience, I aso have all Nvidia Video cards so cannot help there either with the Radeon if that has any issues.
so it would be nice to know if others who have same O/s or Video card he has might have had some rendering issues using QT.
I usually render sequences of files. And being a windows person we do not have option to render to qt anyhow as otherwise we render to avi for quick looks.
rich
The issue is more Richard not reading the responses than his rig. Actually, the real issue is that there is a translator program that converts Richard's 64 bit renders and puts them in 32 bit quicktime movie format. For some reason, this bridge (for lack of a better word) is hanging up, which causes Carrara not to communicate with it, which causes Carrara to stall, which causes Richard to assume it's all Carrara's fault, which causes him to rant, and overlook relevant data, such as Carrara is responding and the bridge is not.
Maybe Richard should look to see if there is an update or a patch to this bridge. It may be an Apple bridge, or it may be a DAZ bridge. I don't know, but obviously from his screen shots, it's not Carrara. Maybe Richard needs to file a support ticket with DAZ about this bridge, to see if it is Apple's bridge or DAZ's bridge. and where to go from there.
He also ignores the posts describing the issues and why they are there, and the suggestions to render to image sequences or render using the 32 bit version of Carrara.