So I finally got the AL demo running with my TC 2015PP. I'm finding the behavior of AL inconstant and extremely buggy. I have two gears that I am having rotate using the scripting method. Sometimes is crashes part way through with an insufficient memory error ( I'm using about 3.5G out of 12G ). Sometimes as I watch the frames being rendered, my model gets changed ( tooth profiles get smashed and disappear. There is always a render window that pops up that I can see the gears change position change frame by frame, sometimes the TC main window also shows the gears changing other times not, Sometimes the TC window goes away while the frames are being rendered then comes back. Sometimes just opening the AL pallet causes TC to lock up and crash.

It's one thing to have bugs that you can work around, but when the behavior is random and inconsistent, it makes the tool unusable. I can't believe the AL is this buggy for as long as it has been around.

Is this just me?

Joel

Joel.

Can I ask if TC 2015 is fully patched (using either build 51 or 54), Also are you using the AL version from the trial download or did IMSI send you an updated version.

Earlier matches of AL and 2015 were buggy for some of us, and I just checked the trial AL and its an old version from 2012, they updated some of the dll's in 2014 to get it working with v21.

In windows explorer if you got to program files - IMSIdesign - AnimationLab - Bin - are all the files (not the folders) 2012 or are some 2014 ?

If you let me know which TC and AL you have I'll do some testing.  I tested you file using the latest TC 2015 build 54 and the latest AL -  it worked ok (click picture below), used 335Mb memory.

Andy

Joel,

like Andy, it works for me - using 64-bit TC latest build, rendered with Lightworks using GDI.

NOTE: it may (will) help to Undo your animations after each run, even if nothing has changed, visually, from beginning to end.

Regards Tim

Andy - My 2015 does have all the latest patches ( 54.3 ). The files in the AL bin directory are a mix of 2012 and 2014. I just loaded tc again and it promptly crashed when I tried to run AL.

Tim - What do you mean by undo my animations each run?

<Edit> I just went and tried with GDI mode and it is still more than happy to crash. So far things crash more than 50% of the time I try to use animation lab. One of the more consistent crash behaviors is to open the model and do a high quality render on it ( Light Wave ), then open the AL pallet. Almost always crashes for me.

Thanks

Joel

To be honest I'm running out of things to suggest, I don't have Lightworks installed so, sorry I  can't test that bit,  the fact your file works fine for Tim and myself suggests there is some incompatibility between the version of AL installed and TC, but what that is I don't know, the trial I downloaded as a test is obviously different to the one you downloaded as mine had all 2012 files in it, (the gif file above was done on my main computer with the latest AL).

Sorry, all I can suggest is contact IMSI, unless Tim or maybe Dean has any ideas.

Andy - My 2015 does have all the latest patches ( 54.3 ). The files in the AL bin directory are a mix of 2012 and 2014. I just loaded tc again and it promptly crashed when I tried to run AL.

Tim - What do you mean by undo my animations each run?

<Edit> I just went and tried with GDI mode and it is still more than happy to crash. So far things crash more than 50% of the time I try to use animation lab. One of the more consistent crash behaviors is to open the model and do a high quality render on it ( Light Wave ), then open the AL pallet. Almost always crashes for me.

Thanks

Joel

After each animation run, go to Edit Menu and select Undo AnimationLab Scenario.

It looks likely this is not the source of your problems, but, is good practice, in use.

I will have a think about it again tomorrow - now it's time for zzzzzz!


Regards Tim

Andy - My 2015 does have all the latest patches ( 54.3 ). The files in the AL bin directory are a mix of 2012 and 2014. I just loaded tc again and it promptly crashed when I tried to run AL.

Tim - What do you mean by undo my animations each run?

<Edit> I just went and tried with GDI mode and it is still more than happy to crash. So far things crash more than 50% of the time I try to use animation lab. One of the more consistent crash behaviors is to open the model and do a high quality render on it ( Light Wave ), then open the AL pallet. Almost always crashes for me.

Thanks

Joel

Hi Joel,
 I would try what is explained here  http://forums.turbocad.com/index.php/topic,9797.0.html

Sometimes the UI becomes corrupt and the above "Most" of the time will fix the issue.
I tried the "Gear" sample file which John suggested and it worked ok.

The behavior of AL is absolutely nutty. So far it seems my issues are mostly when I use Lightworks to render the model. I did several runs with Redsdk and it seemed ok. There have been three main observations that I have been able to make,

1) when I play scenario and the main TC window goes away and I see the frames being rendered in its popup window, it always seems to work, ( LW or Redsdk ). When using Redsdk as the render engine this so far has always been the case. With LWs, it's random. Edit, I have now seen Redsdk fail this way.

2) when I play scenario and the main TC window stays open and the TC window model does not change and the popup window shows the frames being rendered, its hit or miss whether the animation will complete. This only happens so far with LWs.

3) when I play scenario and the main TC window stays open and the model in the TC window animates like in the smaller popup window, it always crashes. I have now seen this with both LW and Redsdk.

Tim - I did try the undo animation and it still promptly crashed on the next try.

Dean - I did try running as admin and also clearing out the UI directory and this did not help the problems I'm seeing with LWs.

As far as LWs, IMSI was kind enough to make LWs an additional purchase, would be nice if everything worked as expected.

I'll keep plugging at this. The AL tool so far does not seem near as capable as what I find in other 3D content creation packages ( I have Truespace and Cinema 4DXL ), but would be interesting if it would work reliably.

Thanks for the help and suggestions so far

Joel

I just did some testing with AL on TC21. I could still get the one failure where when I open the AL pallet TC crashed, but that seems rare. So far with LWs or Redsdk it has always worked so far if AL started OK. Another observation is with TC21, the main TC window always goes away when I play scenario. Lots of bugs running around in AL code.

Joel

Another observation is with TC21, the main TC window always goes away when I play scenario. Lots of bugs running around in AL code.

This is generally normal and depends on then setting contained in AL's options, for example if options - Frames - 'save frames as image files' in not-ticked, then it animates within TC but is not saved to disk, this is good for quicker checking of the animation prior to production like checking alignment etc, this is where what Tim mentioned about using undo after the animation has run is important to reset everything, if its ticked, an animation window appears instead of TC and the animation is saved to disk, other options controlling this are in options - preferences - movie creation (none/built-in/extrenal)

If it were all driven by what options I select it would be fine. The problem is the behavior is totally random. I'm not changing any options from one run to another. I have basically been loading my same model, opening AL and hitting run scenario. If it runs and completes, great. Most the time one of the failures I have mentioned is what happens. When a failure does happen, I get TC closed down one way or another and try again. I'm not changing anything but the outcome is very random.

Joel

Very sorry to hear that, its a shame the trial is giving you trouble, I would have thought IMSI would ensure the trail works good so people can make a choice as to whether AL is suitable for their needs. 

Ya, I want to like it but it is way too buggy from where I sit. I went to the IMSI site and found what I thought was a link to the latest version so I tried it. It installed OK but crashed on starting every time with an unhandled exception fault. I'm glad it seems to be working for everyone else, but until I can see it work correctly for me, I'm saving some bucks.....

Thanks everyone for all the help,

Joel

Ya, I want to like it but it is way too buggy from where I sit. I went to the IMSI site and found what I thought was a link to the latest version so I tried it. It installed OK but crashed on starting every time with an unhandled exception fault. I'm glad it seems to be working for everyone else, but until I can see it work correctly for me, I'm saving some bucks.....

Thanks everyone for all the help,

Joel

Joel,

sorry to hear you are still experiencing problems.
I cannot duplicate here, so I am guessing it is specific to your PC, or, more likely, the software installation.

Animation Lab is a very capable programme, I used it professionally, before retiring, every day for over three years.
Apart from operator error and recent early build TC 2015 problems, I have found it as reliable as anything similar.

I would suggest, if you have the time and enthusiasm, removing Animation Lab with something like Revo Uninstaller Pro.
Then scan perhaps with AVG Tuneup Utilities or CCleaner, to remove any leftovers.
Follow this by installing and running Animation Lab. (as Administrator).

If that fails, then I would . . . . . . . 

I hope this helps.

Regards Tim

I'd be more than happy to learn it's operator error, but I'm really not doing anything out of the ordinary. I did try the installation on a second computer just to see if there was an installation issue and I do get the exact same behavior on both systems. I did go through the installation of the system I'm really using it on and did find something really weird in one of the .ini files. All of my software is installed on a non OS drive. Looking through the ini file, it was referencing the proper programs drive but the paths to things were completely wrong and the wrong TC version. I found a bunch of references to TC14 which I used to have installed a long time ago. Makes me wonder if TC is typical of other issues I have found where it really just doesn't cleanup after itself and leaves tons of garbage behind. I may try revo but then I'm always worried about software like that removing the wrong keys. Being a Unix brat, I have a problem with the whole Windows architecture anyway.....

Joel

Joel,
Another guess >
Are you attempting to "play scenario" while in a quality render mode with "Frames" unchecked. This is not recommended.  Then you’re attempting to stop it and or then hitting undo. It's best to be in wireframe mode when "previewing"

Joel,
Another guess >
Are you attempting to "play scenario" while in a quality render mode with "Frames" unchecked. This is not recommended.  Then you’re attempting to stop it and or then hitting undo. It's best to be in wireframe mode when "previewing"

I usually use draft render 

So, I uninstalled everything with Revo, manually scrubbed the registry and found tons of leftovers that I deleted. Then ran CCleaner which found many more leftovers that I had it delete. Cleaned every hidden folder I could fine, then reinstalled the whole mess. Interestingly, TC and LW were still aware of there previous installations. AL installed with no issue but it was also aware that it previously existed. I have as fresh of an install as I can have. I started everything up, tried to open the AL pallet and TC promptly hung. I shut it down and restarted, this time it was fine.

I do render in quality mode because that's what I'm looking for. Frames was checked ( I think this must be what pops up the separate render window ). I unchecked it just to see what happens. First run, no separate popup, I can see the frames being rendered in the main TC window and it worked fine with LW as a quality render.

I managed to free up 5G+ of disk space as I searched for other leftovers and got rid of them. SolidWorks is just as bad at leaving things behind as well as a few other programs I have gotten rid of.

I'll keep playing and see what I can figure out, still have 10days of AL left to play with. So far, not impressed by the issues.

Joel

Quote from: Dean on December 08, 2015, 06:21:39 AM

Joel,
Another guess >
Are you attempting to "play scenario" while in a quality render mode with "Frames" unchecked. This is not recommended.  Then you’re attempting to stop it and or then hitting undo. It's best to be in wireframe mode when "previewing"

I usually use draft render 

i know, Andy, just trying to help Joel "trouble shoot" any issues.
Generally speaking,most small to average size drawings will produce a smooth "preview" animation while in wireframe mode.
also, if he is using a draft or quality in "preview" mode Joel needs to make sure all "foreground wireframe" options are un-checked if in GDI mode.

> Joel,
I would recommend using lightworks while you're testing Anilab.
> use any of the "Web" templates > GIF.

I do use LW, I find the high quality mode with LW renders faster than Redsdks lower quality modes and looks much better.

What is baffling me is the total randomness in behavior run to run. Not just one time it runs and the next it crashes, but the total change in behavior. All the observations I have posted about occur randomly just playing the scenario with out doing any changes.

I do use LW, I find the high quality mode with LW renders faster than Redsdks lower quality modes and looks much better.

What is baffling me is the total randomness in behavior run to run. Not just one time it runs and the next it crashes, but the total change in behavior. All the observations I have posted about occur randomly just playing the scenario with out doing any changes.

Joel,
Using the drawing that you posted >
While in wireframe mode
Choose one of the Web templates and un- check " save frames" by default when you choose a template "save frames" is checked
Does the animation work for you?

That seemed to work OK but also seemed to bring up a different behavior. In wire frame mode it zipped through the file OK but no animation was saved. Before when I tried this ( unchecked save frames ), it played the animation in the main TC window without a popup but still saved an animation.

I put a video up of one of my failures. This is the one that happens most often where the pop up comes up and the main TC window is animating.

http://www.dabbles-n-doodads.com/video/fail.avi

It's a 100MB so unless you have a fast connection, you might want to save target and watch it locally.

Joel

After posting the video, AL started crashing 100% of the time. I could not get it to run at all. I delete the actors and redefined the animation. After that, it worked fine using LW and high quality render. The other thing I noticed is that the main TC window closed and the popup is showing the rendering. From all the failures and some passing runs, it seems that the proper behavior is for the main TC window to close as AL renders the animation and open the main TC window again when complete. I have never seen a failure when it does this. What this tells me is that AL does a poor job of initializing itself at the start of a job and probably just as poor at cleaning up when it finishes a job. I wish I knew for sure that the version I am running is the latest and greatest.

OK, I have now run a dozen play scenarios with various settings and it has been working as expected, the main TC window goes away and the anim is rendered in a popup. It has not failed for a while. The only thing I notice now is I loaded a mov profile and it goes through all the renders but never makes a mov movie. Do you need QT pro installed to do this?

Thanks

Joel

Ok, sounds like things are starting to work for ya.
lets stay on track. keep working in wireframe mode for now.
Attached are my "movie" and "frame" anilab settings, please duplicate them > then
choose a "Web" template >"load  template" hit ok
(with my settings) when "save frames" is un-checked the animation runs in TC's drawing window
When "save frames" are checked the animation gets saved to the location that you have chosen and the TC window closes and the animation runs on the desktop.

I did a bad thing, I went back and duplicated steps I knew mostly made it fail and sure enough it did. Now it fails every time again. What I did,

1) make sure AL pallet is closed, not in side bar, then exit TC.
2) open TC and load model
3) render model in high quality ( I'm using LW, seems to make a difference )
4) open AL pallet
5) crash.

Now crashes all the time.

I still think it's an AL initialization and/or clean up issue.

I did a bad thing, I went back and duplicated steps I knew mostly made it fail and sure enough it did. Now it fails every time again. What I did,

1) make sure AL pallet is closed, not in side bar, then exit TC.
2) open TC and load model
3) render model in high quality ( I'm using LW, seems to make a difference )
4) open AL pallet
5) crash.

Now crashes all the time.

I still think it's an AL initialization and/or clean up issue.

I can't replicate that, Joel.
It's not a good idea to be moving palettes around while rendering in TC.
Are you using the 64 bit version or TC?
What version of windows?
I'm working in W7.

I'm not moving the pallet while rendering. I close or open the pallet right after TC opens or before I shut it down when done.

I am using Win 7 64 and the 64bit versions of TC and AL.

This one is a bugger.

Hi Joel, Dean, Andy and all,

there is good news and there's bad news!

Having some time on my hands today, I 'played' with Animation Lab for a good part of the day.

I tried running Joel's original file using the scenario templates, both with TC v21 and TC v22 (2015).

The good news is that I can confirm that Animation Lab is NOT broken.  The bad news is that 2015 most certainly appears to be!
At the very least, 2015 still has serious problems running the Animation Lab (64-bit) plug-in, for whatever reason.

As an example, see Animation Options attachment.

The TC window does not close during the process of rendering.
See other attachments for settings and screen-grab of an inevitable crash.
However, after a  couple of tries the animation did complete, albeit increasingly slowly, until the end.
The problems were the same with GDI and Redsdk.

One resulting animation can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/OZJhiZBHZS4

Running the exact same processes under v21 was, needless to say, faultless.
Hopefully, Joel, we might get this fixed soon - fingers crossed.
So, hang in there.

Regards Tim

P.S. I am not certain, but, I have a suspicion that this behaviour became apparent, after I choose to start TC using the animation start-up dialogue.

So things do seem to work much better with 21. My initial try with V21 was with the model saved as a version 21 file from 2015. 21 also gave me fits. So I loaded 21 and just remade the model there and it seems to work much better. I could still get one failure mode to happen. I use the AL pallet as floating so if I close it, there is no sidebar for AL, when I click the pallet button, it reopens it as a floating window. If I start TC with the pallet closed, then load the model and do an advanced render ( LW default options ), then open the pallet, TC still crashes. I can kill TC21 and reopen it and it will work fine as long as I don't do those steps. If I open the pallet before any rendering, all seems fine. So maybe most of the issues are with TC2015. Ive attached the model as drawn in V21.

Thanks for the help, I can live with further evaluation in V21

Joel

So after having the successful runs on V21, I went back to 2015 and guess what, it worked again. Something funny is going on, AL might not be behaving perfectly either. I'm learning what not to do in the mean time.

Joel

So after having the successful runs on V21, I went back to 2015 and guess what, it worked again. Something funny is going on, AL might not be behaving perfectly either. I'm learning what not to do in the mean time.

Joel

Sometimes, we can get used to working with something perfectly well, when it might be full of errors, and then forget they (the errors) were ever there!
But, TC and Animation Lab. should get on better together, not worse! 

Regards Tim

Hopefully, Joel, we might get this fixed soon - fingers crossed.

I duplicated your settings Tim but using 2015 RedSdk quality render (I don't have Lightworks), I couldn't duplicate the results, even starting TC via AL (though I would never normally do that), Unlike Joel though I never use AL as a floating palette, its always fixed along with Selection and Design director, the animation did take an hour at 1920x1080 and used 2 gig of memory.

As to AL / TC being fixed, with 2016 probably only a couple of months away I have my doubts.

I agree, when I write software and there's a problem, there are no user mistakes, the software did not handle it properly.

Sometimes, we can get used to working with something perfectly well, when it might be full of errors, and then forget they (the errors) were ever there!
But, TC and Animation Lab. should get on better together, not worse! 

Regards Tim

Quote from: Tim Stewart on December 09, 2015, 01:13:11 PM

Hopefully, Joel, we might get this fixed soon - fingers crossed.

I duplicated your settings Tim but using 2015 RedSdk quality render (I don't have Lightworks), I couldn't duplicate the results, even starting TC via AL (though I would never normally do that), Unlike Joel though I never use AL as a floating palette, its always fixed along with Selection and Design director, the animation did take an hour at 1920x1080 and used 2 gig of memory.

As to AL / TC being fixed, with 2016 probably only a couple of months away I have my doubts.

Andy, thanks for trying.  I know how testing can be very time consuming.

I have tried a number of routes, to tie down what is happening in a consistent way.
This has proven very frustrating.
However, I seem to have found at least one way, on my WIN 10 PC, of duplicating what looks like a graphics painting error with 2015.

1.  I removed LW, reinstalled/repaired TC and reinstalled/repaired Animation Lab.
2.  Rebooted and ran TC as Administrator.
3.  As TC was in GDI mode I ran the Web Standard Template rendered with draft mode.
4.  The scenario ran fine - the TC window remaining closed while rendering.
5.  I changed to RED mode, restarting TC, and ran the same file and scenario which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwkrqQL0_64        RED - LW

    notice how the Animation Lab. window flickers when the mouse is over it, when the mouse is over the TC title bar, and, when the TC window is minimised, but renders properly otherwise.

6.  I changed to GDI mode, restarting TC, and ran the same file and scenario which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xBcLL15sxM        GDI - LW

    notice how both the TC window and Animation Lab. windows are rendering simultaneously with no other visible errors.
This is probably because in draft mode the CPU has less work to do, in 'painting' the screen.

7.  Reinstalled the LW plug-in, rebooted and started TC.  The Anilab palette was a blank window.

8.  Closed TC 2015 and reinstalled/repaired Anilab.  The Anilab. palette displayed normally.

9.  ran the same file and scenario which you can see the results of here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvPNcCfE4sE        RED + LW

10.  Changed back to GDI mode, restarting TC, the results of which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeZtJWsbrCo        GDI + LW



Well, that's enough of that, for now.


Thanks for reading, and, viewing!


Regards Tim

Tim,
With RedSdk, are you refreshing the drawing window before rendering and saving to disk the animation?
Refreshing old red = native draw settings "caching of the model space" unchecked.
Switch from model space to paper space and back to model space then render then run the animation.

Dean,

thank you for response.

Tim,
With RedSdk, are you refreshing the drawing window before rendering and saving to disk the animation?

Each run was with a fresh start/opening of TC using the settings of the WEB - Standard Template (see attachment).
Nothing was saved before closing prior to reopening TC.

Refreshing old red = native draw settings "caching of the model space" unchecked.

Makes no difference.

Switch from model space to paper space and back to model space then render then run the animation.

No change here either.  I did try suggestions a couple of times with TC crashing also.
The problems I have illustrated are only apparent in 2015.   V21 has been fine, with the same routine.

Regards Tim

Tim,
Are you working in a windows "Aero" theme? if not change to a windows default Aero theme.
I really think that the issues are related to the display adapters,(just a guess) I'm not having any problems running Joel's or any of my animations in LW or RW. TC build 54.3 64 bit.My specs are below. i need to replicate something to report a bug.

Tim,
Are you working in a windows "Aero" theme? if not change to a windows default Aero theme.
I really think that the issues are related to the display adapters,(just a guess) I'm not having any problems running Joel's or any of my animations in LW or RW. TC build 54.3 64 bit.My specs are below. i need to replicate something to report a bug.

Dean,

I changed to Windows default "Aero" theme and ran the scenario again.  Wow! it worked!
However, running it a second time and it returned to the same issues. 

Before build 54.3, I could not use RedSDK for anything, with my NVIDIA Quadro K2200 graphics card.  Obviously, IMHO, there is some compromise or limitation in TC which now allows the use of RedSDK but not entirely as I and others might like.  Certainly, animation is not reliable enough to use seriously, which is a shame.

The same card works wonderfully, with video editing, using Adobe Première Pro CC 2014, so I can check the card is functioning OK, which it is.   

The issues with TC are annoying and need addressing, although I am happy enough using v21, for animation, in the interim.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Regards Tim

Thanks for all the help and testing.

I find that if I use 2015 and start having issues, I can run an animation in V21 ( works most the time ), then go back to 2015 and it will usually work there again.

With all the bugginess, I have not really been able to see what all can be done with AL. One thing that seems to be missing that I think is big, is to be able to anchor one part to another. In my gears example, there is a pivot pin. It would be nice to be able to make a connecting rod and anchor one end to the pin so that the anchored end of the rod follows the pin around. Then the other end can follow a path or be anchored to another object that will then move with the rod and any constraints. If this feature exists, I have not found it yet.

Thanks

Joel

Joel,

are you trying to do something like this?

http://forums.turbocad.com/index.php/topic,64.0.html

Regards Tim

Something like that is what I'm trying to do. He doesn't get into the details of how he did it, but it sounded like he needed to do a custom script for his animation. I thought something like the path command would work. I still have a few days left on the demo to play with.

Thanks

Joel

I had a chance to look at more of the help folder docs. Seems you can define nodes and link to nodes which might be what I need to do. At least some of the samples that are mentioned ( though don't seem to be present ) indicate that what I'm looking for should be there.

I had a chance to look at more of the help folder docs. Seems you can define nodes and link to nodes which might be what I need to do. At least some of the samples that are mentioned ( though don't seem to be present ) indicate that what I'm looking for should be there.

Joel,
search for a post from forum member" KS" his name is kai. You might find it helpful. He posted a tutorial on a flywheel a couple of years ago? I created the attached animation in V20 based off his tutorial.
Either way Anilab can be useful and it's a lot of fun even if it doesn't meet your requirements

Joel,

I have attached a v21 file, which may give you some ideas on how to achieve your goals, without using a custom script.

Thanks to Kai Sainnes for showing that 2D constraints work. 

Regards Tim

Thanks!, I'll play with this and see if I understand what's going on.

Joel

Thanks!, I'll play with this and see if I understand what's going on.

Joel

Understanding constraints takes the time!

However, I have just found a copy of the KS tutorial, which you might like to download.
It's just started uploading to Dropbox.  I'll post a link here, when it's finished . . . .

 . . . . . here ya go:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6po5ht94s2d7pl0/KS%20crank%20constraint%20video.mp4?dl=0

Have fun!

Regards Tim

Thanks for all of the feedback on AL.  I will speak to development about the stability issues documented below.