When I write out an image sequence in Matinee I get an erratic display in the preview window as my graphics card is unable to keep up – but this doesn’t matter, because every frame is written out to the folder and I can assemble them into a perfectly smooth movie in After Effects. But when I use the Sequencer what I see in the preview window is what I get in my folder. I’ve experimented with all the options to no avail. Is there a solution, or do we have to wait for a new release?
Many thanks
This sound like potential bug so i will move it to bug raports, you should get better reponce and potential fix if it’s indeed a bug
Thanks - I appreciate it. I’m new here so don’t yet know the shortest line between two points.
I am having this same issue. I have tried to do some debugging and noticed that not only is it erratic frame rate, but also if I step through the sequence frame by frame, I get random flashing of the entire scene, almost like a white/gray full frame being inserted. However, it is not always on the same frames. Not sure if the OP also has this happening. I can also confirm what the OP said about the output AVI containing whatever errors are visible in the preview window.
More debugging… Not sure if the OP is using a CineCameraActor with Enable Look at Tracking checked, but I was able to fix my issue by unchecking that box.
« Not sure if the OP is using a CineCameraActor… »
I’m using the legacy Camera, but I tested with the CineCameraActor and got the same problem. As this may be a bug here’s some additional information (which may or may not be relevant):
The behaviour I described is the same in both Mac OS X and Windows 7 under Bootcamp on the same machine – a Mac Pro (Early 2009), ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
The behaviour is different on my two 27-inch iMacs – Late 2014, Retina 5K, 4 GHz Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB; and Late 2012, 3,4 GHz Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB – on both of these machines the “capturing movie” interface disappears and I have to force quit the Editor to exit the capture process.
Hey cruvingorbit,
I can’t seem to reproduce this on my end. I may have to get ahold of a low end GPU, but I was able to recreate some hitches in the capture window with t.maxfps, but I couldn’t get them to show up in the rendered image sequence.
I want to double check and ensure that your time snapping interval is the same as what you are trying to export. We’re tracking some issues when the snapping interval is not the same as your render frame rate.
Anyways, does this happen in a blank example project that might perform well on your graphics card?
Hi W
Many thanks for your response. I’ve just tested again with the latest version of Unreal Engine – 4.12.4 – and find the behavior has changed. I’m using this machine:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
OS X El Capitan 10.11.5
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB
Running Metal for OS X
I’m not a gamer. I’ve come to UE4 for its archviz and cinematic capabilities. I appreciate that this set-up is “low end” in gaming terms, but I understand it should be able to run UE4 for my purposes. Please tell me if I’m mistaken about this.
Here’s what I’m now finding with 4.12.4 on the above machine, I tested with a simple camera push-in in two scenes:
a cube in an otherwise blank project
the complex “Modular Building Set” scene, from the Marketplace
Matinee performed perfectly in the simple scene, but in the complex scene it was so slow to respond (e.g., when adding Camera Group, etc) as to be totally unusable.
Sequencer responds perfectly but crashes for no apparently consistent reason (for example, when moving the viewport camera, or when saving). It rendered out a 30 fps png sequence three times in succession, same length each time with no dropped frames, but at the end of rendering it hung up each time and I had to Force Quit the editor.
I’m tearing my hair out and desperate to get back to productive work. I’ll be very grateful to hear any ideas you might have. (BTW - time snapping interval is the same as export rate – but I tried disabling time snapping and it made no difference anyhow)
Thanks again!
Hi curvingorbit,
For the issue of the editor locking up, can you try rendering with “Use Separate Process” enabled? This should keep the rendering window and the editor separate. This way you don’t have to force quit everything.
For the crashes, can you tell me if they are all the same callstack? Whether or not they are, can you send me your logs and callstacks?
I’d also like to point out that ArchViz tends to be more resource intensive than many games because of the higher level of detail typically involved. That being said, the R9 M295X should be ok, but performance isn’t always ideal on OSX with OpenGL.
Hi, I just wrote a reply that disappeared. Please excuse me if it turns up somewhere inappropriate, I’m still new at this. Please excuse my ignorance also: Where do I find “Use Separate Process”? I’ve looked in all the obvious places (Prefs, Project Settings…) without luck. Also, are “logs and callstacks” items in the Crash Report folder? I’m attaching a couple of recent .log files in case they’re pertinent. Thanks again!
You can go here to find how to get your crash logs: A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums
Use separate process is an option in the render settings:
“Use Separate Processes” was already checked. So I unchecked it, and now rendering behaves as it should. Great! (Some staggering in the preview window, as the card struggles to keep up, but all the frames arrive in the folder and assemble perfectly in After Effects.)
A remaining problem of arbitrary crashes (when moving a camera, or saving a level) seems to have cleared up since I made a new blank project and added the scene to it again from my Marketplace Vault (I add that anecdote for newbies like myself who may be following this.)
So it looks like I’m good to go! Thanks so much for your attention to this – I really appreciate it.
