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Animation/Motion Study Problem - Blotchy...totally jacked render

Question asked by Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011
Latest reply on Dec 2, 2011 by Bruce Buck

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Wondering if any of you could help me figure out this weird issue I'm having. Tried all last night to troubleshoot but can't figure it out.

Basically, in "normal" mode, just in SolidWorks modeling with PV360 plugin turned on, with integrated and/or preview window enabled, everything looks fine:

As soon as I switch over to the Animation or Motion Study tab, the rendering totally looks messed up:

I've tried re-applying materials, resetting the environment and settings, but cant seem to understand why those weird artifacts are showing up. I'm sure it's just a simple setting I'm overlooking, but at this point I'm at a bit of a loss. Any ideas?

Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 6:30 PM

Correct Answer

Eureka! Ok folks, so hopefully this will serve as help for anyone else who may run into this problem.

The main "problem" for my particular situation was my camera and environment settings. There wasn't anything inherently 'wrong" with the settings, but it seems that Animator was causing some of the lighting and environment variables to "stick" and causing this wierd effect.

The solution ended up being this:

Go to each Camera keyframe, and change the focal length to one of the standard options in the drop-down. Then, go to the Scene tab, and select Edit Scene, go to the Advanced tab, and uncheck Autosize Floor. Then recheck it, and the blotchiness SHOULD go away. Then, go back and re-adjust your camera to the FOV and distance settings you like (in this case I settled on a more "conservative" FOV of 1deg).

Make sure you do this for EVERY single camera keyframe. You should then be good to go.

Lastly, I have to say, the number one reason SolidWorks still KICKS BUTT is two words... the community. Thanks to everyone HERE as well as offline who helped me troubleshoot this issue. It's times like this that makes you appreciate just how vast and helpful the SolidWorks community is when you're in a bind.

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Jeff Mowry Dec 2, 2011 12:16 PM

Bruce, what version is this you're running? I'm guessing v2011 and not v2012, right? (Did you receive your 2012 DVD?)

This is very disconcerting to me, since I've just bid on a large animation gig, figuring this sort of thing wasn't going to act as a monkey wrench. I'm hoping there's a solution.

Just some things to consider--instead of saving the rendered animation to a video format of some sort, you can test-render a small section of the animation and save it to still images (like Targa). Does this improve anything? This reminds me of a different image quality setting where the scene lighting is suddenly degraded (rendering quality setting). Is there a way to verify that your render quality remains high while the animation tab is active?

I don't always check the forum very frequently, so you can contact me directly by phone/skype/email if you like--I think you've got my info, but here it is again, just in case:

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com/contact.html

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Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 1:04 PM

@Jeff

Yes, running 2011. I tried the export BMP option and the final renders come out exactly as the preview window with the weird artifacts. What more strange is that each frame is almost completely different in how it comes out. See the 9-frame sequence below:

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Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 1:08 PM

Just for reference, here is what a normal final output render looks like while in model mode:

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Rob Rodríguez @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 1:21 PM

I'm wondering if this machine specifc. Can you try this on a different system?

What is the actual Motion movement of the model over time? Hard to tell from the images?

How are you lighting the model (physical lights, image lighting)?

Can you share the file?

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Bruce Buck @ Rob Rodríguez on Dec 2, 2011 1:34 PM

Right now, today, I am not able to try it out on another system, but if I can't resolve it I'll see if that makes a difference. Current system setup.

Xeon X5680 3.33GHz 6-core

12GB DDR3 RAM

Quadro 4000 (Driver version 259.12)

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Jeff Mowry @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 1:34 PM

I've got (essentially) the identical system, but with the 3.0GHz chips. So if it's really machine-specific, I'd expect it to do this on mine as well if its a hardware issue and not if its perhaps a driver/software issue.

That last image is disconcerting. Whole blocks of space didn't render or rendered incorrectly. Very strange. Do the chunky borders of the rendering happen to line up with individual cores of processing (as you see your six cores running around the screen rendering) or do they not align? Strange.

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Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 2:03 PM

No, the blocks don't seem to line up with anything in particular, just random.

One other thing I tried:

I had Hyperthreading turned on. Didn't really see why that would effect PhotoView, but nonetheless I tried disabling it, and no change, still the same issue.

Here's a closeup of the what I can only describe as blotchiness; I'm not really sure the proper term for it.

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Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 2:29 PM

Some things I'm noticing:

It seems like there are certain items (like appearances, lights, etc) that can have different setting depending on if you're in what I will refer to as "Stills mode" or "Animation mode" (since I don't know what the correct term is).

For example, environment settings. My original environment had the following settings under Illumination (in Stills mode):

Background brightness - 0

Rendering brightness - 2

Scene reflectivity - 1

However, while in Animation mode they were different. I changed these to match, and while it did bring the values closer to what I was seeing in stills mode, it hasn't resolved the issue. I'm thinking though, that there must be somewhere in the environment or render settings where it's not matching what is set in Stills mode, hence it looks fine in Stills mode, but not in Animation mode.

Actions

Jeff Mowry @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 2:36 PM

Yeah, I was wondering if there was some setting that might allow the two modes (still and animation) to deviate from one another.

If you change the settings in animation mode, does it make the change for the entire animation, or only for the region of the timebar thingy?

Actions

Rob Rodríguez @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 5:21 PM

These settings are key framable. Meaning in Animation mode you can key frame the light settings, the environment settings, etc. You might want to do this for effect. To turn a light on or off for example or start with a black background and fade to something else.

Since you can key frame them in the Animation environment they are independant of the SW environment. A lot of people don't understand the Motion environment and the SW environment can be different. The second you switch to the Motion study tab a "snap shot" of the key framable settings are taken by Motion. The editing you do to those settings in key frames are not related or transfered back to the settings in the SW environment.

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Anna Wood @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 3:14 PM

Bruce,

What did Rob do to fix your issue?

Cheers,

Anna

Actions

Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 3:23 PM

So far it's looking like PART of the problem is coming from camera settings. I was orginally trying to use as long a telephoto lens as possible to get close to orhtographic, but still having a little bit of perspective (I'll explain why later). You can see my near-ridiculous camera settings with FOV of .05 (yes, you read that right....05) and distance of 30,000 inches.

When I change the settings to something more "reasonable", much of the horrible black spot spots disappear, HOWEVER, they don't COMPLETELY disappear. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the environment size somehow being smaller than what the camera is able to "fit" in.

Actions

Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 6:30 PM

Eureka! Ok folks, so hopefully this will serve as help for anyone else who may run into this problem.

The solution ended up being this:

Make sure you do this for EVERY single camera keyframe. You should then be good to go.

Actions

13 Replies

Jeff Mowry Dec 2, 2011 12:16 PM
Mark Correct
Correct Answer
Bruce, what version is this you're running? I'm guessing v2011 and not v2012, right? (Did you receive your 2012 DVD?)

This is very disconcerting to me, since I've just bid on a large animation gig, figuring this sort of thing wasn't going to act as a monkey wrench. I'm hoping there's a solution.

Just some things to consider--instead of saving the rendered animation to a video format of some sort, you can test-render a small section of the animation and save it to still images (like Targa). Does this improve anything? This reminds me of a different image quality setting where the scene lighting is suddenly degraded (rendering quality setting). Is there a way to verify that your render quality remains high while the animation tab is active?

I don't always check the forum very frequently, so you can contact me directly by phone/skype/email if you like--I think you've got my info, but here it is again, just in case:
http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com/contact.html
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- Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 1:04 PM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  @Jeff
  
  Yes, running 2011. I tried the export BMP option and the final renders come out exactly as the preview window with the weird artifacts. What more strange is that each frame is almost completely different in how it comes out. See the 9-frame sequence below:
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions
- Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 1:08 PM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Just for reference, here is what a normal final output render looks like while in model mode:
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions
  - Rob Rodríguez @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 1:21 PM
    Mark Correct
    Correct Answer
    I'm wondering if this machine specifc. Can you try this on a different system?
    
    What is the actual Motion movement of the model over time? Hard to tell from the images?
    
    How are you lighting the model (physical lights, image lighting)?
    
    Can you share the file?
    Like • Show 0 Likes0
    Actions
    - Bruce Buck @ Rob Rodríguez on Dec 2, 2011 1:34 PM
      Mark Correct
      Correct Answer
      Right now, today, I am not able to try it out on another system, but if I can't resolve it I'll see if that makes a difference. Current system setup.
      
      Xeon X5680 3.33GHz 6-core
      12GB DDR3 RAM
      Quadro 4000 (Driver version 259.12)
      Like • Show 0 Likes0
      Actions
      - Jeff Mowry @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 1:34 PM
        Mark Correct
        Correct Answer
        I've got (essentially) the identical system, but with the 3.0GHz chips. So if it's really machine-specific, I'd expect it to do this on mine as well if its a hardware issue and not if its perhaps a driver/software issue.
        
        That last image is disconcerting. Whole blocks of space didn't render or rendered incorrectly. Very strange. Do the chunky borders of the rendering happen to line up with individual cores of processing (as you see your six cores running around the screen rendering) or do they not align? Strange.
        Like • Show 0 Likes0
        Actions
        Bruce Buck @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 2:03 PM
        Mark Correct
        Correct Answer
        No, the blocks don't seem to line up with anything in particular, just random.
        
        One other thing I tried:
        
        I had Hyperthreading turned on. Didn't really see why that would effect PhotoView, but nonetheless I tried disabling it, and no change, still the same issue.
        
        Here's a closeup of the what I can only describe as blotchiness; I'm not really sure the proper term for it.
        Like • Show 0 Likes0
        Actions
Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 2:29 PM
Mark Correct
Correct Answer
Some things I'm noticing:

It seems like there are certain items (like appearances, lights, etc) that can have different setting depending on if you're in what I will refer to as "Stills mode" or "Animation mode" (since I don't know what the correct term is).

For example, environment settings. My original environment had the following settings under Illumination (in Stills mode):

Background brightness - 0
Rendering brightness - 2
Scene reflectivity - 1

However, while in Animation mode they were different. I changed these to match, and while it did bring the values closer to what I was seeing in stills mode, it hasn't resolved the issue. I'm thinking though, that there must be somewhere in the environment or render settings where it's not matching what is set in Stills mode, hence it looks fine in Stills mode, but not in Animation mode.
Like • Show 0 Likes0
Actions
- Jeff Mowry @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 2:36 PM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Yeah, I was wondering if there was some setting that might allow the two modes (still and animation) to deviate from one another.
  
  If you change the settings in animation mode, does it make the change for the entire animation, or only for the region of the timebar thingy?
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions
  - Rob Rodríguez @ Jeff Mowry on Dec 2, 2011 5:21 PM
    Mark Correct
    Correct Answer
    These settings are key framable. Meaning in Animation mode you can key frame the light settings, the environment settings, etc. You might want to do this for effect. To turn a light on or off for example or start with a black background and fade to something else.
    
    Since you can key frame them in the Animation environment they are independant of the SW environment. A lot of people don't understand the Motion environment and the SW environment can be different. The second you switch to the Motion study tab a "snap shot" of the key framable settings are taken by Motion. The editing you do to those settings in key frames are not related or transfered back to the settings in the SW environment.
    Like • Show 0 Likes0
    Actions
- Anna Wood @ Bruce Buck on Dec 2, 2011 3:14 PM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Bruce,
  
  What did Rob do to fix your issue?
  
  Cheers,
  
  Anna
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions
Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 3:23 PM
Mark Correct
Correct Answer
So far it's looking like PART of the problem is coming from camera settings. I was orginally trying to use as long a telephoto lens as possible to get close to orhtographic, but still having a little bit of perspective (I'll explain why later). You can see my near-ridiculous camera settings with FOV of .05 (yes, you read that right....05) and distance of 30,000 inches.
When I change the settings to something more "reasonable", much of the horrible black spot spots disappear, HOWEVER, they don't COMPLETELY disappear. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the environment size somehow being smaller than what the camera is able to "fit" in.
Like • Show 0 Likes0
Actions
Bruce Buck Dec 2, 2011 6:30 PM
Unmark Correct
Correct Answer
Eureka! Ok folks, so hopefully this will serve as help for anyone else who may run into this problem.

The main "problem" for my particular situation was my camera and environment settings. There wasn't anything inherently 'wrong" with the settings, but it seems that Animator was causing some of the lighting and environment variables to "stick" and causing this wierd effect.

The solution ended up being this:

Go to each Camera keyframe, and change the focal length to one of the standard options in the drop-down. Then, go to the Scene tab, and select Edit Scene, go to the Advanced tab, and uncheck Autosize Floor. Then recheck it, and the blotchiness SHOULD go away. Then, go back and re-adjust your camera to the FOV and distance settings you like (in this case I settled on a more "conservative" FOV of 1deg).

Make sure you do this for EVERY single camera keyframe. You should then be good to go.

Lastly, I have to say, the number one reason SolidWorks still KICKS BUTT is two words... the community. Thanks to everyone HERE as well as offline who helped me troubleshoot this issue. It's times like this that makes you appreciate just how vast and helpful the SolidWorks community is when you're in a bind.
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Animation/Motion Study Problem - Blotchy...totally jacked render

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