3D Camera Tracker: unable to acquire rendered frame

[bsined]

I can't stabilize any 360 footage using the 3D Camera Tracker from VR Comp Editor. 95% of the time, I run the analysis to create the camera for stabilization, it fails with the incredibly non-descriptive and undocumented error message "unable to acquire rendered frame." The error appears for videos of any length and any resolution. It also appears at various progress stages of the process and even within the same file (it can be at 5%, or at 55%, or at 98% completion).

At this point, I've exhausted any possible solution I could find:

• Reduced the Comp width down to 260 pixels and aspect ratio to 1:1: it speeds up processing but doesn't guarantee success even with a 6-second video
• Converted the video to sequences of JPEGs and PNGs: the success rate is slightly higher (the process is likely to complete than not) but this slows down the process exponentially (a 20-second video takes 5+ minutes to get converted into images then takes longer to analyze and re-encoded)
• Played with every combination of settings when creating the 3D Edit
• Disabled the antivirus (Windows Defender)
• Turned off all cloud syncing and took the computer offline
• Moved the source files to an M.2 SSD from RAID0 (2x7200rpm WD Black drives)
• Moved disk cache to the M.2 SSD
• Increased paging file size to 16GB
• Tried changing from CUDA to OpenCL and back

The source camera is Nikon KeyMission 360. The videos are stitched in-camera and exported as equirectangular 2:1. Tested video resolution was 3840×1920 and 3840×2160.

Computer specs: Dell XPS 8930, i7-8700, 32GB RAM @ 2667MHz, GeForce GTX 1070 8GB, AE 16.0.0 build 235 with 429 plugins.

Every single tutorial talks about how easy this feature is and has no tips for troubleshooting. I'm hoping an actual Adobe (or Mettle) developer chimes in on this.

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi all,

Sorry for your frustration.

We have a bug written on this but unfortunately, the After Effects team is unable to reproduce this problem. Would anyone be willing to share a sample project along with the footage so that I can share that with them? System information on the machines that you're using would also be helpful. Here is how you can save System Info: About System Information on your Mac - Apple Support

Thanks,

Rameez

[Balcony Labs]

Hi Rameez Khan​

Here's a link to a test project that produces the error every time for me. I included a screen recording of the bug in action as well as my system specs.

I'm using sample footage from this Adobe tutorial: Stabilize and track 360/VR footage with VR Comp Editor |

Dropbox - unable to acquire rendered frame.zip

Thanks,

Aaron

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for providing the screen recording and the files, Aaron. I tested it on my Windows 10 machine but it worked fine without any issue. That said, I've sent it to an engineer for review.

I appreciate your willingness to work on this together.

-Rameez

[Balcony Labs]

Hi Rameez Khan​,

I'm just checking in regarding what the engineer had to say.

Thanks,

Aaron

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Rameez+Khan  wrote

Thanks for providing the screen recording and the files, Aaron. I tested it on my Windows 10 machine but it worked fine without any issue. That said, I've sent it to an engineer for review.

I appreciate your willingness to work on this together.

-Rameez

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi Aaron,

AE engineers have been able to reproduce the problem and are investigating it.

Please be informed that I've been advocating on your behalf.

Thank you for your patience.

Rameez

[Balcony Labs]

Thank you Rameez Khan. Eager to have a solution.

[bsined]

Rameez Khan​, I'm happy to hear that it only took the engineering team 6 months to find 1 computer where they could replicate the bug. Hopefully, it will take them a lot less to fix it. If they have any debugging tools that they could share with the community to collect more data, I think everyone will be glad to send their reports.

AE engineers have been able to reproduce the problem and are investigating it.

Please be informed that I've been advocating on your behalf.

[Leosya_kingdom]

I have same problem and I realize that due to hight resolution quality video. When I reduce from 4k to 2k, then the tracking run good. Anyway many years pass away and After Effects is still suck for the 3D thing - bad 3D space composition, bad AOVs pass, very slow, and now is suck old 3D camera tracking. Adobe has so many technicians and staff but I don't know what they really do.

[megacinn]

@ Rameez

well, I could provide samplefootage and projects as well.

But as mentioned, we are talking about 4K or even 5,4 K 360 clips with ProRes422 or Cineform codec.

That makes them huge.

The smallest to reproduce , I found, has around 2GB.

How/where can I provide the correct people at adobe only, the material.

Providing a link in the forum makes it visible for the whole world..... keep in mind we have european-data-protection-laws so that no one visible in official content has to be shown without his permit.....

[Rameez_Khan]

megacinn, if the engineer isn't able to repro this with the sample footage we have on this webpage, I'll ask you for your footage and other details. To share it with me, you can send me a private message.

Thanks,

Rameez

[OpticalSound]

This has completely screwed me. Having used this feature countless times before on 360 footage from multiple different cameras, I'm now sitting under a deadline with the 3d camera tracker returning an error time after time, and with every possibility I'll be losing the client I'm currently on assignment for.

I've always loved and had complete faith in Adobe products, particularly AE, but this is a huge, huge problem for me, and for the first time I'm sincerely questioning whether I should be paying a subscription for software which causes such a headache.

Coupled with the fact that we have been arbitrarily barred from using the previous versions which actually worked, as if we hadn't paid through the nose for those too over the years.

Shameful.

[Rameez_Khan]

I'm so sorry to hear that, OpticalSound. I can't provide you with a solution but I'd suggest that you use an earlier version of After Effects for now until this bug is fixed.

Best,

Rameez

[OpticalSound]

I'd love to, @Rameez.

Can you provide me a download link to any CC version pre April-2018, and your guarantee that I won't be sued for using it?

Thanks

[mark21X]

I had same issue but according to OpticalSound's post, I tried installing version 15.1.2 and now it's working. 15.1.2 can be installed from creative cloud app by following action.

Install previous version of your Creative Cloud app

[OpticalSound]

The crazy thing is the same week I get this little job for which I need the camera tracker, 15.1.2 disappeared from my available versions list. It’s now 16 or nothing.

if you still have 15 available you’re a lucky man. Stick with it.

[OpticalSound]

Nope

Rameez Khan​ Can you direct me to a download for 15.1.2?

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi OpticalSound,

You should be able to install After Effects 15.1.2. This is a screenshot from my machine:

The only reason that can prevent you from downloading 15.1.2 is if it's already installed on your computer. I know this sounds silly but can you double-check if 15.1.2 is already installed on your machine?

-Rameez

[OpticalSound]

Ok now it's my turn to feel silly..

Yep you're totally right, 15.1.2 was still installed on my machine. For some reason I thought CC apps uninstalled previous versions automatically when they updated.

So, back to CC2018, and back to a fully working camera tracker. Not an ideal solution, but it's good enough for me.

Thanks Rameez Khan​ for your help with this.

[Rameez_Khan]

Glad to know that you can work for now. I'll keep a close eye on the bug and share an update with all of you whenever I can.

Thanks again.

Rameez

[StephaneA_AfterEffects]

Exact same problem here.

No problem so far with AE 2018. So it seems it is a CC 2019 bug.

[Hugh Hou]

It is Hugh here from CreatorUp. Some of you guys might know me (or not). So based on my original AE tracking tutorial on 360 footage,  I can confirm 100% AE 2019 latest version has 360 tracking issue and won't finish with the error messages everyone experiencing. Using AE 2018 will solve this issue. But for me, it is ONLY in tracking. It track but it WON'T solve the tracking camera - hang on yellow solving camera FOREVER. On my PC - i9 9980XE with Titan RTX.

Exact same footage will solve in AE 2018 in Mac - so in conclusion, if you have a 360 video just can not track - downgrade to AE 2018 and use a Mac to try it again.

Adobe SHOULD fix that asap! It really hurt our works for clients with a tight deadline. 

[ravenouscreations]

For PC Versions AE 2019 on windows 10 wont track any of my prores .mov files. I converted some of the clips to DNX and it would track some but inconsistently. Im tracking around 150 different moving clips so this became difficult.

This was my process that worked for me.

Open AE 2019
Create comps with each clip in its own specific folder
Create 3D edits in VR Comp editor

Move the created output folder to associated folder created above
Do for all clips
Save a copy as 2018 CC15x version when done.
Open that file AE 2018
Apply Vr Comp editor AE Camera tracker  (i had around 10 clips per project so i camera tracked roughly 5 at a time)

Note: Some will track fine and some will get stuck at the orange line "solving" don't worry. Keep on tracking all shots.
Save. Then close the document. It will ask to save again and click yes. At this point if any camera tracks were stuck at solving AE 2018 will crash. Just force "close the program".
Open the 2018 AE file in AE 2019 and it will ask you convert. Click yes and rename. I renamed it after my first 2019 project file above and replaced it. (do this only if you are comfortable you have a backup)
Click the tracks that weren't solving and they will either solve or will say failed. Most of mine solved. I think only 3-4 failed out of 150 with this process. If failed try the same cycle with an export of the comp. I had time remapping on my original tracked clips so an export worked for me.
At this point. Create all the cameras and click stabilize and done.
Really weird and long work around but it worked for me.

[megacinn]

...anyone tested the new 16.1.2 Update yet?

This bug is not listed in the fixed-list.....thaught that it is "reproduced by engineers" and top-priority !?

[Rameez_Khan]

I know this doesn't help but sorry to say that 16.1.2 doesn't include a fix for this. This is still being worked on and will be fixed in a future release.

-Rameez

[BorisM1987]

I too can confirm that this issue persists in AE CC 2019, but if I use 2018, I don't have any issues.