Laggy Camera

[kylem9378613]

The camera in character animate is is unbearably slow. I have a mac book pro with 8 gb ram, using the default webcam. I've tried to reset my PRAM also and the camera is still slow. Any fixes?

[David Arbor]

• Can you be more specific? What do you mean that the camera is slow? You're recording a performance and you see the video in the Camera & Microphone panel lag?

• Is this lag only happening while recording or does it happen even if you're not recording or playing back the Timeline, but instead are just moving your head around to practice?

• Clearing your PRAM isn't going to help here, it's possible that Character is just taking too many resources and it can't handle both recording your timeline and your performance. 8 GB of RAM isn't a lot anymore, so have you tried closing every other application before using Character Animator?
  
  
• There's also an option in the flyout (hamburger) menu of the Camera & Microphone panel called "limit camera to 12 fps." This is for changing the frame rate of your puppet's face vs the frame rate of the body and other movement, but it could also reduce the amount of CPU usage needed.
  
  

Please answer the questions above and try all the suggestions and let me know what happens next. If none of these solutions help please also post all the specs of your MBP and whether or not you're experiencing performance issues with other apps.

[David Arbor]

• Can you be more specific? What do you mean that the camera is slow? You're recording a performance and you see the video in the Camera & Microphone panel lag?

• Is this lag only happening while recording or does it happen even if you're not recording or playing back the Timeline, but instead are just moving your head around to practice?

• Clearing your PRAM isn't going to help here, it's possible that Character is just taking too many resources and it can't handle both recording your timeline and your performance. 8 GB of RAM isn't a lot anymore, so have you tried closing every other application before using Character Animator?
  
  
• There's also an option in the flyout (hamburger) menu of the Camera & Microphone panel called "limit camera to 12 fps." This is for changing the frame rate of your puppet's face vs the frame rate of the body and other movement, but it could also reduce the amount of CPU usage needed.
  
  

Please answer the questions above and try all the suggestions and let me know what happens next. If none of these solutions help please also post all the specs of your MBP and whether or not you're experiencing performance issues with other apps.

[kylem9378613]

The camera has very low fps, even with the blank face template & while i am not recording. I know the problem isn't my camera, because it works fine on any other application. I've even closed everything on my computer and had character animate the only one open, and it still has the same issue.

[David Arbor]

What version of Character Animator are you running? Did you try the option to limit the camera's FPS to 12?

Did you by any chance run across this thread? Low fps in camera

DanTull​ from the Character Animator team had some suggestions. Perhaps he's discovered something new since that post in December?

[kylem9378613]

Yes I've seen that thread, and the only solution that was stated was to reset PRAM, and it did not work. Limiting the fps to 12fps only makes it worse.

[David Arbor]

There was also the suggestion of making sure the app has permission to use the camera, if you're on Mojave. I'm going to ask around and see if anyone has some insight into this issue.

[kylem9378613 · Accepted solution]

Found my own fix. I had to open up FaceTime prior to opening up character animate. No idea why it works this way.

[Shivangi_Gupta]

Hi kylem,

I am glad that you got it fixed. However, this does not sound ideal that the performance gets better by opening and closing any other application. I am assuming the performance could have been affected because some other application was utilizing the resources in the background. I'd like to analyze the performance and see if there is any pattern to it.

Though I hope it works smoothly for you , let me know if you face the issue again.

Thanks,

Shivangi

[shahriarr54778663]

Hi...

I'm facing the same problem. Character animator is running really slow. Camera tracking/ Face movement/ hand moving.... Everything is working slow. is there any way to fix this.....

[Dan Ramirez]

Which version of Character Animator are you using? I've seen this in version 1.5 with a Logitech C920 on a Mac Pro cylinder. In my case, the camera image in the Camera & Microphone panel was updating about 1fps, so the facetracking was predictably terrible. In my case, using another application to access the camera would restore proper functionality.

We rewrote our camera handling in version 2.0(I think it was 2.0) and this bug was fixed. Can you confirm which version of CH you're on?

Thanks,
Dan Ramirez

CH QA

[ldavem]

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem in low light environment,

I have the latest version of Adobe Character Animator v 2.1.1

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

macOS Mojave 10.14.5

Processeur 2,3 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory 16 Go 2133 MHz LPDDR3

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 Mo

FaceTime HD Camera

With other Application i have the same problem in low light except with facetime.

The camera try to compensate the low light situation by imposing low framerate.

But i don't find how to disable this option.

Any idea ?

Thank's in advance.

David