Low fps in camera

[selfish_shepherd]

Hi, I'm having trouble with adobe Character animator.

the camera works damn slow in Character animator, and I can't find a fix.

Im on a MacBook Pro 2015 retina with 8gb ram.

as a last resort I formatted my Mac and still the problem persist.

it's worth to mention that after restart - camera works fine in Photo booth, but after launching Character animator, it lags again until I restart the machine.

this makes Character animator totally unusable.

please help!

I tried to chat with adobe support but it was totally unprofessional and uncool.

[alank99101739]

Performance is probably going to be impacted by a number of aspects like puppet complexity etc.  I worry a bit about only 8gb of memory - I would make sure you exit as many other programs as possible to free up memory. (I am guessing its running out of memory causing the machine to thrash.) Character Animator wants lots of memory and CPU to do its thing.

You mention “the camera lags until you restart the machine”. Cold you explain a bit more? Are you saying the camera works in Character Animator for a while, then slows down, then a reboot fixes the problem? Or is the camera always slow in Character Animator? Understanding the exact sequence can help identify the root cause.

[selfish_shepherd]

Nothing is running with the program. There is no puppet. The project is empty.

The Mac is after format. Only character animator is installed.

its always slow. From the start.

Works ok in photo booth after restart. But after Adobe it lags in photo booth as well. And no- they are not running together

[DanTull]

First off, sorry your support experience was so terrible.

Are you just using the internal webcam on your laptop? Does the camera show frames but everything gets slow or is the app hanging and never shows any camera frames in the camera panel?

If this is using 10.14 (Mojave), did it prompt you for permission to use the camera? If not, or if it prompted and was rejected, it might be necessary to go into System Preferences/Security and Privacy/Camera to make sure Ch has permission to use the camera. The app can behave badly if it is failing get access to the camera or microphone.

Also, just to confirm is this in Character Animator 2.0 or an earlier version?

Thanks and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this!

Dan Tull

Character Animator QE

[DanTull]

I just thought of one other possibility: are you using Wirecast or any other software that supports virtual webcams? We've seen a few cases where those pieces of software can interact badly with Character Animator, though I thought those were better in the 2.0 version.

DT

[DanTull]

Oh wait, sorry, on a re-read I notice you mention there was no other software installed.

I pinged the developer that is most familiar with our camera code to see if he has any ideas. We may also have some logging we can enable to get a better idea of what might be going wrong.

DT

[selfish_shepherd]

Hi,

I did get prompted for camera access and did granted it.

the camera does show up and work but extremely slow.

I think it's a driver issue\flash issue, due to the camera lagging in a similar manner in photo booth after using character animator.

[selfish_shepherd]

and about the version, its 2.0

just downloaded a fresh copy after format.

[robins80229524]

Exact same problem here. Looks like not the proper webcam drivers are installed? I'm on a Mac. Lagging to the point that I can't use it.  Hurry up and fix this issue already!

[robins80229524]

I have the 2017 MacBook Pro i5 16gb ram. It should not be a problem what so ever with the prestanda.

But I may have found the problem, and its may be the computer acutely.

look at this Slow Frame Rate FaceTime camera - Apple Community

[selfish_shepherd]

Fixed it on my MacBook Pro 2015.

I did a pram reset

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Suppor

note that I've tried reseting with the left cmd and option keys and it did no change.

only after reseting while using the right cmd and option keys.

hope it will fix your issue as well

[selfish_shepherd]

Has anyone got some progress with this issue?

[Max302587794i40]

in our case it was insuficient disk space , make sure you have at least 20 GB.

[HouHouHou]

The only thing I might add is when I have had (live) lagging, once I record a take and export it, the motion is fine and at the expected frame rate, so I know my issue is resources related. Ch regularly takes up more computer resources than the other Adobe apps I use. I have gotten to where I consider the main Ch window like the Preview window in After Effects--results vary depending on puppet complexity or project complexity (multiple puppets, scenes), as they vary in Ae depending on composition complexity (number of effects, layers).

[Benny_Bopster]

I didn't see this mentioned, but if you're on a macbook remember that in LOW LIGHT, the macbook will drop the frame rate based on the quality of light. Blast light in the room you're in and the frame rate should improve. Hope this helps.

[David31698345ncum]

Literally slapped a ring light in my face and the fps went back to how it should. Massive help thanks mate!