Unable to import long scenes into Premiere?

[Jenterbz]

I'm trying to import a 25-minute scene into Premiere, however by the time the media has finished loading in, I've run out of memory and my display driver crashes. Is there anything I can do, aside from converting the scene into a sequence of PNGs / upgrading my PC? I would really like to be able to make changes to the scene through the dynamic link. If it helps, I have 32.0 GB of installed RAM. Please let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Edit: I'm also unable to export via Media Encoder because it inexplicably stops encoding after 2 hours in (elapsed time stops, no change to remaining time, no message to indicate encoding has stopped).

[alank99101739]

You might like to try the Premier Pro forum rather than the Character Animator forum...

[Jenterbz]

In case I wasn't clear enough in my first post, I'm trying to import a Character Animator scene into Premiere. Character Animator is using 90% of my memory, so I figured CH might be the problem, but regardless I've posted to the CH, PP, and AME forums with no response anywhere.

Edit: Not sure I can edit the original post anymore, but update on everything I've tried:

First, I tried bringing it into Premiere Pro via dynamic link (media pending indefinitely until memory reaches 100% and display driver crashes - unexpected, since I have 32 GB of installed RAM, with CH ending up using 30 ish GB, PP and other programs using the remainder). When I finally gave up on that, I tried exporting it with transparency via AME (encoding stops 1.5 hours in, elapsed time stops, no error message, no progress - tried again while looking at task manager and it's an issue with the memory running out). Finally, I tried exporting the scene as a sequence of images (90k frames, freezes Premiere when trying to import even if I do it in small portions, images imported out of order anyways).

[alank99101739]

Ugg. I do video exports, but have not used v2 seriously yet. I would create a series of shorter scenes of 10 to 30 seconds, then export each one to a separate movie file (you can queue them all up). If one aborts, you can recover from there. I then use Prem Pro to append them.

Are you using v2.0? If you have a mega scene and Don’t want to redo it, you can now select a working area (a subset of the scene) and just export that. So export the first 15 seconds (pick a logical point where things are not moving), export that, move along etc. Painful, but it might get you around the mega export problem you are facing. Does not work well with physics (including dangles) and walk behaviors - you would have to make sure everything was not moving at the end points of the encoding range.

[ScooterD76]

Also,

Will CH render image sequence?

Doing it this way, when it crashes you retain all the frames that have rendered, and you can pick up where it left off

[alank99101739]

AME can certainly generate image sequences, I just found it more painful managing so many files, and I don’t know if it will pick up where it left off (I would guess it would just start again in a new directory). Interesting idea though...

I personally use shorter scenes and generate a video file per scene. (Completely subjective opinion!) I find shorter scenes easier to edit, quicker to export one by one, etc. I number them using a 3 level numbering scheme (part, location, camera shot) e.g. 1-1-1, 1-1-2, 1-1-3, 1-2-1, 1-2-2, and CH sorts them correctly. I create a bin per first number (1, 2, 3, etc). That is how I create a 10 minute episode with typical camera shots being around 5 to 10 seconds. I export a video per scene then glue them with Prem Pro. I avoid dynamic linking, using it only for particular scenes. E.g. I had a video file for a background rather than a static image for one scene, so that one I did with dynamic linking.

[ScooterD76]

alank99101739  wrote

AME can certainly generate image sequences, I just found it more painful managing so many files, and I don’t know if it will pick up where it left off (I would guess it would just start again in a new directory). Interesting idea though...

After Effects does, i think, at least it used to, have an option to skip existing frames in a folder. Used to work with them a lot in the past. Handy for memory problems or just hardcore renders that may crash out. If you're rendering to a movie file and it does not complete, the file is invalid and you gotta start over. I suppose if it is not automatic, you can set a new start frame in your render settings, and render to the same folder

[DanTull · Accepted solution]

This is a known issue (Final Release - RAM management? ). At least right now, Ch caches (currently in memory) data required to generate frames consistently on subsequent renders (more detailed explanation in the earlier thread).

At the moment, I think the main answer is to use several shorter scenes. I'm not sure if ranged exports of the existing scene will work since the run-up rendering of ranges later into the scene will likely still accumulate the same memory so it gets consistent results that can be spliced together.

Between cut and paste of takes, scene duplication, and trimming scenes to the work area there are now more features than at the time of the original posting for breaking up an existing scene, though I understand that's still probably a painful process. I'd have to run an experiment to confirm whether Premiere will tear down the earlier Ch rendering processes as it goes. If not, it would also be necessary to render the scenes individually or the same resource limits would be hit.

I added a link to this thread and an additional vote on the existing internal report. I'm actually surprised this hasn't come up more often, but I guess most Character Animator projects involve shorter scenes.

Sorry I don't have a better answer.

DT

[Jenterbz]

Thank you everyone for the responses! I feel a lot less frustrated now that I understand the problem a bit better. I think for now I'll just try to cut videos down into several scenes, then either export as a video or prerender in Premiere (if that works?). The issue of motion getting cut off is a concern, but at least I'll be able to make longer videos.