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sesslie [2011-04-22 15:52:51 +0000 UTC]

hi greg. since everything still seemed to work fine for me, i found one single ( hopefully ) last problem using the above mentioned method in rendering parts/sticking together. at every "cut" where my snippets stick together, i notice some kind of stutter. I thougt it's because last & first frame are identical, and erasing this "double frame" manually does the trick, but it does not i tried every possibilitiy i have and found no solution. it doesn't matter wich output codec, tried several software ( premiere, magix, SUPER ([link] nice tool btw! ), etc. ... all the same!

maybe, flam4 does a little different things @ start/end of each render? any suggestion? if you want to have a look @ my problem, here is a ( badly compressed ) preview of my current work [link] , you should notice this "stutter" every 24 seconds ( each snippet had 600 frames at 25 fps ).

currently i play around with frOst, rendering single PNGs but all in one session ... i'll see what happens when i stick them together using virtual dub.

regards, sesslie

PS: btw i noticed, all my PCs / CPUs / Mainboards seem to be a bad bottleneck ( always 99% CPU just for managing data) compared to what my gtx460 could do inside of a fast environment, so ... cu @ the next computer-store soon

PPS: sorry for my always a bit long posts, i try to explain in detail, so others my find help in this thread ...

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gregimages [2011-04-20 05:24:26 +0000 UTC]

Hi Sesslie, glad flam4 is working out for you. Even with current limitations its so fast that it opens up a world of possibilities. Am sure upcoming versions will improve performance. GPU rendering is showing up in many fractal and graphics applications. Real time rendering is really cool. The crashing at end of render is a bug they are working on, I have not had that problem.

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sesslie [2011-04-15 12:26:45 +0000 UTC]

hi greg & thx for your answer. that's similar to what i figured out. i divide my set of flames in A) keyframe 1 to 2 , B) keyframe 2 to 3, C) keyframe 3 to 4, an so on ... rendering quality 2500, about 500-600 frames each, at a resolution of 3072x768 ( for widescreen (PAL) projection with 3 projectors )
use my video editor to assemble & the job is done.

flam4 crashes each time render finishes the avi "snippets", open it again does the job well 4 me, no restart of my PC needed. i'm using nvidia gts 450 / win XP SP3 , faster gfx card will arrive soon

i hope thy fix the crashes soon, and a batch kind of rendering would be a great time-saver, so my machine could go on rendering while i'm away ...

how ever, am really amazed, happy, and kinda thankful about all these tools and a forum like this, to find help and inspiration

cheers

sesslie

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gregimages [2011-04-11 16:17:31 +0000 UTC]

Flam4 will render a loop file with 2 keyframes in the .flam file. Both frames need to be renderable with flam4, some variations arn't. There is a list. As far as I know there is no command line option. An unrenderable variation yeilds a blank screen or incomplete image. Some renderable variations turn out different with flam4. More than 2 keyframes only renders the first 2 from my experience. I create a number of clips then assemble in video editor. Remember if you exceed the limits of your video memory flam4 crashes. A crash requires computer restart to clear video memory. Restart flam4 before each render. Its very useful to monitor your video card to see what is happening. I have been rendering 480 frames at a time at 24fps, quality 200, 1280x720. good luck,have fun, Greg

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sesslie [2011-04-08 12:48:25 +0000 UTC]

hi there, here is a flam-2-avi-newbie-question is ist possible to render render "loop to file" with 2 or more "keyframes"/flames inside a *.flam file? i tried this, but flam4cuda crashes badly! with a single flame it works perfect!
thx, sesslie

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gregimages [2011-04-02 17:08:07 +0000 UTC]

FLAM 4 WORKS GREAT. All necessary dlls come in zip file now. You must have latest nvidia drivers, I needed beta version for gforce gts 450.
Its works stand alone, just file/load *.flame file created in Apo up to version 9. Flame should be zoom set to zero. Hit render and you should see image appear.
To render single image go file/render image to file. Be careful if you are rendering just one image to limit size to about 4500x4500 pixels which is 90% of 1 gig of video memory. Naturally less memory less pixel. Too large an image will crash flam4 and lock up gpu memory. If this happens then restart computer or flam4 won't render large frames. Also restart flam4 after every render since it seems to lock up some of the video memory if not restarted.

To render avi go file/render loop to file. Maintain aspect ratio of original image in render, make aspect ratio of original same as standard frame ,say 1280x720 or whatever. Flam4 creates rotation of parameters automatically. Am looking for how to do anything else.

I use free, geeks3d gpu caps viewer to monitor video card for memory use and gpu load. My card heats up to 60deg c or more,
from idyl of 40deg c. seems ok though. gpu load goes to 99% and gpu memory goes to 90% with 4500x4500 image.
Good luck, this is a quickie for newbies ,will update. Add your experience here, there seems to be very little help for flam4 so far.

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Judson-Cottrell [2010-10-09 01:05:50 +0000 UTC]

My system meets the hardware requirements but flam4 still won't run. Gonna give this a shot. Thanks for sharing.

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Synthetamine [2009-06-04 05:03:09 +0000 UTC]

thanks, I cannot get flam4 to run, this seems to be such a niche program that barely anyone uses it, others have had this error message too.

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.
at System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)
at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
at System.Convert.ToInt32(String value)
at Flam4CUDA.PNGSettings.renderButton_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4918 (NetFXspW7.050727-4900)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Flam4CUDA
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///F:/Apophysis8b2%20+%20Flam3/flam4/Flam4CUDA.exe
----------------------------------------
msvcm90
Assembly Version: 9.0.30729.4918
Win32 Version: 9.00.30729.4918
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/WinSxS/x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4918_none_508da958bcbd2845/msvcm90.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4918 (NetFXspW7.050727-4900)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4918 (NetFXspW7.050727-4900)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4918 (NetFXspW7.050727-4900)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
Flam4CUDAX
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///F:/Apophysis8b2%20+%20Flam3/flam4/Flam4CUDAX.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4918 (NetFXspW7.050727-4900)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:





When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

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goofygrape [2009-01-16 17:42:01 +0000 UTC]

thanks for your trouble

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FracFx [2009-01-16 17:14:19 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for sharing ,
I can't recall the requirements for flam4,
I remember my pc couldn't use it
I seem to recall it required Vista with DirectX10 and pixel shading or something so I haven't kept up with it, thanks for doing this anyway

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altocumulus [2009-01-16 14:58:04 +0000 UTC]

Many thanks ...

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