poor quality of lines during playback

[Klaus Hoefs]

Could you tell us more details? What settings etc.

I'm starting in a rather loosy style at ca. 50% (2048W/1152H), but if having to go for details e.g. for the pupil of a spider zooming to 160 %.
Usually these lines are poor. With the Magic Number 11 (Ctrl-D) and giving it e.g. 190 SubPixel Zoom Ratio there are fine again.

It seems that the flip button plays with a good quality, but it is limited to 20seconds.

So it's possible and could be expand to have realtime-playback with more duration.

it quickly renders the uncompressed timeline (or selected frames) with no fuss

Talking about playback : if any improvement will be done, in the future, I would suggest to create also a standalone (free) .tvp file player.

So it's also with AE and Premiere. Nice idea, although I would prefer a proper preview in the working window.

[ZigOtto]

Well, when it goes to display big size projects, and in regard of your computer's power, I think it's a matter of balance between 2 things :
Image rendering quality (or) Playback speed, respecting project FrameRate and playing all the frames fluently.

When your hardware isn't able to handle both at 100%, you have to make a cruel choice :
1)full frame-rate (real time), but lower image quality,
2) Better image quality, but with lower frame-rate, not realtime (or skipped frames),

in HD res, my way is currently to use 2 different preview settings :
- one when animating, priority to the frame-rate, data rate at lower value than the the computed value, I'm focusing on how the animation works, and paying attention to the timing,
- one when cleaning, priority to Image quality, data rate at much higher value than the computed value, "play all" checked On,
so in this stage, I don't reach a realtime playback, but I don't care, the animation (linetest) being already validated,
my purpose is to get the best rendering preview quality.

In TVPaint Animation Pro, the preview ratio quality is automatically set, depending on the data rate
of your temp drive.
In other words, the data rate automatically change the size ratio of your preview to play it as well
as possible regarding the playback frame rate of your project.
The temp drive is the drive containing the temp folder that can be chosen in the
preference panel. (See lesson 1.)
You can use the test button to determine the data transfert rate of your temp drive.
The quality ratio will be reduced if you decrease the data rate value.
It is not advised to set a higher value than the one TVPaint Animation Pro
computes when you click on the Test button. If you do so, the quality ratio will be
increased but the sequence won't be played fluently anymore.
The Show TC button is used to display the time code during pre-viewing.
The Play all button forces the program to display all fields and images during viewing even if this
affects the display rate of the chosen images.

As exemple, below a picture of the data rate setting effect in the playback image quality.

[Klaus Hoefs]

zig, thanks again for the tips and explanation.
But no matter which DataRate I set (from 1.0 MB/s to 450.0MB/s) the quality is still the same: poor lines at 50%-70% zoom-modus.
And I wonder why this FlipBook with its 20 sec duration gives back much better preview with the same settings.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Thanks, Zig, I understand the theory but in practice, when playing RealTime, whether I have computed, set high, set low Play All or not -- all my playbacks look pretty much the same. When set to Render, there are noticeable differences in quality reaults when lowering or raising Data Rate -- but I can never get it to look any better than I get with RealTime. I can live with it, especially when using a secondary project window so that I don't have to change the size of my drawing size of the primary window, but it is never perfect unless played back at 100%, RealTime.

My computer:
MoBo: Asus P51D2-deluxe
CPU: Dual core processor 3.4GHZ, 64-Bit/32-Bit,
800 MHz FSB, 2MB l2 Cache, LGA 775
Memory: 1GB DDR2 533Mhz 4GB
Raid: SATA 8 port
SATA Raid controller
HDs: 7 ST3500630AS 500GB video
SATA 3 raid 5 2 mirrored
Videocard: Nvidia PCIE 16 quad 256 MB RAM
Monitor: 3 Acer 24” LCD 1920x1200
EXT HD: 500 GB

[Klaus Hoefs]

-- all my playbacks look pretty much the same.

same here, but FlipBook gives better results (shots at 34,51 % of 2048W/1152H ):

[Paul Fierlinger]

Klaus, you are drawing at a very large size and I have to wonder if anything could play back something of that size properly -- but, on the other hand, as you say; if flipbook can do it why can't the real McCoy do it just as well.

BTW, I like your line drawings very much -- the first I've seen of this new style of yours. Have you considered drawing the hands smaller; more in proportion to the other body dimensions? They would look less toony -- unless the story is about what these people's hands are up to. ..

[Klaus Hoefs]

BTW, I like your line drawings very much -- the first I've seen of this new style of yours. Have you considered drawing the hands smaller;

Thanks Paul. I think I'll post a wip in the next two/three weeks. For now I have one minute. So I want to do this scene first and then make a decision. To scale the hands down should not be such a problem.

you are drawing at a very large size and I have to wonder if anything could play back something of that size properly

There's only this realtime preview issue; btw sliding through this whole thing gives also proper quality and is pretty smooth.
May I ask which DataRate do you have, after "computing" it in the Preview Settings ??

[Paul Fierlinger]

Don't change the hands just for me

My Data Rate is 93.64MB/s

[Klaus Hoefs]

Don't change the hands just for me

o.k. I'll let the community vote about it.

Back to topic:
is there anyone out there who has similiar problems with the realtime preview, or are this two old nags the only ones ??
Lurkers, I am curious: what are your experiences ?

[ZigOtto]

I'm always using Render mode since ... I hated Mirage Proxy !

... And I wonder why this FlipBook with its 20 sec duration gives back much better preview with the same settings.

afaik, Flipbook seems to be the top level of my 2nd choice :
Best Image quality (in fact no damage at all),
but not reaching ciné/video framerate (24/25i/s), and (or) skipping frames (when in RealTime mode),
annoying when you're inbetweening,
I personaly use it with "Play All" enable, so the Flip tool give me the best, 0 deterioration, 0 skipped frames,
it seems rather as playing a slideshow, (as fast as your hardware is capable), and fit perfectly its purpose,
that's more or less like an animator's papers hand-flipping, going back at your current frame as bonus.

so, you're right boys, I think it shouldn't be so hard to add a new mode in the Preview Setting panel,
basically by duplicating the flipbook mode, and breaking its despotic "20 seconds" limitation.

Who's volunteer to bring this up to the "Feature Requests" section ?

[Paul Fierlinger]

Well! So this has turned into a constructive thread (or close to one) after all -- and on a weekend in France. Someone else

Who's volunteer to bring this up to the "Feature Requests" section ?

Not me. I don't carry any weight around here anymore.

[Hervé]

Well! So this has turned into a constructive thread (or close to one) after all -- and on a weekend in France. Someone else

Who's volunteer to bring this up to the "Feature Requests" section ?

Not me. I don't carry any weight around here anymore.

OK, OK, It's now an official feature request

[ZigOtto]

I should have said "... a volunteer to drop it down into the "Feature Requests" tank ...

OK, OK, It's now an official feature request

quite a pertinent volunteer, indeed !

[Klaus Hoefs]

Thank you very much, Hervé !

[Paul Fierlinger]

Gosh. That S*******y is making big footprints.
Thanks from me too, Herve.