Chronic Render Failure Cinema 4D

[vogelhausdesign]

Hey everyone, I'm having some serious frustrations with Cinema 4D R11.5, But let me give you my system info first and lets see if we can find out what dumb problem i'm not seeing.

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.93 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per processor): 8 MB
Memory: 14 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 6.4 GT/s
Boot ROM Version: MP41.0081.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.39f5
SMC Version (processor tray): 1.39f5

SO here is my problem, I'm rending a 3 Minute, 6500 frame Audio+motion animation using multiple effectors and mainly the sound effector. I'm rendering
64 Threads
2000 MB Polygonal Memory
720p HD Video output to Quicktime

Outputting to my "design" HD which is not my boot, has 600GB available room.

My problem is after about 60-120 frames, C4D stops and tells me I'm out of memory when in fact besides the obvious CPU stress it's putting on my system, it's only using 40% of my RAM, and 1% of my HD.

It's killing my week, I'm not on a deadline but it's part of my motion portfolio.

If needed I'll upload the .c4d file and see if it's just my system. I'm not sure if I have Snow Leopard/myC4d setup entirely correct, but I dont see any problems rendering stills.

I'm about to switch to another 3D bundle if I cant fix this, so anyone else suggestion new software is welcome. Mac/Winblows.

 

[samwich]

Try rendering to still images like tiffs and then combining the stills in an external editor. That is generally considered best practice no matter how long the animation is.

Otherwise are you using g.i. or anything else in the scene? I'm not sure if motion blur would cause the problem but it might be something else.

 

[vogelhausdesign]

Maybe thats what I'm doing wrong.. If it's relevant I did not use motion blur, used a single camera with DOF, nothing too extreme. And the objects that were being effected were moSpline clones that were "extruded" using sweep nurbs and circular object arrangement.

BUT, tell me this.. I should render 6500 tif files and then compile them into a video using what software? Sorry for being such a noob, ive been doing still realism renders for a few years now. Trying to get into motion/animation.

thanks for your reply!

 

[tkingart]

Try rendering to still images like tiffs and then combining the stills in an external editor. That is generally considered best practice no matter how long the animation is.

Otherwise are you using g.i. or anything else in the scene? I'm not sure if motion blur would cause the problem but it might be something else.

This is how I've been doing it for years. Convenient for me when I only need to re-render certain segments, and expands post-processing tools at your disposal by being able to batch process the rendered frames with image editors and plug-ins. Also by doing it this way, only the current frame is taking memory (in addition to the project itself), rather than a video that is building exponentially in memory. (I believe some formats append better, like uncompressed full frames.)

You can combine the frames & sound in a linear video editing program. Have you tried rendering it without the sound? you can combine the sound & video later.

Are you booting up into OS X in 64 bit mode? (either by holding down the 6 and 4 keys during bootup, or changing the apple.boot.plist to specify the x86 kernel)

 

[samwich]

If you right click on the Cinema 4D app, there is a check box to "Open in 32 Bit Mode", if you uncheck this Cinema will open in 64 bit mode, which may help the situation.

You can use quicktime, final cut, premiere, after effects, or probably find a "combine still images to video" program on google.

I would still definitely recommend rendering to stills.

 

[vogelhausdesign]

I believe it runs native 64Bit in 11.5 which is what I'm running. I think I may have found a solution however with Maxwell Render v2, I will have to downgrade my C4D to the latest version of 11 and export scene files. I'm also looking into Houdini for future motion solutions.. Do you have any experience with Houdini?

 

[samwich]

While C4D can run natively in 64-bit mode, you still have the option to enable/disable it due to some plug-ins not being 64 bit capable. It is my understanding that Maxwell render gives good results, but is a little on the lengthy side for render times and therefore not as popular when creating animations. And I don't have any experience with Houdini, sorry.

 

[fremachuca]

definitely render to still images, and then transform it to a video using quicktime and finalcut, or any other video editing software of your preference.

just a example.
imagine you render out all 6000 frames into a video file. and during this video, there are 300 frames that went bad (maybe a shadow wasn't rendered correctly, or you just applied the wrong material to a specific object.)
you are going to have to render all 6000 frames again just because of these 300 bad frames?!?!

now, if you rendered into a image sequence, you would make the adjustments on the project file, and just re-render these 300 frames.

a lot of time saved huh?

 

[TTTT]

Never render to Quicktime

You should never render anything other than test renders directly to quicktime.
Render to .psd, or tiff. Then use a video editor to set the time for the stills. When the render crashes you only lose one file and can restart from the last file. This is what every major production house does. This also allows you to use Photoshop tools, including batch processing to create visual repairs or effects

 

[mj662]

Hey everyone, I'm having some serious frustrations with Cinema 4D R11.5, But let me give you my system info first and lets see if we can find out what dumb problem i'm not seeing.

I am having the exact same issue on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra, it seems to happen with After Effects as well. Extremely frustrating! I only render top PNG, jpg, or Tiff so rendering to stills is not the problem.