I am getting a "flicker" effect in animation. I've got to solve this problem.

I began this topic in another thread, here.

I took aim at some of the suggestions in prior posts, namely:

1. Added two low-intensity white infinite lights to the set, positioned to reduce shadows on the face.
2. Boosted the SIZE of the shadow map for all three lights to 512
3. Made sure 'animation' was off on all three lights.
4. Turned off displacement mapping in render settings
5. Uninstalled RealPlayer(!)

I am using "Depth Map Shadows" (not raytracing) with Shadow Blur Radius set to '2' and Shadow Min Bias set to .8 (i have not played with those settings yet)

Actually, if possible, I need to solve this problem without resorting to blasting the face with light, if it's a shadow problem...sometimes I need characters moving in semi-darkness, maybe with only one dim lightsource. Anyway, adding the two 'fill' lights in this scene did not remove the flickering. You can see the "flicker" under the left eye alongside the nose, and at the left ear. No morphs animated in the face (to eliminate that variable), just the head movement.

I am clueless, any wisdom or help welcome.

The movie clip (Quicktime) opens in new windows:
Hi-Res and size, 5MB here.
Smaller size, 550K, here.

My settings:
. .

Thanks,
::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/22/2004 16:07

Message edited on: 12/22/2004 16:11

increase the size of all the objects in the scene up by about 200% and rerender. iow -- scale everything up. Not sure if it will do much, but I'm guessing, here. Based on what I'm seeing, it could be an issue witht he light essentially being vertical to those surfaces. It could also be related to the peculiar weakness inherent in Poser's scale versus firefly. just a guess, mind ya.

I think the flicker on the model's ear is the big clue. It's def the hair. There appears to be an outer transmapped sphere of hair around the scalp. The light's coming through and flickers because, of course, an animation isn't smooth movement, but a series of static pics. Try the same scene without any hair on the model and see what happens. How to reduce or eliminate the effect? Well, the things I'd try are increasing the Pixel Sample size to 5 or 6, tick 'Smooth Polygons' and reduce the bucket size to compensate (your cpu will love you for it!). 128 is pretty big, I'm thinking (won't affect the finished render, but will probably be slowing things down). Try 20 or 30 instead. Good luck.

those are two great leads. There IS a non-visible texture associate with the hair, an "outer transmapped sphere of hair around the scalp" that I had to dial WAY down to get this simple hairstyle. The FIRST THING i am going to do is take a safety copy of the file, toss out the hair and render, leaving everything else exactly the same. If that does not work, I will start making the adjustments you both suggested. Thanks greatly. ::::: Opera :::::

It's not the hair.

Hi-res clip here. 5MB Quicktime

::::: Opera :::::

ynsaen, "scale up..." I kinda see the logic of where you are going, and it comes back to my idea that there is a 'rounding' problem in the math somewhere..the rendering this high density complex situation at 30 fps is somehow exposing too-truncated math when the shadows are deep or something. I guess. Maybe "bigger numbers" after scale-up would relieve the pressure of something. Okay, I am going to keep experimenting. I might try a test at 20 or 24 fps, try the scale up, and also try some of the settings moochie suggests. I have to keep plugging, if there is no solution, I can't use Poser for this project, at least at this level of photorealism and high-pack animation. ::::: Opera :::::

Well, my guess is based on experimentation with what Ronstuff uncovered regarding the shadow and refractive properties of poser when used with firefly -- which, although I love it to death, was sorta tacked on. Poser uses a scale roughly 1/100th of most other programs -- inclusive of the one that firefly's rendering engine was based on. That makes the numbers pretty damn small. I think the issue is a sort of "ghost" shadowing from too small a calculation.

It's almost definitely a shadow issue. I ran into a similar shadow flickering problem with Poser several times before. I "fixed" it by increasing the shadow map size (in some cases dramatically), but that also increased render time. Ynsaen is also on to something that increasing the scene's overall scale may help solve this too. I haven't tried doing that. Using Raytrace shadows will solve it as well I'm sure, but then you're talking a render time hit again, and the risk of possibly not getting the soft shadow effect you desire. I hate to say it, but this is one reason I gave up on rendering animations directly in Poser. Results are often too unpredictable to trust. Hopefully, this isn't a commercial project. ;-)

couls also be the fps. web is usually around 15 tv / movies are 30. if you have the time, try rendering at 60 fps. view it. no flicker? remove every other frame. view flicker? from original 60 fps remove every 3rd frame. view it often helps to see more detail with higher frame settings. you can see where the flicker is moving. it could be a minute difference in light positioning between some frames. though the flicker beside the nose is more suggestive on render calculation issues.

i just keep thinking it is math. rounding, or something. But i had not thought of UPPING the frame rate. I just got done with two runs at 24 FPS and 20 FPS, no improvement. I am just about to execute a radical run. I threw away two lights. I put the shadow map from 512 to 3000 on the last light. I checked every morph on the light in the graph for ANY keyframes...found none....straight lines all the way across. I am still attacking with everything I can think of. I will try your 60 fps idea also. I would start removing textures, etc., except that I remember this problem other times in the past, even on Poser4PP. ::::: Opera :::::

well, by upping you get more frames to check individually where it is flickering. might see the cause then.

max, i am ready to give up rendering in poser. I have Vue4Pro sitting here in a box, and four computers ready to be a startup render farm. It is a commercial film. But so low budget I don't want to kick up to the maya etc. world. the main thing I am sorry to see drop away, however, taking my poser characters into Vue, is face_off's Skin Shader and various other proceedural materials I am just coming to love in Poser. I will post back in the morning with my shadow map = 3000 trial. I could also try raytrace, but I want the soft shadows, as you suspected. ::::: Opera :::::

vue has good rendering, but it's raytrace only. you would have to add objects ( on invisible layer ) to diffuse light to get soft shadows. or else use the night scene then remove the star map for the sky, replace with whatever you want.

"the main thing I am sorry to see drop away, however, taking my poser characters into Vue, is face_off's Skin Shader and various other proceedural materials I am just coming to love in Poser." Yeah, I know what you mean, but you're better off just using Vue anyway I think, even if you solve this problem. Using Poser without network rendering for commercial animation is a bit risky, and you can end up totally blowing a deadline trying to solve mundane problems like this, as you're probably aware already. Currently, I'm just using Poser's renderer to proof the motions and timing before exporting to another app for final render. I have no idea how deep Vue 4's shader system is, but face-off's skin shader can be manually translated to other apps that utilize procedural shaders, even if they aren't based on a node system. It has to be done by hand of course, but as long as you can save the result, you only have to do it once. In fact, I created one in Max that gives almost identical results to this one in Poser. It all depends on the complexity of the application's shader system, and your knowledge with it's materials. At any rate, good luck with this, and keep us posted as to how you do.

"you would have to add objects ( on invisible layer ) to diffuse light to get soft shadows." Are you serious? When will these companies learn to incorporate hybrid rendering? Jesus. Carrara, Bryce, Vue... they're all like this I assume, no? Then people wonder why they're not used very often in production.

(the indomitable mooch steps up to the plate again) .. okies. The latest movie introduces another good clue. The 'dribbling' effect at the bottom right corner of the model's mouth. Something's happening with the texture that isn't shadow related. Another clue is operaguy's reference to assorted shaders for the skin. Back to good ol' fashioned trouble-shooting, I think. Rather than whacking all settings up to the max, why not try 'simplify to clarify' (just made that up, but it sounds kinda profound, dontcha think?). So .. remove as many procedural shaders as you can. Render out to a series of stills, rather than direct to Quicktime. There are a number of apps that let you convert stills into a movie (last time I looked, anyway .. couple of years ago). Or, try rendering to AVI and use 'no compression' or, at least, a different codec or two. Try to get to a set up which has no artefacts. Then build complexity from there. Yes .. it'll be hard work, but then you'll be one of the new Poser animation experts. Yay!

I am relieved to say, I have a clip with no flicker.

Click here to view. 8.9M Quicktime opens in new window.

Apparently, setting the shadow map to 3000 did the trick. However, because I got impetuous and frustrated and removed lights and moved my main, and that was too many variables to change, now I have to keep sampling, dialing back the size of the map, also, to find the optimal setting. But this is just the cinematographer performing test shots...a normal film requirement.

What also kicks in is the concept of scaling everything up and thus working with Poser5 on that basis permanently per suggestion by ynsaen. Who knows what prop, dynamic clothing, hair, etc. issues might spawn from that, but it might re-establish better render times. Whereas I had been getting a frame every 80-90 seconds at the original "30", this final render at "3000" required 200 seconds per frame. Scaling up might enable me to pull that back, plus it might avoid other quality issues in rendering that have yet to make their presence known!

Also, moochie's approach has merit. If indeed I decided to run the risks stated so well by Max, and stay with Poser because I am doggedly determined to see how far I can go with it, I will seriously consider that effort, by starting with the base model and adding on elements, test rendering as I go along. It will be combined with a trial of scaling up and with the size of the shadow map.

(by the way, I am already rendering out to individual frames and then constructing my final with QuickTimePro. Also, the flicker was there regardless of material room node settings...i detected it with Poser4 renders. And the flicker is in the individual frames. Also I rendered out directly to avi once or twice, still flicker.)

Thanks, contributors to this thread for helping me attack this issue. Not that I'm asking it to be at an end; assuming I am still in Poser, I will keep making trials over the next week and post results on this thread, so it becomes a resource for any other filmmaker performing a search in the Renderosity Poser forum.

::::: Opera :::::

FLASH....

Scale up!

This is the answer. I chased down the Ronstuff information and I believe this is the problem. I was at least correct in one respect, even from my newbie intuition...this is a math/decimal/truncation issue.

I just did one quick test, scaled up my character from 100% to 1000% and moved the shadow map size back to 30.

1. 37 second render time !!!!! [i fell out of my chair]
2. most flicker gone, just a little in there. I am kicking the shadow map up gradually until I find the correct spot.

Ronstuff makes the point that these issues pertain to CLOSEUPS! That's where the problem manifests and where the scaleup solution works like a charm.

More later.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 12/23/2004 12:56

Here's my current sample clip.
90 Frames, same settings as all along with one light, etc.
Scale = 1000
Shadow map on the one light = 100
Time: 90 frames in 74 minutes = 48 seconds per frame.

There is still a slight amount of flicker along the nose in the last 20 frames or so. But the big flicker is gone. I feel I have control of the problem. Depending on how close-up the shot is, I will have to scale up and increase the shadow map. I am NOT suffering big render time hits.

Click here to view. 4.9M Quicktime opens in new window.

::::: Opera ::::: Message edited on: 12/23/2004 16:03

Glad you are getting it worked out :-)

;)