Animation pre-play image not showing frame 1

Started by mat10x, December 20, 2017, 01:11:53 PM

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mat10x

Hi guys,

Rendered a 10 second animation that for some reason the preview image/frame (the image you see before you press "play") is not the first frame of the animation.  Shows a frame roughly half way through.

When I hit "play" it jumps to frame 1 and plays through correctly.

How do I get this initial image/frame to be on frame 1?

Thx.

Will Gibbons

What format did you render to? Did you render frames or video file or both?

If you rendered frames, I'd look in the frames folder and see what that first frame looks like. If it looks correct, use another program to compile the frames into a video and you should be good.

mat10x

Hi Will,

Animation was rendered as a Quicktime MP4.  Rendered out both the frames and the vid file.

MP4 is roughly 5mb in size.  About 10 seconds, 451 frames.

I took a look at Frame 1...looks fine as far as I can tell.  It's just displaying some middle frame, then jumps to frame 1 when you click "play".

Thx.

Will Gibbons

If you rendered frames and it looks like there's a frame out of place, try moving it or if there's an extra/unwanted frame, delete it and then compile the image sequence and export as a video file using your editing program of choice.

mat10x

Hi Will,

I've animated 2 other models now...all 3 have the same issue.  3 different Keyshot (bip) files.  All 3 show some random middle frame preview...but begin at frame 1 when you click "play".

All 3 are between 400 - 500 frames.  Roughly 10 seconds.  Quicktime MP4 format.  Using 100%, 8 cores to render (Macbook Pro 2013).  Keyshot 7.2.109

Rendered using 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 rez. 

I can't find any issues with the frames.  I also don't see anything in the "render" settings as an issue.  Seems pretty straight forward. 

Can you recommend some software to compile the pngs into a video? 

Thanks.



Will Gibbons

Sure. I use premiere pro personally, but anything will work. After Effects, Photoshop, GIMP, QuickTime 7, Blender, iMovie... take your pick

I'm still a tad confused on your issue. Any way you can share screenshot or video file?

mattjgerard

Quicktime tends to use its own brain to pick the poster thumbnail. I don't have my macbook with me right now, but I think you can (at least in the old QT 7) go in and choose your own poster frame. You can do this in Compressor too, if you have that app, and I think you can do it in Adobe media composer as well. Here is a tutorial that shows how to do it in compressor.

http://www.izzyvideo.com/poster-frame-problem/


mat10x

Quote from: Will Gibbons on January 03, 2018, 07:23:44 AM
Sure. I use premiere pro personally, but anything will work. After Effects, Photoshop, GIMP, QuickTime 7, Blender, iMovie... take your pick

I'm still a tad confused on your issue. Any way you can share screenshot or video file?

Hi Will,

Summary...the image that is showing behind the white "play" button icon before clicking "play", that initial image a viewer sees before clicking the white "play" button...is not displaying Frame 1 of the animation.

What is showing behind the white Play button is some random frame from the middle of the 10 second video.

The second you click the white play button...the random image immediately switches to Frame 1 and plays as it should.

I do have PS, Quicktime Player (not QT Pro), and iMovie.  No idea how to use any of these to stitch together pngs for video...looks like google and youtube this weekend to find out.

I'd much rather just get it to work in Keyshot...since all 3 separate animations I made are all behaving the same way.  None start on frame 1.  I rather not have to start using some other video editing program for every animation if I can help it.  Extra work flow.

Will if you have a work email, I can send you a couple screen shots if you still need it.

Thx.

mat10x

Quote from: mattjgerard on January 03, 2018, 08:06:14 AM
Quicktime tends to use its own brain to pick the poster thumbnail. I don't have my macbook with me right now, but I think you can (at least in the old QT 7) go in and choose your own poster frame. You can do this in Compressor too, if you have that app, and I think you can do it in Adobe media composer as well. Here is a tutorial that shows how to do it in compressor.

http://www.izzyvideo.com/poster-frame-problem/

Hi Matt,

Seems odd...the animation was made in Keyshot...then saved as...Quicktime MP4.  So how would QT pick the poster image from within Keyshot?  Maybe I'm missing something here. 

I have QT player...but don't you need the Pro version to edit images for video?

Thanks for the Compressor link, I'll check it out!

mattjgerard

Its the playback app that is picking the poster frame. If you don't have one specifically embedded into the file, the playback app will pick one. Youtube will generate a different one than vimeo, VLC player ight pick a different one than QT.

You might need QTpro to edit the poster frame, but good luck getting it to work. QT7 was EOL'd almost 10 years ago, so they aren't supporting it anymore, even if it was one of the best swiss army tool apps they made. Compressor can certainly do it, and Adobe Media encoder should, I'm just not sure how to change the poster frame in there.

https://goo.gl/2F2bD1

Here's a quick google search that lists lots of options.

Will Gibbons

Quote from: mattjgerard on January 08, 2018, 06:24:31 AM
Its the playback app that is picking the poster frame.

Matt beat me to it. Sorry. Yes, this makes sense now. KeyShot is not responsible for the thumbnail image... this is a product of the app that will show that. High-end video editing apps will allow you to choose which frame is shown (just like YouTube or Vimeo does).

Premiere Pro, Final Cut, After Effects should support this function. There may be free options that do.

mat10x

Quote from: mattjgerard on January 08, 2018, 06:24:31 AM
Its the playback app that is picking the poster frame. If you don't have one specifically embedded into the file, the playback app will pick one. Youtube will generate a different one than vimeo, VLC player ight pick a different one than QT.

You might need QTpro to edit the poster frame, but good luck getting it to work. QT7 was EOL'd almost 10 years ago, so they aren't supporting it anymore, even if it was one of the best swiss army tool apps they made. Compressor can certainly do it, and Adobe Media encoder should, I'm just not sure how to change the poster frame in there.

https://goo.gl/2F2bD1

Here's a quick google search that lists lots of options.

Hi Matt,

I take it there's no way to embed the "poster frame" in Keyshot while creating the animation.  I did notice the poster frame changes from player to player.  Tried Will's suggestion of stitching together the PNGs in Photoshop...got another different poster frame.

I'll have to take another look at Compressor.  Tried iMovie...had some trouble with it since I never use it much.  Adobe Media...not familiar with that either, I'll check it out.

What a pain in the ass for something that seemingly should be so simple...frame 1...done.

Thx!

mat10x

Quote from: Will Gibbons on January 08, 2018, 07:44:44 AM
Quote from: mattjgerard on January 08, 2018, 06:24:31 AM
Its the playback app that is picking the poster frame.

Matt beat me to it. Sorry. Yes, this makes sense now. KeyShot is not responsible for the thumbnail image... this is a product of the app that will show that. High-end video editing apps will allow you to choose which frame is shown (just like YouTube or Vimeo does).

Premiere Pro, Final Cut, After Effects should support this function. There may be free options that do.

Hi Will,

Is it possible to add the poster frame designation to Keyshot in a future release?  Seems like it would be a nice  feature for video and save the user an extra step and extra software.

I got Photoshop to stitch the PNGs together into a video, plays fine...but also get a random poster frame.

Thx!


Will Gibbons

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's that simple.

KeyShot controls what happens in KeyShot, but not necessarily what other programs do. As mentioned, if your computer's default video player is VLC, it will display a thumbnail that is decided by its code. That is up to the developers of VLC. Even if KeyShot did offer an option to attach a thumbnail, if VLC's code does not say 'search for attached thumbnail', VLC may just display whatever frame is explicitly stated by its code. Does that make sense?

Then, let's say you send the file to somebody who's on a different computer and their machine uses Quicktime as the default. QT may display a different frame entirely, based on its code. Again, KeyShot can't control what other apps do. If we had a 'KeyShot' video player, then I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult.

This comes down to how the video thumbnail is being served. On a website, you can embed a video, and most modern websites' video blocks will allow you to upload a custom thumbnail. Vimeo and YouTube do this, as well as websites like SquareSpace and depending on your theme, a Wordpress site should as well.

If your video/animation is going into an app, then you should be able to choose a thumbnail too. However, if you are not using a program to 'host/serve' the video, it's going to depend entirely on the app playing the video.

Where are you hosting/serving the video/animations, and what are you using to play them?

mattjgerard

Most App based video players just use a timestamp in the metadata of the file, but like Will said, not all metadata is created or stored the same.  The only way to truly control this is to use a web based player or a specific app across all mediums. It is becoming less and less of an issue because most vidoe playback is moving towards hosted streaming where you can explicitly designate the poster frame using timecode.

I fought this fight for 15 years as a video editor, starting with the first versions of flash video all the way through DVD authoring, then moving towards stored file playback and finally hosted streaming playback. We have had some very unfortunate frames be selected for thumbnails in some corporate videos,  laughed about in the edit bay, but not in the  meetings with the clients :) IN one case a single frame that was chosen by QT in a preview meeting with the client depicted the CEO about to eat his pencil caused the whole project to change direction, be delayed while they took our original advice and created a web based playback tool for the training videos. Good times back then .....