KeyShot 5: Anim issue: "KeyShot could not find any frames to process"

[Nick]

Hi,

When I render animations in KeyShot 5 (64 bit), making sure video output is checked this happens:

1) The animation does not go into the selected folder. It goes into the default KeyShot animation folder.
2) It does not create the video clip. It renders only the many frames, but no video!  (even though I clearly selected video output NOT frame output before rendering, see attached. 

When the rendering is finished, this error message appears (see attached).

Any idea what could be wrong?

[thomasteger]

I wonder whether this has anything to do with the naming? Can you try giving it a different name, avoiding the special characters?

[Rex]

Just tested and everything is working fine for me.

Perhaps just saving and reopening the file could solve the problem?

[Nick]

Hi,

It appears that the name of the file might have been an issue. I re-named it, and it seems to be working OK so far (testing it now).

Question:
When you render animations, do you check "frame output" in addition to "video output" ?  What is the purpose of having hundreds of frames in a folder?   Can the many frames be deleted after the video file is created?  Is the rendering time shorter when only "video output" is checked?

Thanks in advance!

[Rex]

Nick,

Glad to hear it's working for you now.

Video vs frame output depends on what kind of post-production you do. Compiling the frames in a software like Adobe Premiere or After Effects can have advantages. If you only require the raw video output then there is no need to output frames as well; however, outputting frames does not add to render time so you might as well for the sake of flexibility. If you decide you don't need them then deleting after the rendering is completed will not affect the outputted video file.

[Nick]

Hi again,

Bad news:
I changed the name of the file to "testing 2", put it in its own new folder on desktop. I pointed KeyShot to said folder, and hit "render".
Both video + frame output were selected.

While rendering the frames, the desktop folder was filling with frames as it is supposed to.

When I got up this morning and checked, the animation was done, but the desktop folder was EMPTY. Not a trace of all the frames, no video file either.

Note: no error message this time.

[Nick]

It appears that KS has a problem with folders.

When I point it to "Desktop", it places the animation on the desktop.  When I point it to a folder, it either deletes folder's content at the end, or deletes the entire folder.

[Nick]

Strange getting stranger:

I did a new animation rendering, checked only "video output" and pointed it to the desktop.

It placed hundreds of frame onto the desktop until the animation was completed. At the end, a box said "creating video file", and all the frames disappeared from the desktop, ALONG WITH ANY FILE THAT WAS NOT IN A FOLDER.

This is crazy!

[TpwUK]

Ouch - Painful lesson there then. Guess that means that KS is doing the equivalent of DEL *.* which would make sense from a speed perspective, so I would say not to render to the desktop in the future. Fortunately most things on the Desktop tend to be icons and shortcuts. I hope you had backups.

This is technically not a bug but rather a combination of events that should not really happen. If KS is using the *.* method to remove files then it just needs the 'project_name.*' to be added to the delete, but then the .avi .mp4 is going to be deleted too, is this the case with you, did you loose the video too ? If so then your video and frames folders need to be different.

I will stick my neck out here and say that KS developers could possibly make 'Desktop' a non selectable folder in the future.

Martin

[Nick]

Yes it also deleted the video file.

It should not even show frames, since I only checked 'video output'.  Anyway, I will try again and give different folders for frames and video.