Exporting MPEG Problem

[WyDaniel]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to create an assembly Video. Since the sequence tool was too limited in its options, I decided to use the motion simulation tool. I have been using a gearbox to tinker and experiment on, but if I use the Export to Movie funktion, the video qualaty is simply horrible. I read in other forum posts that one can use export > MPEG, but that has been stuck on generating Image-Based Lighting over and over again and once it gets to frame 4 or 5, it sometimes randomly skips BACK a few frames to regenerate Image-Based Lighting. I tried to reduce the number of frames, but I can't even get it to finish a working 3 frame video...

The thing is, I'd be happy to have an export of the Preview Animation it offers to show me. Which it can generate in real-time without any problems. So if anyone knows where I can edit the visual properties of the export, I'd be so happy!

oh, before anyone suggests this: I have considered a screen capture tool. But that's not the point. I want to get the NX export to work.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Have you tried turning OFF 'Image-Based Lighting' before you generate your NX Animation?

That being said, the issue of the NX code continuously going back and forth a few frames at a time while generating an MPEG movie, that's normal behavior since MPEG is a compression standard and so it has to generate a few frames before it knows how much data (pixels) it can merge together as it compresses the data from one frame to the next. Yea, it looks weird as you watch it process, but that's just the way it has always worked, whether you're using 'Image-Based lighting' or not.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

Does your simulation run as expected ? i.e can you animate it in real time ?
Is the assembly very large ? Rendering images is very heavy on RAM, watch the Task manager such that you don't run out of RAM while rendering.
Exporting a Mpeg takes a long time, mpegs run default at 24 frames per second which means NX must render 24 images per second of movie. NX might not have crashed , it's simply in the middle of the rendering process.

As John notes, the rendering works that way that it jumps back and forth in the simulation and then compresses the images/frames in between. If one grabs a copy of the Mpeg file before it is finished , it will display that jumping effect.

Can you setup the Image based lighting such that you get a good/ decent image in a static rendering ? - If not, the video will not be better.

Have you read my reply in this thread on where to set the mpeg options ? :

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=362940

What is wrong with the visual properties of the real time export ? - What do you want to edit ?

Regards,
Tomas

 

[WyDaniel]

Well, the RAM doesn't seem to be a problem. It's only using 4.3 out of 16 GB at the Moment.

I had not seen that thread before, but there was no option there to disable the Image Based-Lighting and any other changes there did not seem to effect the process much.

As to what I don't like about the real time export is, that it is NOT what I see on my screen but a worse quality. It even has a few display errors in it, like ghosts of lines that have already moved away.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I didn't see anything wrong with that video, other than it running really slow.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[WyDaniel]

Really? What did you use to open it? I tried VLC and Windows Media Player. The first only shows a standing image, the second has these ghost lines on the left wheel for example.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm using Windows Media Player, and yes I see some minor pixilation on the left wheel. It appears that you may have a face edge which the mpeg compression algorithm is not able to cleanly handle. You may want to look at how the 'thread area' was modeled and see if you can get rid of any unnecessary face edges.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

I agree with John, your video looks fine here, with the note that it is slow and that there are ghost lines on the foremost wheel towards the end of the video.
I did not notice the ghost lines until i read your note about it and then looked extra cautiously.

The slowness is probably due to the 300 frames in total, if you want a 30 second video, try 30[seconds]*24[frames per second] = 720 Frames ( or more to have a smoother movement in the video.) - then it is up to the graphics adapter if it can deliver this or not when doing the real time export.

If you would like to turn off the Image based lighting, you need to do so in the render setup. ( what version of NX ?)
Pre NX 9 it is : View- Visualization - Basic Scene Editor - Image based Lighting - Use...
+ set other rendering options for the video.


Regards,
Tomas

 

[WyDaniel]

I am using NX 9.0.0.19

I have tinkered a bit with the settings and now am getting a Picture quality that I am contend to work with but the Export to Movie funktion exports with 4 or 5 frames per Second, which is just not enough. I would like to have 30, or at least 24 FPS, but where in the options can I change this?

 

[Toost]

If you run the mpeg export, you can set the FPS in View -Visualization - create Animation - Edit arameters. ( As well as window size.)
I doubt , but don't know, that we can change the real time export.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[WyDaniel]

Hi again,

I have still struggled with this for days because no one really explained how to set the resolution and the camera path. I finally figured it out and wanted to possibly help others who might find this thread in search of an answer with a more detailed description:

If you want the Camera to move while an animiation is running, you need to define a camera path using keyframes under view - visulization - create animation

Simply define the starting position as the first keyframe and then the next position as another and select how many frames you want it to take until it gets there. You can certainly do much more with this, but that should get you started.​

Be sure to not only set everything up here, you also need to actually create this animation.

At the same time, this 'animation' contains the resolution setting. When you later export a movie using file - export - mpeg (or animated tiff or what ever) this animation will be selectable under camera path. If you select the standard fixed camera, it will not use the resolution settings from the create animation and export in the standard shitty resolution.

Or maybe my NX is just broken. Anyway, that's the only way I was able to export anything in 1920x1080.

Oh, and to turn the image based lighting off, I had to go under: view - studio task - studio - advanced lights - visual effects settings

Saved my a lot of time and only reduced the quality a little.​