Question too much timeline to load, but why?

[Vamtucket]

Can someone direct me to info about how many timeline animations I can have in one scene? I've noticed that if I add too many, then the scene will save but not load back up. But I can't figure out what the limit is... like it doesn't seem to be affected directly by time length. What can I do to maximize the amount of timeline information I can have in one scene? Does it help to have all the animations in the same plugin (separated as segments)? These types of questions. thanks

 

[MacGruber]

Scenes have a file size limit. If you mocap animation with high precision (= lots of keyframes) the file size grows quite quickly, since storing such data as JSON is quite inefficient. So, what you need is less keyframes.

If I remember correctly, Timeline had a compression feature that tries to remove unimportant keyframes. And you can also control the precision during mocap recording. (But I might be confusing things here, probably check the Timeline wiki)

 

[Saint66]

Can someone direct me to info about how many timeline animations I can have in one scene? I've noticed that if I add too many, then the scene will save but not load back up. But I can't figure out what the limit is... like it doesn't seem to be affected directly by time length. What can I do to maximize the amount of timeline information I can have in one scene? Does it help to have all the animations in the same plugin (separated as segments)? These types of questions. thanks

The scene size (or animation size) limit is around 500MB.
What you can do if not tried yet: reduce the keyframes with Timeline, size will be much smaller.

So its not the number of animations, its about max filesize

 

[Vamtucket]

Scenes have a file size limit. If you mocap animation with high precision (= lots of keyframes) the file size grows quite quickly, since storing such data as JSON is quite inefficient. So, what you need is less keyframes.

If I remember correctly, Timeline had a compression feature that tries to remove unimportant keyframes. And you can also control the precision during mocap recording. (But I might be confusing things here, probably check the Timeline wiki)

Are timeline animations the main source of save file size? If not, what other things should I think about for optimizing? thanks for help

 

[atani]

Timeline animations can take a lot of space if they're mocaps as this can mean thousands of keyframes. Non-mocap Timeline animations are normally just a few MB, there's a lot fewer keyframes.
Overall in VARs, usually textures are the main file size takers, just take a look at some looks, they're usually over 100 MB in size.

"Optimizing" is too broad, needs a focus for it to be meaningful. If your focus is in reducing disk space use, then you want to start at culling looks you don't want, they're likely the larger file size takers.

 

[Vamtucket]

Timeline animations can take a lot of space if they're mocaps as this can mean thousands of keyframes. Non-mocap Timeline animations are normally just a few MB, there's a lot fewer keyframes.
Overall in VARs, usually textures are the main file size takers, just take a look at some looks, they're usually over 100 MB in size.

"Optimizing" is too broad, needs a focus for it to be meaningful. If your focus is in reducing disk space use, then you want to start at culling looks you don't want, they're likely the larger file size takers.

thanks for response.... for creating a scene that is saved locally as json file, do the skins and clothes textures etc go into the file size? I'm currently looking to create the largest json file that I can that vam will open and so far it seems timeline is main thing I have to think about

 

[atani]

A JSON file is a text file, images are bitmap files. If you are using a image in a scene (JSON) it will be referencing the path to that bitmap file - eg: Custom/Images/myImage.jpg - it doesn't include the image itself in the JSON.
The increase in size of the JSON will just be by adding the path to the image, marginal increase of a few bytes, and is independent of the size of the referenced image.

 

[Saint66]

thanks for response.... for creating a scene that is saved locally as json file, do the skins and clothes textures etc go into the file size? I'm currently looking to create the largest json file that I can that vam will open and so far it seems timeline is main thing I have to think about

Just try the keyframe reduction, it can do miracles

 

[Vamtucket]

Just try the keyframe reduction, it can do miracles

View attachment 310925View attachment 310926

Thanks this is just what I need to do. If I take an animation that timeline has imported from a mocap, what reduction settings do you recommend?

 

[Saint66]

Thanks this is just what I need to do. If I take an animation that timeline has imported from a mocap, what reduction settings do you recommend?

I mostly leave it on default, depends on the given animation. Sometimes I go higher, sometime as low as 6 frames per second.
You'll have to try, some anims get wonky if going too low, some don't

 

[Vamtucket]

I mostly leave it on default, depends on the given animation. Sometimes I go higher, sometime as low as 6 frames per second.
You'll have to try, some anims get wonky if going too low, some don't

After reducing the keyframes, the message log says that the key frames get reduced 95%, but when I export this animation... the file size stays the same. When I then try to further reduce the key frames... I can but it seems to keep the info from the original animation (like so I could restore back to it). Am I missing a step? Like how to do I clear out the old animation restore to info so I can see a significant memory file size change. thanks for any help

 

[Saint66]

After reducing the keyframes, the message log says that the key frames get reduced 95%, but when I export this animation... the file size stays the same. When I then try to further reduce the key frames... I can but it seems to keep the info from the original animation (like so I could restore back to it). Am I missing a step? Like how to do I clear out the old animation restore to info so I can see a significant memory file size change. thanks for any help

Thats weird. After reducing the keyframes, I just export it (with another name) and filesize is accordingly reduced.
It's just that straight forward to me. I have no idea why it doesn't worrk for you.
Maybe ask for help at Acids discord channel -> https://discord.gg/8EVPaGef