Inconsistant Clip Behavior

[projectneptune]

Hi There,

I am experiencing an odd bug.

I have a clip which behaves inconsistently when triggered. It is one of several clips in a larger project, which are being triggered by key mapping. All of the other key mapped clips are operating normally when triggered. The problem clip, plays normally when triggered in some decks and just goes to black in others, even though it is just copy/pasted. The sound on this problem clip always plays normally. The layer settings for this clip are identical in each deck. The same inconsistency is present even when clip is fired manually with a mouse. The clip is compressed with DXV and has an alpha channel, as do all other clips currently being triggered this way. I have remade the clip several times, replaced it throughout each deck, and the same issue persists.

I am running the most up to date version of Arena 4, on a 2014 MacPro 6 Core, 32GB of RAM, Mavericks.

Any thoughts on this would be very welcomed!

THANKS!

[Joris]

We'd love to look at this more closely. Perhaps you could record your screen while this is happening?

[projectneptune]

Hey Joris,

Thanks so much for your prompt response.

This show is currently on tour, and won't be set up again for about 2 more days. I will get you some screen recordings asap!

Best,
Max

[projectneptune]

Hi Joris,

Here is a screen capture of the clip working properly in one deck, and improperly in another. https://vimeo.com/143833207

You can see that in the second deck, the video content beneath the clip labeled "rain storm 2" goes black when the rain is triggered.

For some further context, the "rain storm 2" clip is being triggered on top of a live camera source, which is being chroma keyed. The rain storm clip also has an alpha channel. I am wondering if it is some kind of an alpha channel conflict, but not sure, because the clip works fine in the first deck, which is operating under the same circumstances.

Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks so much for taking a look at this.

Best,
Max

[Zoltán]

could you double check that the alpha channel of the problem clip is enabled?

If you don't need the ADD at 100% blend on other clips in that problem layer, try setting the blend to default 50%.
Setting the ADD blend to 100% "overwrites" all playing layers with the actual clip - except where the clip is transparent.

edit: you seem to have the same key mapped to layer 10 clip 2 clip that you are using to trigger the rain,
so what's above layer 10, maybe you trigger something else too?

[Oaktown]

edit: you seem to have the same key mapped to layer 10 clip 2 clip that you are using to trigger the rain,
so what's above layer 10, maybe you trigger something else too?

Looking at the video, it doesn't look like any clips are loaded between layer 5 and layer 9.

As Ravensc mentioned, if your alpha channel is a problem, setting the blend to ADD at 50% should behave as if there was an alpha channel.

Now if that doesn't work, try using the auto-mask effect on the problem clip to simulate an alpha channel to see if that's the problem of if you have another issue.

[projectneptune]

Thank you all for the suggestions. All good thoughts.

What is puzzling is that the non-functioning clip is in a layer with other clips that are functioning properly with the current blend mode settings. Additionally, the clip works as intended in other decks with current blend mode settings.

Any other ideas?
mx

[Joris]

Can you contact us to set up a Teamviewer session? I'm pretty sure this is something easily fixed if we can take a look around in your comp.

[projectneptune]

Hey Joris,

Sorry for the delay. Just loaded our show in to our venue in NYC.

I was able to patch up the issue with the inconsistent clip. It seems that even though the clip was being copied between decks, the opacity settings would change in the pasted clips in some of the decks. It still seems a little buggy, but for now has been working well enough with opacity set lower. I am guessing the issue has to do with having too many layers containing alpha channels in certain columns. Is there a limit that you are aware of for alpha channels?

Not sure if we will have time to set up a meeting this week, as our performance schedule is fairly tight. I do however have some other questions about additional inconsistent behavior, that I would love to review with your team if possible. Would it be possible to schedule something in the near future, when this leg of the tour is over?

Thanks for all of your support!
mx

[DHoude]

I think I am seeing a similar issue with Arena 5. Like you, it seems that when I trigger a clip with the mouse all works fine. When I use a mapped key, many times I see the timeline Start and Stop marks for a clip snap together. So the clip stops playing. Sometimes it leave me with a still image on screen.

Snapped together Start and Stop markers

More randomly I have also seen my Clip Scale jump to over 300%. As well as Position X and Postion Y move to a value over 10k each, moving the clip off the screen. My theory on this seems to be when the first error happens, then the Scale and/or Position values are sometimes changed for the next clips in that layer.

It is worth noting that only 4 clips in that layer seem to be consistently acting up. The other 22 in that layer have not had any issue. It seems to be tied to that clip and slot. So I think there is a bug here. The clips were originally DXV 2.2, so I re encoded to DXV 3. That did not fix it either