Hi Jim,

Camera Mover has no Focus input pin other than the sequencer and you can not capture focus by the mouse in the preview window.
The only way to change the Focus Distance output pin of the Camera Mover is by the Seq Focus Distance input pin. So there is nothing in the Focus Distance of the Camera Mover to be recorded, but you can use the sequencer to change the Focus Distance.

It is the same in 2021.3.1 and most likely it is also the same in earlier versions.

Are you trying to change and capture the Focus Distance other than using the sequencer? Or, do you just want keys to appear there even if they will not capture a changed value?

Warmest regards,

In the past we used the seq focus distance pin from the free camera and put that as track into the sequencer, the sequencer then would capture the focus distance and key it based on the mouse change of focus distance in 3D view.

Using the new pins that are now exposed from the compound and then get connected to camera mover, it doesn’t.

It seems a bit confusing if the other sequence pins can be recorded but Seq focus distance 1 cannot be recorded. As they look all the same in the setup.

why is focus distance then labeled with Seq for sequencer?

Hi Jim,

My bad, you can actually change focus with the mouse (which I did not notice previously), and with that, you can change the Camera Mover.

We will look into fixing this.

Which version did you use in the past?

Warmest regards,

The latest release from Friday had the issue where you changed the compound. Before that release we used the pins directly from free camera which are keyable,

so it might be an issue with this new compound setup. In the last release you exposed these Seq pins - they all can be keyed except for focus distance. 

Hi Jim,

So it is not working in the newest version (2021.3.2).
Which version did capturing the Focus Distance work before?

Warmest regards,

The version just before. We can also capture focus distance in the latest version but only if we go into the compound and hook up the focus distance directly from Free camera. It’s not working with the new Seq focus distance pin you added in this release though. 

If we hook up, the focus distance directly from free camera to the sequencer, we get another issue though where the video recorder starts new clips on each frame when using timecode (see my other ticket). I know this was supposed to be fixed in this release, but it brakes when you hook up the pins directly from the free camera to the sequencer. Then video recorders using Timecode mess up the frames.

Hi Jim,

The recorder mess up the frames even if you use Realtime Frame Rate in the Video Recorder:

If so, can you post a screenshot where the video recorder module is connected in the Flow?

Warmest regards,

Yes, same issue with Frame Rate set to Realtime. Now we also get this error:

[VideoFrameRecorderThread] Creating video file "TEST_CAM_B_POS1_FINAL_0003.mov"
[Arr] TEST_CAM_B_POS1_FINAL_0003.mov: Incoming timecode is not valid, output will be unusable.
[VideoFrameRecorderThread] Finishing video file "TEST_CAM_B_POS1_FINAL_0003.mov"

The problem with video finishing after 1 frame arises when one connects the pins from free camera to the sequencer

Hi Jim,

Well just connecting a Sequencer to the Free Camera in a Virtual camera will not affect the Master TC.
If you were referring to this Camera Mover, like here:

You might have the sequencer connected to a video sequencer module that has Timecode Master turned on?
You should find out where the Timecode master turned on in video players, video inputs, and video sequences in your setup, and leave the ones on you want to use.

Also, you can connect timecode directly to your video recorder, which might be even a better solution for you:

Warmest regards,

No I am telling you there is a bug in the latest release that when you connect a pin from the free camera to the sequencer, the timecode / frames get messed up. Yes we use one input clip as master time code for that sequencer. It’s supposed to render based on that clips timecode but as soon as we connect one of those free camera pins it stops working and we get a video clip after one frame or for each frame. Regardless of what the timecode rendering a MOV for each single frame is incorrect behavior.

If we disconnect the pins from free camera, it works.

we don’t think this is correct behavior.

@eiffert for the Timecode example you had, is there a way to feed timecode into an audio sequence and/or video sequence node? We need to align some other audio and video clips to the master timecode. Thanks so much for your help.

Hi Jim,

Both Sequenced Audio And Sequenced Video have Manual Time input pin for timecodes:

About the "free camera", it is the Camera Mover module called FREE CAMERA inside a Virtual Camera?
Also, does connecting a new empty sequencer produce the same effect?

You can ctrl select both sequencer and free camera and copy both at the same time, this way you will also copy the sequenced timeline. If you have the camera in the compound and sequencer outside, you can unlink the compound and then ungroup the compound. This way you can save your sequenced sequencer and copy it to the new seq cam, seq zoom, and sew focus distance pins of Virtual Camera. This might fit your needs better, also it will make it easier to update your compounds. As each time Aximmetry updates Camera Compounds, you may lose functionality.

Also if you do edit Camera compounds, don't do it in Aximmetry's Common libraries as it will be overwritten by updates, make a copy of them first.

Warmest regards,

@Eifert

> About the "free camera", it is the Camera Mover module called FREE CAMERA inside a Virtual Camera?
It happens when connecting those white pins from FREE CAMERA to sequencer. May also happen with some other pins, haven't tested.

Also, does connecting a new empty sequencer produce the same effect?

See the connections here. Both Sequence Video and Sequence Audio link up to the same sequencer.

Hi Jim,

Timecode is a very different format than Manual time, you will have to do some calculations on it before connecting it to the manual time.
If you have a sequencer connected to sequence audio or video then it will override Manual time.
Sequence Video has a Position output pin, you should connect that to Sequence Audio's Manual Time input if you want them to be in sync.

If recording still does not work with the sequencer connected to the Free Camera, then you can try replacing it with another Free Camera and switch between their outputs when needed.

Note that Virtual Compound's Free Camera is not designed to be used like that. The CAMERAS billboard's Edit Camera Path is designed for similar use and Virtual Cameras have now the seq cam, seq zoom, and sew focus distance input pins, which are probably better suited for your setup.

Warmest regards,

If you have a sequencer connected to sequence audio or video then it will override Manual time.

the sequencer is connected to the other clip as master TC as well.

we need to be able to get audio sequence and video sequence nodes to utilize a certain timecode. Can that be fixed? This needs to work also when the audio or video sequence is connected to a sequencer. 

Note that Virtual Compound's Free Camera is not designed to be used like that. 

Ok but it used to work in some past versions of Aximmetry. It seems like a bug that connecting some pins upsets the frame count of recorded video sequence. Not sure what other pins would also cause it. Maybe something that can be fixed? Seems like there is some kind of underlying problem?

the Seq camera does not allow capturing a key frame of the focus distance. Is that getting fixed?

Hi Jim,

I don't really understand why you must connect video and audio to the sequencer and how these utilize the timecode. However, you can still just duplicate the Sequence video and audio and switch between the ones connected to manual time or the sequencer, and use the output based on what you need.

Yes, focus distance not getting recorded in the sequencer and it will be fixed in a future release.

However we could not reproduce your Free Camera issue (by connecting a sequencer to it), so it is very hard to tell where is the problem with that. You should try connecting it out from the compound or duplicating the free camera as I said before and making sure nothing else is connected to those sequencer pins. That might reveal more about the issue.

Warmest regards,

“ However we could not reproduce your Free Camera issue (by connecting a sequencer to it”

It is very easy to reproduce. 

1) Put a sequencer in, connect the pins from free camera by exposing them from the billboard compound to the sequencer. 

2) Connect a video clip as master timecode to sequencer.  And trigger clip resizing to match the clip length in sequencer.

3) Connect a video recorder with use timecode.

Then when you trigger a rendering, the recorded video clip will get finished after one frame instead of obtaining a sequence for the whole video sequence. Sometimes one gets multiple videos (one per frame). Sometimes just one video clip for the first frame. We think this isn’t the right behavior.

“ I don't really understand why you must connect video and audio to the sequencer and how these utilize the timecode.”

Its quite simple we are recording a rendered clip. We have video source file with timecode and we have a separate audio clip from an audio recorder with timecode.

the resulting rendered video needs to have the same timecode as the original video but have the correct audio from the audio clip. The audio clip overlaps with the video clip, but has different start and end timecode (as the audio recording was done with an external audio recorder).

very standard production setup.

We want to play back and record the audio from the audio clip that matches the timecode of the master clip. How can we do that?

Feeding the timecode into manual time of the audio clip does not accomplish this - the audio always starts at the same position the original start of the audio sequence (wrong position). 

The recorder nodes do have a timecode in, but audio sequence and video sequence do not list a timecode input pin and there is no user master timecode switch either. Can that be added? So an audio sequence or video sequence can be driven by the master timecode or by a certain timecode input.

Hi Jim,

I could only recreate your Free Camera sequencer issue (the video recorder stopping with "Incoming timecode is not valid, output will be unusable") when the connected sequenced video was not playing. That could be possible if: the sequencer was stopped, or in the sequenced editor the sequenced video's track did not yet start, or it ended like here:

Both Video Sequence and Video Player have Master Timecode switches. Both Video Sequence and Video Player have timecode input pins, however, Video Player has it named as Ref Timecode.

Audio players can not be played by their own timecode in Aximmetry. I see in another forum post that you used BWAV, can you tell what device recorded it?
Alternatively, you could put this audio in EDL video editing software and save it out with a video while keeping the time code or record it with a video in the first place if it is possible. After that, you can play it down in Aximmetry using Video Sequence.

Manual time can not be connected with the Timecode without some heavy parsing of the Manual time to fit the Timecode's format.

Warmest regards,

“ I could only recreate your Free Camera sequencer issue (the video recorder stopping with "Incoming timecode is not valid, output will be unusable")”

Could you check with Zoltan? He had confirmed the issue prior to the last release and he was going to fix this issue in this release but it still occurs. It is mentioned it was fixed in the release notes. Maybe only a certain case got fixed? There is no error message when this happens, it just finishes the video upon the first frame… the video is correctly played back for the first frame though.

“Audio players can not be played by their own timecode in Aximmetry. I see in another forum post that you used BWAV, can you tell what device recorded it?”

Any professional audio recorder with timecode. There is many Audio recorders (Zoom is a common brand, sound devices is another, etc. We were using a Tentacle Track E). BWAV is just a standard WAV file, but with some metadata. It just means there is timecode in the WAV metadata section. See here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_Wave_Format

Do you need a sample? It’s the standard on any set to record audio with timecode into a separate audio recorder.

Could you add a timecode ref input to the audio clip? That would greatly help as that would eliminate manual conversion steps in other software to use the audio files from recorders so they are lined up with the video.

Are you saying for video sequence we can already input timecode to align it with another video clip?
I do not see REF Timecode under the video sequence node though. Which pin should we use to feed the timecode in video sequence? Video player would not work, as we need to drive the video sequence from the sequencer (we just want to utilize the timecode of the master video sequence to line up the other video sequence for each frame in the sequence. Both video clips are hooked up to the same sequencer).

Hi Jim,

I am sorry, it's actually the video player that has Ref Timecode input pin. And video sequence has no such input pin.

If my understanding of your situation is correct, you could connect your "master video sequence" timecode output pin, to the Ref Timecode input pin of a video player with your secondary video, so it would be run by the master video's timecode. Otherwise, I don't really understand why both videos have to be connected to the sequencer.
Also, you can connect timecode directly into a video recorder module, and then you don't need to use Master TC.
(And when using Ref Timecode, you need to turn on Timecode Sync in the video player)

We do not need a sample of BWAV. I was asking, so I could have a better idea of your setup. Which can help in the future in implementing timecode for audio.

About the Free Camera sequencer issue, you can send to support@aximmetry.com the xcomp that has the sequencer and the recorder with the timecoded video included (or part of it), so we could look into it thoroughly. I tried to recreate your setup and it always managed to play the video. You could try using different videos or sequencers, just to see which part causes the issue.

Warmest regards,

Otherwise, I don't really understand why both videos have to be connected to the sequencer.

We are rendering out the clip and editing in sequencer so we need the video and audio clips connected to sequencer but we need to use the master timecode so the clips line up. One of the video clips connected to sequencer is the master that drives the timecode, but then there is usually an audio clip and possibly other video clips from other cameras that should also utilize the master timecode.

any solution to utilize the master timecode or timecode input for audio and video sequences?

 Which can help in the future in implementing timecode for audio.

that would help a lot! It is hopefully pretty simply given it’s just a WAV metadata.

I tried to recreate your setup and it always managed to play the video. 

Just to clarify: the issue isn’t about playing the video, but when you render out the sequence with the connected video recorder. The recorder records one frame and then finishes the video file. You can try eg a 444 MOV or something similar.

Hi Jim,

We managed to recreate your issue with the Video Sequence Master TC and Video Recorder.
It seems in some cases Video Sequences in compounds made by previous versions of Aximmetry (2021.3.1 or less) were not updated.
To fix it, you will have to add a new Sequence Video with the same settings as the old Sequence Video that is used as Master TC and connect it to the sequencer. Once connected to the sequencer, you can copy all the keyframes from the old Sequence Video at once with mouse drag-select to the new sequence video. After that, you just need to delete the old Sequence video, and then the recording should work. (if it still does not work, you may have to do the same with all the Sequence Videos that are connected to Sequencers.)

You can utilize Video Player's Ref Timecode while being edited by the Sequencer like this:

Warmest regards,