I'm working on my first project which is a 15 minute video. I've been saving the progress as I go but today I opened my project and all of my audio files and animations are gone. It starts with one idle animation and the custom character I created from photos.

Obviously I cannot use the software if I spend that many hours just to lose everything and have to start over. I only have one project right now and it saves as a .ctiProject. The file size is 545 MB right now, so maybe everything is there and just fine but is not loading into the Timeline. Any idea of what the problem may be? 

Hi Dan...

Sorry to hear you are having problems with your Crazytalk project. The issue is likely the size of the project.

Although CT8 allows projects up to 15 minutes long, it is generally advised to keep projects sizes smaller to avoid putting too much strain on your system resources. This is especially important on less powerful systems. Very large projects can become corrupt if your system resources are exceeded and stability issues occur.

Generally you will find it much easier to manage if you create say three 5 minute projects and then edit them all together after rendering to video. It is also strongly advised to save your project frequently as you work on it, but always to a new file. Do not overwrite. That way you will always have a working version of the project to drop back to.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Hi Peter,
So you think the file is corrupt? Last night I rendered a video just to see if it would do it ok. It created a 15 minute video with no problems. But just because it rendered one video, it wouldn't just drop everything out of the Timeline after that would it?

I did save often but unfortunately only into one file. So it sounds like every time I make a change I need to save to a new file. I put a lot of hours into that project too, all gone. It seems like the software needs to be more stable, huge waste of my time on that one.

Looks like there is good news after all. I kept my file open for the last 2 hours, and when I looked a few minutes ago, the Timeline is populated and everything works fine. So the good news is the file is not corrupt, just took a long time to load the file. But I will definitely take your advice and save a copy of the file, often! Thanks for the help. 

It appears we cross posted. Thanks for letting us know you have been able to save the project. That is great news. 


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Yes, but I will also look at working in smaller project sizes moving forward. Maybe 3 minutes at a time, then Premier Pro CC.