Among animators TARGAs are considered bad news and we avoid them. They are designed for print media (or so the belief goes). I suggest that you either convert them all to JPEG or PNG yourself, or have your animator do that and see how it goes.

Actually I think Vegas does handle TARGAs natively it's TIFF files that it requires QT to translate. My animator was outputting TIFFS and I asked him to change to TGAs.
The TIFFs were a serious problem causing all sorts of crashes but that was on a previous project.

I chose TGAs because i remember SPOT making a particular reference to them in a Vegas training session I attended a couple of years ago. The problem persists right through to the render, blank frames where they are missing or horizontal hash lines where I'm trying to overlay two sets of animation with ALPHA channels.

PNGs would be an option and I need the transparency so JPGs are out. For the present I've created uncompressed AVIs with ALPHA channels using Photoshop.

I'll try a batch convert to PNGs and see if that works but I have a Hi-Definition 30 minute film master on hard disk and the image files are an 8bit 1920x1080 TGA sequence. In fact I rendered it to DVD without any problems using Vegas 7 .... hmmm I wonder why it was OK all 45,251 frames?

thanks
New Hope Media

i've used thousands of TGA's from computer games with no issues.

odds are the picture is corrupt some how. if it's a few stills, i'd go to that specific fame in the animation & see what it renders out one image at a time.

I apologize for the blooper. I was reading and writing Targa when I was thinking TIFF. I'm old, but in the mornings I'm even older.

I'll try the one image idea on the blank frames but I haven't been able to identify any specific corruption in the files.

The overlay of two animations (as TGA sequences) with alpha channels causing corruption of the resultant composite image, this is immediate and repeatable, is a serious worry.

What I don't get is why Photoshop CS3 accepts the sequence and renders video without any problems, or when I reboot into Mac OSX , I run Vegas under boot camp on a Mac Pro, Final Cut Pro will render them correctly.

If I were to hazard a guess I'd say that you really do have some corrupt targa images but these programs aren't getting hung up on them. it happens.

For example, I have a jpeg file that is corrupt somewhere in a web site I maintain. Dreamweaver always throws an error over it but never tells me which jpeg image has a problem. No other application compains so I'll never find the file.

In your case, doing a batch convert from TGA to PNG might also get rid of whatever file corruption exists because the files will get rewritten.

I've always thought Targa files were a Video Toaster format. I didn't know they had something to do with printing. You're forced to learn something new every day!

Rob Mack

We have been doing what you are talking about for years.
VEGAS loves working with movies (either avi's or QT's), but hates image sequences. This is not a problem in the slightest.

Step 1. Buy Quicktime Pro. (cost is neglible)
Step 2. ALWAYS convert your image sequences into a Quicktime(QT) or AVI stream(movies).
- Use the"Open Image Sequence" command in a QT player.
- Export out as a QT movie
- we use Quick Time 'Animation' compression for lossless compression, Depth = Millions of Colours+, Quality = Best.
Check your Dimensions equal the same as the input tiff/targa.
Once you have made your QT movie, if your computer wont 'uncompress' these on the fly as you are playing them in Vegas, use the 'uncompressed" setting when making the movie(you will need fast HD's for this).
Or use any high quality compression setting if your not worried about max quality.
Step 3. Import you QT or AVI into Vegas istead of image sequences.

This may add a few minutes to your workflow initially but makes realtime editing much faster.
BTW - after we have converted image sequences to QT's/AVIs we delete the orig tiff/targe sequence, as we are always able to re-export tiffs/targas out of the resulting avi/QT.

Voila!!

TARGA image sequences work as slick as video in Vegas for me. Never a hitch, and they play at full framerate without prerendering. I almost always use uncompressed .tga though, I'm not sure if that makes much difference.

if there's an issue with the TGA's use uncompressed AVI. same thing.

i have the same problem... i cannot use fades without the footage being destroyed. i'm working in 720x540x23.976 progressive. Vegas 7e.

these answers all say the same thing: Vegas cannot handle TGA sequences and a workaround is required... given this, is there a QUICK way to batch-render large amounts of TGA sequences? i have 350+ tga sequences to edit.

thx

l8r
rob

I've done Targa sequences (alpha & straight) in 6, 7 & 8 without any issues whatsoever.

Mike

ok, bought myself a few minutes time to detail this.


imagine a string of tga-sequences on a timeline and there is a look like parts of your image have been replaced with highly condensed info from other clips on the timeline.

this info somewhat resembles a cross between the way mpegs look when they lose keyframe data and the way delta-offset images would appear if you swapped out a few frames from further down the timeline.


it is possible to see this glitch and yet not have it show up when rendering. BUT if you do a simple dissolve, say from track 1 to track 2, using the standard fade (pull from edge), u can see the glitch and it WILL render. i rendered to uncompressed avi and huffyuv avi. so the glitch is not a graphics display card problem (what i first suspected).

i'm trying to figure out if the glitch is codec-based, because of the delta-offset look it has.

i'm gonna take home some of these files and do a test there... but even i can reproduce the problem will it' be telling me anything significant? ..many of the same programs/codecs are on my home computer.

~

currently, the workaround i'm doing is simple.

1) if the TGA sequence isn't having anything done to it (it's a straight cut) i leave it alone even if it appears to glitch.

2) whenever there is an x-fade i highlight CLIP1, render to uncompressed avi, highlight CLIP2, render to uncompressed avi, replace the TGA sequences with the CLIPs, then perform the x-fade: works fine... i haven't tested whether it's the clip leading IN or OUT of the x-fade (or both) thats critical.

it's a bit time-consuming but should get me thru the week... will post more if i come across anything... may try to snapshot some samples; the look of the glitch is very distinct.

COMPUTER
Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz | 2.80GHz
2 Gig RAM
WinXP Pro SP 2

l8r
rob

ps ~ the TGA sequences i'm working with are 24bit... no alpha.

We use Vegas every day to add sfx to game animations.
These always come in as still sequences.
We used to use tga files a few years back but these days use pngs with alpha....these run much smoother in Vegas than the tgas did.
However….
Red squares are usually a sign that Vegas is struggling with the stills, and I will get them appearing on the timeline, if there is too much info for it to process in one hit. (On game/tradeshow trailers I can have many still sequences on several timelines)
So….
I break it into small chunks and render these out as uncompressed avis….from the bottom up.
I then bring the result back in and add a few more lines of still sequences on top.
Repeat and rinse as necessary.

Vegas will also struggle if the stills are too large (I use a batch command in Photoshop to resize to my project's scale), or if the sequence is a long one… if this is the case, ask yourself if it is possible to break the composite up into shorter sequences.

For us, pngs just work best with Vegas, (and Combustion FWIW).