Subject: Re: Error -2 becomes....
From: Ted Stethem <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 09:26:31 -0700

On Wed, 10 Apr 1996, PJ Foley wrote:
> 
> "Lightwav caused an access violation 10H in module Lightwav.exe"
> The program dumps and closes w/o killing the whole system.  This
> happens just before writing the first frame of the AVI.  I've
> tried various compressors but with no improvement.
> LW rC, P5-100, everything else WORKS.
> 
> *whimper*  Please help me. *snif*
> 
> THIS USED TO WORK!!!....what happened? 
> 
  After dealing with this problem for over a week, this is what I have 
found out.
  The first thing you can do is go into your scene file with a text 
editor, find the line towards the bottom that says AnimationType X, where 
X is 3 if you have selected the NT-AVI saver and saved the scene 
previously. Erase the 3 and put a 0 (zero) there and save the scene file. 
Now, when you go back to layout, the NT-AVI saver will not be selected. 
Select it again to load it. Now, when the render begins and the 
compression requestor comes up, choose the Cinepak codec, definitely DO 
NOT pick the Indeo R3.2 codec because this definitely causes that crash.
  If the above does not fix the problem, check your scene directory 
paths. I have found, for some unknown reason, that the NT-AVI saver 
doesn't like things that are not in the default directories, such as 
objects that are not in the C:Newtek/Objects directory. If you can move 
your objects, images, etc. to the default directories, this may fix your 
problem.
  The other thing I have found out is NT-AVI doesn't like the Amiga slash 
'/' in the directory path (when you are on the PC). The best thing to do, 
if you know it is an Amiga scene file, is take it into a text editor, 
find all '/' and replace with '\'.  Also, at the same time, edit the 
directory paths to your current directory.
  These things have fixed the problem you have described in about 80% of 
the scene files where I have experienced the same problem. It is the 
remaining 20% that are driving me bonkers. I can't seem to do anything to 
fix them.  I only started messing with this since rendering straight to 
an .AVI file seemed like a good way to do test animations, and also as a 
means to have a library of animation clips without having to maintain a 
temporary frame directory for single frames, then converting them to an 
animation from there, but now it is looking like it is more trouble 
dealing with whatever this instability problem is in NT-AVI.
  And in NewTek's defense, the Readme doc does say the NT-AVI is a WinNT 
saver, specifically, while HIIP-AVI32 is stated to be the .AVI saver for 
Win3.1 and Win95.