By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.200.250) on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 07:41 pm:

I am experiencing consistent crashing when attempting to use .JPG images in Lightwave...but only on my iBook. My desktop does not have this problem. I have verified this problem in both 10.1.x and 10.2.x versions of the Mac OS. Now I need help in other systems. I don't know if it's a G3 issue (the iBook has G3 processor), a low VRAM issue (the iBook has 8MB onboard), or what. If you can take two minutes to test this, let me know if the error occurs for you at mlinde@earthlink.net.

1) Launch Layout or Modeler
2) Open Image Editor
3) Load any JPG image

if the image loads, you are done. if it doesn't please send me your system specs -- HW, OS, RAM, VRAM.

Thanks

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 08:04 pm:

I assume you're using LW7.5? I don't use JPEGs in Lightwave very often, but I just tried it then and loaded one as a backdrop and it rendered fine. No problems.

Don't forget that using JPEGs in Lightwave uses the same amount of RAM as uncompressed image formats, so there's no real advantage with JPEG except that it saves some space on your hard drive.

Maybe you should check that all the standard Lightwave image loading plug-ins are there in the right place. I don't know what else might cause your problem.

By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.200.250) on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 08:13 pm:

Sorry, wasn't specific earlier. I'm running LW 7.5. I've deleted and reinstalled lightwave, completely reformatted my HD and reinstalled OS X (first 10.1.x then up to 10.2.x), tested under both versions with the same test, all the same result -- it crashes Lightwave.

Again, this works fine on my desktop Mac, installed from the same CD, with the same files. It can't be a RAM issue as my iBook has 640MB, and I'm not loading an image larger than 2MB (uncompressed). All I'm asking is that anyone who reads this post test it on their system. If it works fine, move on. If it doesn't, tell me about your system, so I can work to isolate the issue.

Also, I'm not a rookie here. I've been a Mac OS systems support/IT guy for a decade, and using Lightwave since 5.0, when it first came out for the Mac.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 12:16 am:

JPEG.p is the name of the plug-in file, which encapsulates 2 plug-ins: LW_JPEG and LW_JPEG loader.

If I remember long ago there was a time when we could only load TIFF files into Lightwave, but that was fixed in LW7.5.

The only reason I wondered if it was the plug-in is because you seem to have no trouble with other image formats. I also assume you have the same trouble when loading smaller sized JPEG images? Did you try trashing the LW prefs?

I didn't assume you are a beginner. I just don't have a more sophisticated solution.

By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.206.41) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 07:48 am:

Sorry, bit punchy after yesterday's fiasco. It's not the plug-in, because I have copied the working plug-in from my desktop Mac to the iBook, and still got the same problems. Here's a list of what I tried, and why I'm looking for additional system tests from others:

1) Trash LW Prefs, rebuild
2) Trash LW Application folders & prefs, reinstall, rebuild
3) Copy working plug-ins from other computer where problem doesn't occur
4) Copy entire working LW from other computer where problem doesn't occur
5) Wipe and reinstall lesser version of Mac OS X (10.1.x) to guarantee not a "Quartz Extreme" problem -- didn't work
6) Rebuild entire iBook from scratch.

All of this came about because the demo scenes for G2 use jpeg images. The scenes (16 of them) open fine on my desktop G4, but when I went to my laptop they all crashed (as soon as the scene requested a jpeg image file). I spent the better part of 2 hours reducing the problem to the jpeg images before the list of tests above began to isolate the problem to Lightwave on the iBook.

At this point, I can only say the problem exists on the iBook, but not the G4 tower. Because that's the limit of my Mac access, I am looking for other Mac users to try this on their systems to see if it is systemic with iBooks (or low Video memory systems), or G3 processors, or something that is inherently different between the Desktop G4 and other Mac systems. I have had friends test it on other models of G4 desktops without the crash.

By Mark Nutter (Manutter51) (24.154.236.209) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 07:59 am:

I have LW 7.5 on a blue-n-white PowerMac G3, and jpg's crash it every time. OS X 10.1.5, QuickTime 5.0.2 Pro (paid for) version.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 02:18 pm:

Hmmm. Both G3 processors. I still can't figure out how that could affect it, though. Older versions of Quicktime, maybe? I assume that LW uses QT to write the JPEG file.

By Russ Tingley (Rtingley) (67.119.29.26) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 03:14 pm:

updating to OS X - 10.2.3 may help... solved a few minor problems on my end.

By Russ Tingley (Rtingley) (67.119.29.26) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 03:17 pm:

ooops... overlooked your statement saying you already tried 10.2.x

please ignore my previous message

By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.199.149) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 04:11 pm:

Mark Nutter -- what video card is in your system?

By Kuzey Atici (Kuzey) (211.28.96.44) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 06:20 pm:

Try adding the "e" to .jpg...it has worked for me.

Kuzey

By Michael Fessenden (Mfessenden) (66.167.174.24) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 06:57 pm:

Are the JPEGs CMYK?

I have trouble loading CMYKs on Windows Lightwave and on a dual G4/10.2.3 It hasn't crashed crashed either app, but might be a possible problem on your system.

By Russ Tingley (Rtingley) (67.119.29.26) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 07:51 pm:

.jpg files should be rgb only! If not, you'll expreience loads of problems... as you're already aware.

...also, check in your preferences (both layout and modeler) the display texture resolution... if it is maxed out you may experience problems (I did) - when I backed it off to 512x512 I no longer had funky texture issues.

... not sure if this helps your situation, but you may want to check.

By Russ Tingley (Rtingley) (67.119.29.26) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 08:06 pm:

... In clarification of my last statement:

.jpg files should be RGB especially when used for video and web. You'll also get problems when crossing platforms with the file if saved as a CMYK file.

a .jpg file can be CMYK when used for 4-color printing - i.e.: printing from Photoshop. (Though personally I would avoid any problems in this regard by keeping it RGB or changing the file type to .tif or something like that if I need to print.)

By Arnie Cachelin (Arnie) (65.184.20.249) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 10:27 am:

Try removing the QTImageLoader plugin (in qttools.p). That has always been a problem chile among plugins. If that doesn't help, try removing jpeg.p, and see if QT will handle it.

By Kuzey Atici (Kuzey) (211.28.96.42) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 05:38 pm:

Good catch Arnie

It's the jpeg.plugin that's causing the problem!!

Kuzey

By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.199.65) on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 11:51 am:

Wow.

That's an amazing and interesting solution, Arnie. If you don't mind I'm distributing it around, as it has also solved my problems with jpegs. Thanks!

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 08:13 pm:

It's interesting that the problem affects some users but not others. I wonder why the JPEG plug-in exists, anyway. Why not always let Quicktime handle JPEG creation?

By Michael Linde (Mlinde) (4.64.205.42) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 10:56 am:

I don't think it's user related but hardware related. I never was able to completely narrow it down, but it may have been a combination of ATI cards and <=16 MB VRAM. As for the JPEG.p, only Newtek can tell. It may have been a lack of realization on their part when porting to OS X from the general codebase that they have conflicting plug-ins, or it may have been an attempt to work around instabilities in QT-LW communication.