SynthEyes™ Support

SynthEyes support is offered electronically via email at support<at>ssontech.com. There is also a SynthEyes forum for user-user discussion. Specific questions should be emailed to support for the fastest and most comprehensive response; this also allows us to exchange scene files.

Note that new scripts, updates, etc are accessible through the password-protected customer-only site; customers receive access information along with the SynthEyes activation data.

Customers: your support access information arrived with your permanent authorization data. This is an email with a subject line of "SynthEyes Registration (SAVE THIS MAIL)"

Top Installation Issues:

  • MAC OS X: if you install but do not have any exporters, can not access the help files, or you can not change any preferences without a crash, have your IT staff check the permissions of these folders and the files in them to make sure they can be read by all users: /Library/Application Support/SynthEyes and ~/Library/Application Support/SynthEyes .
  • Vista. If you get the message "You need Administrator permissions to authorize." Go to the folder \Program Files\Andersson Technologies LLC\SynthEyes. Right-click the file SynthEyes(.exe) or SynthEyes64(.exe) within it, and select "Run as Administrator." Click Allow on the UAC box, then complete the authorization process.
  • Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard requires SynthEyes 2008 or SynthEyes 2007.5.1017 or later.
  • If the installer runs fine on Windows, but SynthEyes itself will not start after installation, then your processor is not SSE2 compatible as required, you'll need to install on a newer machine.
  • If the Windows installer refuses to run, saying it is missing a DLL, then download the current version of Microsoft's Windows Installer here.

Removing a Mac Version

Follow these directions if you need to remove an existing Mac installation really completely, for example, if you installed a PowerPC-only version on an Intel Mac. Remove the following:

  • /Applications/SynthEyes.app
  • /Library/Application Support/SynthEyes
  • /Library/Receipts/syn07eyes.pkg   — exact file name will vary based on product installed. This item is a "secret" record of what has been installed, and can sometimes cause trouble.
  • /Users/(your id)/Library/Application Support/SynthEyes   (preferences)

Registration and Authorization Questions: Be sure to see the registration and authorization movie tutorials.

For email support, you can help us help you by following the directions below as best you can, supplying requested additional information to avoid delays to request additional information.

You should always include: name, organization, operating system, current SynthEyes version number (from Help/About). Send a screen capture, if permissible, of SynthEyes and/or your 3-D application. Be sure to describe *exactly* what you have done and *exactly* what you are seeing.

If what you see doesn't exactly match the manual, either tracker positions or some of the user interface controls:

  • Small variations in compression formats can cause different trackers to be selected; this doesn't generally  matter. When setting up the coordinate system, select a nearby tracker at the same vertical height.
  • The user interface controls do get enhanced frequently, and small differences rarely affect understandability enough to justify a  time-consuming updating process.

If you are having trouble getting a correct solution to a shot and want to send it to us to look at:

  • We generally do not need to see the source imagery. It's usually too big anyway.
  • If the source imagery is to be sent, a sequence of JPEGs is probably wise; don't use DIVX, DVCPRO HD, or anything else that isn't very very standard.
  • Hit Clear All Blips on the Feature Panel to greatly reduce the size of the .sni file.
  • Compress the .sni file using Winzip or XP/Vista/OSX's builtin ZIP capabilities. (not WinRar or anything else). We will not look at RAR files, sorry.
  • Make sure image and movie files have extensions (.mov,.jpg, etc)
  • Never ftp, post, or email image sequences as individual files, always package them into a single ZIP file. 
  • If the compressed file is larger than 1.5 MB, please post it on a web page, and send a URL instead. Contact us if you need somewhere to post it.

If you are having trouble reading source imagery such as a movie or a particular image file:

  • Tell us what program created the file, including what options such as a codec setting.
  • If at all possible, send a sample frame. If necessary, an all-orange(!) frame written the same way.
  • Verify that you can read the image on your machine too. If all the files in the sequence are 1.5-2.0 MB, except for number 37, which is 1.3 MB, and it doesn't read.... 

If you are having trouble making a Quicktime preview movie:

  • You must select a codec and compression options, Quicktime does not have a default.
  • Be sure to select the correct frame rate in Quicktime to match your shot.
  • Different codecs have different quirks and may need different settings
  • The H.264 codec requires that the "Key frame every N frames" checkbox be OFF, and probably you should either turn off the "Limit data rate to..." checkbox, or select a rate much higher than the default 90 Kb/sec.

If you have trouble exporting:

  • By default, the 3dsmax exporter exports to the current 3dsmax version. The 3dsmax script has a control(2006 or later) or configuration variable(2004) at its beginning to enable exports to max 5. 
  • The Maya script has a first-frame setting that may need adjusting depending on your setup, if you notice small velocity-dependent shifts.
  • If you have trouble with the Electric Image camera export, you probably need to switch to an Implicit camera type.
  • Use notepad to open the Sizzle script for your export type. Check for configuration values, limitations, requirements, comments etc. at the top of the script.
  • Check with support at ssontech.com for revised scripts; they are improved frequently.
  • If you need to report a problem, send sni file, the exported output, and a screen capture of the importing application: either any error messages, or the appearance of the imported scene.

If you have encountered a crash or strange error message:

  • If you encounter a crash processing a long shot, you can make the most room available by setting the Queue length down to 4 when opening the shot, or using Shot/Edit Shot. "Long" means that Image width*length*3*length_of_shot is within 150 MB of the amount of memory in your machine, or over 1.75 GB, whichever comes first. (Hence the move to Win64.)
  • Write down the message, exactly, immediately. Take a screen capture of the entire user interface if possible.
  • Write down exactly what sequence of operations you performed immediately before the crash or message. Especially helpful if you can list a sequence of operations starting from a File/New that result in a crash (or perhaps, from opening a file that you can send).
  • Locate the saved crash file (see the manual) and forward it to support.

Solving Issues

  • If you have SynthEyes scenes with multiple cameras linked to one another (Indirectly solving mode), you should keep the constrain button turned on to maintain proper common alignment.
  • If you encounter the message "Can't find suitable initial frames", this indicates limited perspective in the shot (or some bad trackers). Turn on the checkboxes next to Begin and End frames on the Solver panel, and select two frames with many trackers in common, where the camera or object  rotates around 30 degrees between the two frames. Also a good idea to turn on the "Slow but sure" checkbox.
  • You are solving for both a moving object and moving camera, and encounter "size constraint hasn't been set up". When you are tracking both a moving camera and a moving object, you need to have a size constraint for the camera (one way or another), and a size constraint for the object (one way or another). So you need TWO size constraints. It isn't immediately obvious to many people why TWO size constraints are needed. This is the basis of a well-known optical illusion, relied on in shooting movies such as "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". Basically you can't tell the difference between little things up close, and a big things farther away. You need the two size constraints to set the relative proportions of the foreground (object) and background (camera).
  • Solving or after export, the match looks good, but the focal length reported is wrong. Why? The focal length is not really a good number to worry about, because it depends on the back plate width also, which is the width of the film or camera sensor chip. And basically the focal lengths never come out to exactly what the lens says it is, because the lens is never exactly right, and the film or sensor isn't exactly what it says it is either (sort of like trying to find the 25" in a 25" tube TV set---very challenging). SynthEyes and most animation packages use a field of view number, or something like it, to keep track of the camera lens. To get a more realistic focal length, you need to adjust the back plate width in SynthEyes (for your scene, and maybe in the preferences too), and in your animation/compositing program, if you have already exported.

Send support questions to: support<at>ssontech.com

The forum is mainly to chat with other customers; for faster and better technical and sales support, use email.