Ready to Give Up On Animations, ArcGIS Pro 3.1.3 Local Scene will Not honor Visibility Settings

[JCann]

Running ArcGIS Pro 3.1.3 on a computer with an i7 hex core, Nvidia Quadro P2000, 32 GB of RAM, with all data stored in a mobile geodatabase on a Samsung 970 except for the World Imagery. The map has been clipped to a polygon to improve loading time. The network connection is 950 MBs.

I am trying to build very simple 3 keyframe animation that zoom into a polygon, a.k.a a Google Earth-style animation that I had hoped would be reproducible for editing purposes. Length is flexible, I have tested 15-30 seconds. I had hoped to use the visibility settings to have the polygons appear at different levels of zoom as the animation zooms in, which does not appear to be possible.

In the first screenshot, the highlighted polygon has the "Out Beyond" visibility set at 5.5 million feet, the animation was paused at 2, 582,910 ft, and the polygon is not visible. The only way to make it visible is to go to the "Out Beyond" box and re-enter the visibility setting.

In this screenshot, it is the opposite issue of the first screenshot. The highlighted polygon is set to an "Out Beyond" visibility of 750, 000 ft but is showing up in the animation at over 1.5 million ft.

This is also not a consistent issue, sometimes it works as expected with all visibility settings being honored. I have experienced this with multiple polygons, tested in three different projects, and made multiple local and global scenes.

I am also seeing an issue where the visibility settings are honored in an export as a draft, but the visibility settings are non-existent in an export as 1080p, with all polygons being visible from the beginning to the end.

Do I not understand how visibility settings interact with an animation? I have not found an in-depth discussion on how visibility interacts with an animation. 

Is there a better way to do this or any way to do this in ArcGIS Pro?  I need to make multiple animations, one of which will be a fly along a project area with community points appearing as it moves along the area.

[NathanShephard]

Hi JCann!

Sorry you're having trouble with this workflow.

First, some practical information. If you need to get the job done "right now", and you don't have too many areas to show, you could use layer visibility (which is captured in keyframes) to manually decide when the various polygons are shown within the animation. 

Steps:

• Clear the visibility range for the polygon layer - ie: so it's visible at all distances
• Set a definition query for the layer to see the first feature (eg: Name = "Area-1")
• Copy-paste the layer
• Update the definition query to see the next polygon (eg: Name = "Area-2")
• Repeat the above two steps until you have a layer for each area
• Turn all layers off
• Start authoring the animation and manually turn layers on/off as you capture each keyframe

It's not ideal, but it would give you full control. 

Next, we would really like to figure out what you are seeing so we can fix it. If possible, could you give us a little more info on what you're seeing, for example:

1. Does the feature distance-visibility (sometimes) fail in general usage?
2. Or do you only see it when it is captured in the exported video file?
3. Or do you see it mostly when zooming to a keyframe within the animation (ie: when authoring)?

If you were able to share you map package for us to test directly, that would be GREAT!

Thanks for contacting us!

-Nathan.

Esri Dev team

[JCann]

I am/have tried visibility settings in animation properties, and setting keyframes with layers turned off/on, and it sort of works. I still have enough time on this project to not have to resort to that, and at that point, it is like trying to build these with Google Earth.

I have not seen this issue with a regular map. I have tried to start with a regular map, set everything up, check that the visibility settings are functioning properly, and then convert it to a local or global scene, at which point the visibility settings are intermittently not working.

I am seeing the issue intermittently in local and global scenes and exported a dozen different attempts yesterday that the visibility settings were not honored at all at 1080p and intermittently honored in draft exports.

Since posting this I have attempted to export three drafts, all of which go black, with absolutely no image at all, approximately halfway through, and then back to the map. This is an entirely new issue that I have not encountered. I do not see this behavior in the animation in ArcGIS Pro.  What is the best way to share a map package? Getting it down to 9 MB to attach here is not possible.

New Issue in Export:

[NathanShephard]

Hmmm, now I'm wondering if there is a graphics card driver involved... Have you checked to see if there's a newer driver for your Quadro P2000 on the Nvidia web site?

You could also try using OpenGL rendering mode (instead of DirectX) ---> go to Project > Options > Display (tab) > choose OpenGL > OK (and requires restart of Pro).

We're not seeing that kind of catastrophic failure for video export in-house, so the working theory is that it's something unique to either your machine or your scene / layers.  Here's a temporary UPLOAD folder that you can send your map package to. Thanks for your help!

-Nathan.

[CatherineBradley2]

Good morning all.  This is my first animation for a Story Map.  When I finally figured out (and I don't know what I did) how to export my ani, I was disappointed to see the original basemap was NOT the same that I see in map view.  This is what I want:  

a

  This is what I got after exporting to a Youtube video as mp4:

HORRIBLE!!!  Yes, the animation worked, but the colors are terrible.   Any ideas are helpful.  thank you!

Catherine Bradley

[NathanShephard]

Thanks Catherine!  It's hard to say what's happening for you, other than (as you surmise) it is NOT expected.

Any chance you could package up the map and share it with us to see if we can reproduce and debug?

Thanks!

-Nathan (ArcGIS Pro team)

[CatherineBradley2]

Good morning Nathan.  How do I "package up the map and share it with us"?

[NathanShephard]

Hi Catherine!

Workflow:

• Save the project
• Share (ribbon) > Package (category, on left side) > click Map
  • This will open the Package Map pane
• Choose the "Save package to file" option
• Set the file location and filename (ends with .mpkx)
• Click Package
• When it completes, come back to this page, and drag-drop the file (up to 9MB in size) in the section below the comment-editor

When I import the map package I should see how you've configured your animation, and also try it out myself.  If the file is too large, you can remove any local layers from the map and export it again.

Thanks!

-Nathan.

PS - Have you seen this "Making an animation" intro video yet?  🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_CH4bO340

[CatherineBradley2]

Thank You Nathan.  Yes, I watched the youtube several times and had it open when I was creating my animation.  That is who I am learning how to run stop motion animation.  However, the background "music" is so annoying and distracting.  I wish ESRI would not put that noise in any of the tutorial videos.  I hope you can figure this out.  We are baffled.  I ended up exporting to a GIF and it works. But for future projects I would really like to know what went wrong.  -Ca.

[NathanShephard]

Thanks Catherine!  The map package gave us the clue we needed. 🙂

Short version - you need to change the background color for the map to be "white" instead of "transparent". 

You can do this by r-clicking "Rt 66 Animation Map" in the Contents pane > Properties > General (tab) > and update the color chip for the Background Color to be White (instead of No Color).

Longer version - the 'World Topographic Map' layer is partially transparent, and the default background color for videos is black, so it was mixing the darker colors together on export-and-play.  Normally the accompanying (and underlying) 'World Hillshade' layer will protect against this effect, but for your case you had removed that layer.  Luckily the fix (ie: set a solid background color) is very simple.  It was working for the GIF export because it doesn't support transparency.

Hope this keeps you going!  Thanks for trying so valiantly to use Animations!

-Nathan.