In general, the Intel graphics (OpenGL) drivers are buggy and you would be better off using a computer with NVIDIA or AMD/ATI graphics.  However, the recent (less than a year old or so) Intel drivers are considerably less buggy than the previous ones, so the problem might be fixed by updating your graphics driver (as long as you don't have Intel GMA 500 graphics, which you don't).  This is the recommended solution because it can fix a whole slew of graphics bugs.

If updating the graphics driver doesn't work, a workaround would be to turn on 1x1 supersampling in the Movie Recorder tool (in Frame Options) -- that uses the Save Image code path, but slows down recording images.  If you are recording movies using a command script, that is not a problem, it just takes longer.  But if you are recording movies interactively, it is.

If you still have problems after trying the above solutions, please submit a bug using chimera's Help / Report a Bug dialog.

    HTH,

    Greg

On 03/17/2011 01:30 PM, Gökhan Tolun wrote:

Dear all,

 

I am trying to create a very simple movie, but my movies turn out blank. I am using the Spin Movie example script on http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/tutorials/movies08/moviemaking.html

 

My movie seems to render, and the movie file is created, but when I open the file and play it, it’s just a blank (all black) video. When I examined the captured frames, they’re also all blank black frames. If I choose “Save image”, it saves it just fine, so I guess the image capturing algorithm for movies is different the one for saving the images.

 

This is on Windows 7 64-bit, Chimera 1.5.2, Intel Mobile 965 express Chipset GPU (it’s a TabletPC, hence the GPU).

 

Any suggestions to fix this would be appreciated.

 

Thank you.

_______________________________________

Gökhan Tolun, M.S., PhD.

Post-doctoral Research Associate

Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

University of North Carolina

450 West Dr., CB#7295, Room 11-119

Chapel Hill, NC, USA  27599