"Could not render animation; unknown error"

[rusuin]

Hi, so I recently tried animation for the first time (using Krita because its the software I use for other digital art).

When I tried to render my very first and very short animation, it said “Could not render animation; unknown error” every time when I tried to render it as a video (even though I was following tutorials that seem to have worked for others). I know it’s possible to render it in other ways and formats too, but it’s really frustrating and I can’t figure it out.

I downloaded and installed Ffmpeg following many independent tutorials on youtube and based on the command thing it seems to work so I think the problem is in Krita. However, English is not my 1st language so I may have misunderstood some information. I tried to do some research and find out how people fixed this problem before, but none of it seems to work for me.

I have the Krita 5.0.6 version and the newest version of ffmpeg. Is here someone who would be patient enough and try and help me? I’d greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

[AhabGreybeard]

Hello and welcome to the forum

There is more information that you could give which would be very useful to anyone who tries to help you with this problem, as follows:

Which operating system are you using?

Where did you get krita from and how did you install it?

Which version of ffmpeg do you have?

Where did you get ffmpeg from (the link address)?

Does your animation play well in krita itself?

When you try to Render the animation, where do you try to store the output video file?

What format output file are you using?

Can you upload a screenshot of the Render Animation window before you press the OK button

[rusuin]

Hi, thank you for responding!

I use a Windows laptop, I got Krita from the official site (Krita Desktop | Krita) and installed it the normal way (i don’t really know how to describe it, bascically how I would install any other program like that). I downloaded this version of ffmpeg (ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-lgpl.zip) from the official site, that led me here: Releases · BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds · GitHub.

The animation in krita itself works well, like its just not really that well animated since I’m still learning but not like any serious problems that could be related to this. I tried storing the video file in downloads and in a folder with my other digital attemps. I’m using “video MPEG-4” (I hope that’s what you meant).

And here’s the screenshot (I hope):

Btw is there a way to change the language of Krita so I could add a screenshot in English, it’s like a really weird mix between 2 languages?

[AhabGreybeard]

I’d strongly recommend that you download and use the gyan ‘essentials’ build from here:
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/packages/ffmpeg-5.0.1-essentials_build.zip
That is known to work very well.

The content of the Render window looks ok but I would not store ffmpeg in C:\Program Files.
Keep it in your Downloads folder for now then when this is all sorted out, you can put it somewhere in your personal storage areas, not in the system Program Files installation area.

The canvas size of 3840 x 2160 is large for a video and you’ll use up lots of RAM quickly if you continue making animations of that size.
I’d suggest 1920 x 1080 or smaller.

[rusuin]

Omg, thank you so much! I would have never ever guessed that it was that simple. I don’t really know what exactly fixed it, maybe dowloading the different file, but it works now. Thank you

[KnowZero]

If you look at your render window, see MP4/MKV UNSUPPORTED? You downloaded an LGPL build which doesn’t have mp4 support enabled.

[rusuin]

Oh, wow, I didn’t notice, I must be really blind. Thank you for pointing that out. I did download the different version of ffmpeg, via the link provided and it seemed to work. As I said, I really had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to follow some outdated tutorials. But I’m really glad it’s sorted now.