If you have an Nvidia video card it is the update that you have installed. You need to have  update 314.22 for transitions to work well.

As per the "clock wipe" it should also be included in Studio 15. 

The known Nvidia driver issue breaks some of the Standard transitions and all of Alpha Magic and does not break any of HollywoodFX. So the thread starter's issue is a different one... BTW, for the known breakage of standard transitions + Alpha Magic in PS12/14/15, the last driver that worked *correctly* was 320.49 (both desktop and mobile chipset variants of that driver) - you do not need to go back to anything as old as 314.22

If the issue isn't some other consequence of the display/driver, one thing that can stop HollywoodFX from working is its hardware acceleration settings - in the HFX editor under "Setup | Render Engine" choose "Software" instead of "Accelerated OpenGL". But in my experience the "typical" side-effect of HollywoodFX not liking that display card/driver's OpenGL implementation is that the HFX effects don't play smoothly, or they play upside down (not that they simply stop working).

If you need to check the setting in the HFX editor you must do so by opening the HFX editor (easy_fx.exe) as a "standalone" program (while Studio is not running). Otherwise the "Setup" item in the menu line is not shown!

Regards,
Richard

I don't know what my dad did but now all of my transitions are working again. I opened the HFX editor after my dad walked away from the computer and switched it back to "Accelerated OpenGL" (under Setup > Render Engine). I then closed the HFX editor and opened Studio, all of the transitions that weren't working before are still working. Anyway I went back into the HFX editor and switched the setting under Render Engine back to Software. My dad also changed some things in "video and audio preferences" under the Setup menu in Studio, but I'm not sure if any of these changes made a difference. He checked "enable hardware acceleration" which was previously unchecked and he changed "use the codec for background rendering" to "set codec automaticallly." At least the transitions are working again though.

And nevermind my second question. I see there is a transition called "clock wipe" (under 2D transitions). I guess I should have looked before I started this thread. My apologies.

Glad the transitions are working again - whatever fixed them (do you have some friendly ghosts )

Regarding the video/audio preferences - some comments from my experience with Studio 14...

• The "Use hardware acceleration" tick-box should in general always be ticked; if not, Studio may display misleading error messages about your graphics card not being capable of running Studio, and some things (including HFX transitions!) may not work correctly.
  
  
• Under Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 Studio may need to be launched as an administrator to make the change to the "Use hardware acceleration" tick-box "stick" (the setting is written in a file in Studio's program directory (normal users aren't allowed to write there...). When I installed Studio 14 Ultimate under Windows 10, Microsoft automatically set a hidden compatibility setting always to launch Studio as an administrator (I see the little shield in Studio's program icon and get the UAC pop-up box when I launch it). I believe the same would happen for Studio 15.
  
  
• You might not need to enable background rendering if you don't have any CPU-hungry effects or transitions (also if you are not using "full resolution preview"). But that's purely a matter of personal taste - weighing up the time taken to create the preview files against whether you do need to see a smooth preview in order to appreciate how a particular effect or transition will look in the finished movie. FWIW I run with "enable full resolution preview" on and with "enable background rendering" off; I prefer the preview display to be sharp. but am not worried if I don't get real-time preview of certain effects/transitions.
  
  
• The "optimal" choice of codec for background rendering ("set codec automatically" or fix it as "DV" or "MPEG-2" depends upon what your source video clips and output format are - if you are working with and exporting standard-definition material (especially DV-AVI), you may get better results, both in preview and in export by fixing the codec choice as "DV". But for everything else (especially all HD formats), the "set codec automatically" would be fine (and Studio would almost certainly choose MPEG-2 for the previews).
  
  

 Regarding the "Accelerated OpenGL" render engine setting in the HFX Editor - rendering of some HFX transitions might be faster if you had a powerful graphics card and a weak CPU, but in practice using software rendering with a decent modern CPU will be just as fast... Depending on the graphics card/drivers, the "Acceleraed OpenGL" setting may result in poor preview/rendering of some transitions, or they may preview/render upside down! These issues seem especially prevalent with Nvidia graphics; their OpenGL implemetation has been "incompatible" with HFX for a long time... FWIW, later versions of Stufdio will by default install their copy of HollywoodFX with that setting set as "Software"

A good example of a transition that can be affected by the OpenGL "incompatibility" in the Nvidia graphics card/driver is in HollywoodFX Volume 1 - in the "Doors and Borders" group look at "PRO-Draw Bridge"; on a PC here (having Nvidia GT640 graphics card), when OpenGL is enabled the drawbridge and the castle walls don't draw properly when the transition is previewed in Studio, whereas with software rendering selected in the HFX editor the transition previews in Studio (and renders) normally.

Regards,
Richard

I notice that now all of my transitions under "Alpha Magic" have stopped working. They worked again after unchecking the "enable hardware acceleration" box when viewing on the preview screen but will not work after inserting into my Studio project when I try to preview them there. For me unchecking the "enable hardware acceleration" box also stops all of the ones under "HollywoodFX for Studio," "Flying Windows," etc from working. All of those will work again if I tick "enable hardware acceleration" back in while the "Alpha Magic" ones stop working when I preview them from the "show transitions" area.

Neil McRae:

I notice that now all of my transitions under "Alpha Magic" have stopped working.

I have a suspicion that the same issues can be experienced by AMD graphics users too... but I have one PC having Intel graphics (Core i5-6260U CPU / Iris 540 graphics) and all the transitions work fine on that one.

Although not supported, 320.49 can be used under Windows 8.1 (may be some side-effects in other apps, but on the short time I did use it before that machine got upgraded to Windows 10 seemed it seemed stable). It can be installed in Windows 10 too (I tried it with the original July 2015 release, not tried it with the November (1511) or anniversary update (1607) versions). However Windows 10 is extremely possessive about device drivers and you will have a battle on your hands to prevent it from promptly reinstalling the latest one!!

Regards,
Richard

If you turn off your internet or unplugg your internet cable from your computer, your graphics card won't be updated and you can use the older graphics driver without any problems unless you connect your internet back (turn it on) then you will have your card updated automatically. (Windows 10 users only. Not sure about Windows 8.1). 

R_Vera:

" However Windows 10 is extremely possessive about device drivers and you will have a battle on your hands to prevent it from promptly reinstalling the latest one"!! 

If you turn off your internet or unplugg your internet cable from your computer, your graphics card won't be updated and you can use the older graphics driver without any problems unless you connect your internet back (turn it on) then you will have your card updated automatically. (Windows 10 users only. Not sure about Windows 8.1). 

Windows 10 will attempt to update the driver for any device that is an integral part of the PC (so motherboard/chipset/graphics/audio/networking etc.) whenever there is a driver available on Windows Update that is newer than one you are already using - regardless of whether the older driver came from Windows Update or direct from an OEM (such as your PC maufacturer). And for Windows 10 Home & Pro there's nothing you can do about it without resorting to hacking (registry modifications and/or stopping/disabling some Windows services) . IMO disconnecting your Internet connection to stop unwanted device driver updates is not a viable option unless you have a PC that is used solely for Studio and absolutely nothing else (so doesn't even need access to stuff on a local network).

Regards,
Richard

I am running Windows 10 on the PC which we installed Studio.

We tried uninstalling the broken Nvidia driver, then we downloaded and installed the earlier one and unplugged the internet. This worked, all of the transitions were working. My dad had an idea after doing this. He plugged the internet back in and decided that when our Studio project is all ready to burn to DVD we would do the same thing again and worry about the transitions last.

According to a Microsoft knowledge base article (UK English version here), the Windows 10 build 1607 ("Anniversary Update") will let you roill back a "problematic" device driver and that particular version won't automatically reinstall. For the build 1511 ("November update") there is a downloadable troubleshooter tool that you can use to hide a troublesome update and stop it from reinstalling.

But in both cases, if a newer version of the driver subsequently appears in Windows Update, Windows 10 will download and install it (the roll-back or troubleshooter will "block" just that one version). So you would need to repeat the exercise again if you find that the the transitions get broken again after the next update. Unfortuynately there's no easy way to permanently stop driver updates to one device only, while still allowing other driver updates, fixes and security updates etc. to Windows itself to download/install normally.

If you are using an older Nvidia card (earlier than GT4xx series), in all probability there won't be any newer drivers issued for it (Nvidia no longer release any - support for those older cards is dropped from the newest drivers they release (and which find their way into Windows Update). So you might only need to do the roll-back/troubleshooter tool trick once...

Regards,
Richard