Quick Cache 2

[origin]

thanks procedural ;)

by the way, do any of you guys use SSD drive as cache repository?
SI caching is very slow, i'm on 4 hdd raid-0 now Im wondering if sata iii SSD would give me some boost...

[iamVFX]

Ok, final version of the plugin is here, link from the first post updated. For the last time (:

This is a small but very important update. Cache length and versions not count properly before (python doesn't sort lists by default...), so it's fixed now. DisplayInfo_Cached property are not needed anymore. It means that you should manually delete versions folders of caches to rewrite them. And code is cleaned up, it's very pretty now!

Man! Potentially huge, functionality that should be standard in SI I'd say. Thanks a lot, this may make my day on the project I'm working on at the moment.

Thanks! All my tools I made for myself, I don't know does it fit in the standard package functionality, but I know that it very useful tool to work with at least for me (: And I hope someone find it useful too!

by the way, do any of you guys use SSD drive as cache repository?
SI caching is very slow, i'm on 4 hdd raid-0 now Im wondering if sata iii SSD would give me some boost...

Should do, but I don't know for sure. For me caching was always not the fastest process in the world, but it shouldn't actually, if you know that at the end you will get result that you looking for. It's like lagoa, many people mentions that it slow compare to realflow for example, but it can be slow if it does what other programs can't. Elastic-plastic-dirt things for example (:

By the way, Origin, I want to see a cmivfx tutorial for SI SDK from you someday! I'd buy it for the high price!

[bottleofram]

Hi Constantine

This plugin only works with pointclouds, right? I think you should put that in your first post, just to be clear about what it does.

Also, i tried to install it on a workgroup and it didnt work from there for some reason.

Cheers

[iamVFX]

This plugin only works with pointclouds, right?

Not anymore! It was done for testing purposes. Now I include polygon meshes and curves support, this video shows that you can cache syflex or lagoa mesh/curve stuff easily and retime it!

Also, i tried to install it on a workgroup and it didnt work from there for some reason.

Because It should be in the "Plugins" folder of your user profile. Sorry, only this way it can work

[bottleofram]

Ah,cool. I think theres a problem, though. Cache on geo seems to disable construction stack before it caches it, so no deformer outside of modeling portion is taken into account.

[iamVFX]

Ah,cool. I think theres a problem, though. Cache on geo seems to disable construction stack before it caches it, so no deformer outside of modeling portion is taken into account.

Nope, diactivatestack function is executes after the caching operation. Fortunately cache button is not a command, so if you drop me a log lines from the script editor window I'll find what causes problem. By the way, on which version of SI you working on?

As for modeling stack do you used standard non-ice operator for object and trying to cache it? Currently plugin supports only ice trees, and modeling stack will be not deactivated if there a simulation stack exists

[iamVFX]

I just realise one small problem: I have not packed script files into a folder. They should be placed in a "Plugins/QuickCache" user folder. You can do it manually by putting them into a folder

[iamVFX]

link from the first post updated. For the last time (:

Sorry, guys, it's so much fun fix stuff

Link updated. Shape Modeling, Animation, Post-Simulation and Secondary Shape Modeling was taken into account, ice trees of these stacks will be cached from now

Thanks for the feedback, bottleofram!

[bottleofram]

Yes, i applied a standard operator... So, its a limited to ice trees, good to know.



On a somewhat related note, i just noticed that soft will not disable an operator if you move it into a disabled stack. For example, if you have an operator in your Modeling stack and you disable everything from Animation and above, moving that operator into Secondary Shape Modeling has no effect. It crosses it as if it is disabled, but its still active. You have to do "enable from here/disable from here" again to deactivate it.

Is this a bug? Can anyone confirm?

[iamVFX]

On a somewhat related note, i just noticed that soft will not disable an operator if you move it into a disabled stack. For example, if you have an operator in your Modeling stack and you disable everything from Animation and above, moving that operator into Secondary Shape Modeling has no effect. It crosses it as if it is disabled, but its still active. You have to do "enable from here/disable from here" again to deactivate it.

Is this a bug? Can anyone confirm?

Plus activation/deactivation bug of multiple objects with a first created point cloud in scene
Plus when you save a scene with deactivated stacks and load it back they will be activated

But the last one is fixed, I wrote a custom event that deactivates stacks on a scene load time (QuickCache_Disable is a list of objects stacks of which will be deactivated above "ReadCache" ice tree)

Also non-ice operators now supported

Cache loading improved

Link from the first post updated

[iamVFX]

Link is updated!

Major change of this version is that substeps now stored in a folder with cache, so if you cache cloud with different simulation step values it will be loaded properly

"Retime" button opens ppg for selected objects only should work as it says

Small annoying things that nobody cares except me is fixed also

Installation help file is now included

[Hirazi Blue]

Just a friendly suggestion: when you update the link it might be an idea to change the filename to include some kind of version number (something like "QuickCache_02.rar" for instance), so people can easily see, if they have already downloaded the most recent version...
;)

[iamVFX]

Just a friendly suggestion: when you update the link it might be an idea to change the filename to include some kind of version number (something like "QuickCache_02.rar" for instance), so people can easily see, if they have already downloaded the most recent version...
;)

Everyone who want download the latest version can download it from the first post, or check files modification time

It's seems like version from the first post is the latest one, because I have no idea how to improve it further - everything works fine for me

[bottleofram]

Well, let me spoil your party, than. Earlier i could cache the geo with regular operators applied, they just needed to be in the modeling stack. Now, it spits out this error:

Code: Select all

' ERROR : 2000 - Argument 0 (Target) is invalid
' ERROR : 2001-GetValue - Argument 0 is invalid
' ERROR : Traceback (most recent call last):
'   File "<Script Block >", line 170, in QuickCache_Cache_OnClicked
'     qc.cache()
'   File "C:\Users\alex\Autodesk\Softimage_2012_SP1\Application\Plugins\QuickCache\SIQC_Cache.py", line 197, in cache
'     if si.GetValue(path+".simulationsettings.subframesampling") != 1:
'   File "<COMObject <unknown>>", line 2, in GetValue
' COM Error: The parameter is incorrect. (0x-7ff8ffa9) - [line 169 in C:\Users\alex\Autodesk\Softimage_2012_SP1\Application\Plugins\QuickCache\QuickCache.py]
' ERROR : Property Page Script Logic Error (Python ActiveX Scripting Engine)
' ERROR :    [167] def QuickCache_Cache_OnClicked():
' ERROR :    [168] 
' ERROR :   >[169] 	import SIQC_Cache as qc
' ERROR :    [170] 	qc.cache()
' ERROR :    [171] 	
' ERROR :    [172] def QuickCache_Play_OnClicked():
' ERROR : 	Traceback (most recent call last):
'   File "<Script Block >", line 170, in QuickCache_Cache_OnClicked
'     qc.cache()
'   File "C:\Users\alex\Autodesk\Softimage_2012_SP1\Application\Plugins\QuickCache\SIQC_Cache.py", line 197, in cache
'     if si.GetValue(path+".simulationsettings.subframesampling") != 1:
'   File "<COMObject <unknown>>", line 2, in GetValue
' COM Error: The parameter is incorrect. (0x-7ff8ffa9)

I still think it would be useful if you could support non ice based deformers. Just a thought.

[iamVFX]

Well, let me spoil your party, than.

And that's totally cool! Fixed, thanks! And I removed the progress bar also to see the timeline better

I still think it would be useful if you could support non ice based deformers. Just a thought.

It's already supports non-ice operators, I wrote about this earlier

[bottleofram]

Awesome. Everything seems alright now.

If you, by any chance, need an idea how you could improve it further, heres one: tokens in path. I realize you probably made the plugin for quick-and-dirty purposes, but say you are working on different scenes (or even different projects) and forget to change that path string. Things could get messy...

In that case something like "C:\Cache\[scene]" or "[Project Path]\cache\[scene]" would come in handy.