Kind of stupid question, but I cannot find anything useful in the docs.

In my scene, I am fine with my particle animation and now I want to write a acache for it.

How is this supposed to be done in Houdini?

Thank you very much!

use the ROPOutput Driver SOP to write geometry to disk. with a filesop You can read it back.
as fileformat use bgeo, its fast,efficient and stores all attributes that are on Your geometry.
Martin

It still amazes me that the other vendor software still don't have the equivalent of a File SOP and then make up all these awesome tools with names like “acache”. :roll:


ROP Output Driver (as mentioned above and is the preferred method)

File SOP >>> set up to write to disk and then flip over to read or automatic

MDD SOP >>> generate a point cache in the LW point oven format for export to another application

FBX ROP in /out >>> create an fbx file for export to another application

Thanks for all the detailed hints. I used a ROP SOP and set it up so my POPnet is referenced in the ROP's SOP field.

Then I hit Render and there was a cache written. But it feels like this takes ages (in comparison to other software I know)- not only much longer than it takes to simulate just the particles but very much longer.

Is this normal or is there any way to accelerate this?

jeff
It still amazes me that the other vendor software still don't have the equivalent of a File SOP and then make up all these awesome tools with names like “acache”. :roll:

Honesty it is partially because, unlike Houdini, they represent geometry in a memory in the way that's not suitable for storing it on disk. It can have it own advantages though. Most apps display and process geometry much faster, than Houdini for that very reason on keeping it around in an optimized fashion. So pros and cons… as usual.