Hi,

I recently simulated whitewater for my fluid sim. The fluid sim loads fine, but for some reason the whitewater sim gets an “unable to read file” error in the whitewater_import node, when I go into the node I can trace the error back to the “Read_back” Node which says it's unable to read the file. I even put the sim into another folder Dhome/Whitewater.$F.bgeo

It still doesn't work

I hope someone can help me, I've been trying to render this thing for a month now.

Thanks in advance.

The first thing that comes to mind is maybe the zero-padding is off? You do see your whitewater files in the folder, right? Does the filename have any padded zero like my_sim_00123.bgeo instead of my_sim123.bgeo? If so you can adjust that by counting the number of digits and appending the $F with that count, for instance Dhome/Whitewater.$F4.bgeo

My files aren't zero padded. It's just like my_sim.1.bgeo and when it's at ten it's my_sim.10.bgeo

So no zero padding.

If you use a file sop manually, are you able to read those .bgeo files? If you can read them manually, then you might want to check the node that you used to write and the node that you used to read. Maybe the paths/file names/directories parameters them are slightly different?

So I loaded them in with a file node and it's unable to read the .bgeo as well. Does that mean that the simulation is corrupt? Do I have to resim everything in a new extension? Maybe .sim or something.

How did you write out the .bgeo files before? Which node did you use? Was the default extension .bgeo? I wonder if those .bgeo files are actually .sim files with the wrong extension.

I used a whitewater_sim DOP to save to disk. I added the extension manually, I just assumed it's bgeo because the fluid sim was bgeo as well. Does this mean I have to change the extension names to .sim?

Don't know if this is relevant, but when I only had about 25 frames cached, I could just render the whitewater with no problems. I just cached the rest and now it's unable to read. Also when I have to select a cache in the node, it doesn't show a .sim extension as a compatible extension.

So you're using the whitewater_sim/output node to cache the simulation? If that's the case, then those files are actually .sim files. If that's the case, then you could load those files by using the “Playback Simulation” parameter at the top of the whitewater_sim.

Alternatively, if you want to cache only the geometry (i.e. bgeo), you could use the DOP I/O SOP. The shelf should have created this node at whitewater_import/import_whitewater. You can use it to save and load geometries.

So it automatically loaded another simulation that's like in the $HIP directory. I loaded the .bgeo anyway and it's working somehow. But I'm wondering if the new simulation is being loaded or the old one. Because there's quite a difference between the two.

Thanks alot, you've really helped me, I just need to know that one thing, then I'll have closure.

If you have “Playback Simulation” enabled, then it'll loading the specified .sim files. If you then use the “DOP I/O” SOP to cache the geometry, the resulting geometry will be from the playback simulation.