why is it that pops aren't cached? i realize that i can pop merge or have a pop network in sops and append a cache sop, but why not just have it natively through pops with access to configuring it through the cache manager?

The POP cache is specified on the POPnet node network itself. You set the parameter to cache a certain number of frames of the animation. I don't think it's been updated for the POP SOP, nor does it show up in the cache manager because it's a per-node cache (similar to the Cache SOP).

so basically any pop networks or pop merges in to sops can not be cached without a cache sop afterwards.. just seems odd.. i would think that most people would have their pop networks in either sops or dops (and the dops popnet has a cache param).. and even if i add the cache sop, i'm still stuck without it while i'm working within the pop network..

is adding the cache param to sop popnets and popmerges (well atleast having the popmerge respect the cache settings on the network it's referencing) on the list of things to do? and if it isn't, can I RFE that?

thanks twod

Sure you can most certainly make the request and it has been submitted!

POPs was created when SGI's were the main platform and half a gig of RAM cost, oh, $2000+ US. The majority of the machines in production didn't have the resources to cache a big particle system so it wasn't even on the radar as a priority. You always had the Cache SOP anyhow.

I would love to hear from other users to see if cacheing of particle networks a la DOPs would be a big benefit. I suspect that the majority of the users have methods to cache the particle systems as geometry to disk and deal with that.

thanks jeff.. sounds great. i think it will be a nice feature for a popnet in sops.. as well as popmerges to respect the network they are referencing (or have their own param with a default relative ref ch() expression to the one it's referencing). Rendering to disk is actually what i've always done before.. it wasn't really until dops that i started enjoying caching so much so i started to question pops and their ability to do it as well.. Just the scrubbing aspect alone sells it for me rather than the playback performance.

Thanks again..

In Houdini 8 and later you can build POP simulations as POP Objects in DOPs. This will then give you caching for free.