Sorry about the title, I'm hoping it's self explanatory. I created a bunch of points onto curves that i am meshing using a particle fluid surface node. As you may know the particle fluid surface can get quite slow with a large amount of points. Since those points are not moving i don't need to re-create / re-cache the particle fluid surface gemeotry each frame, and i'd like to freeze it / collapse it into a permanent geometry. I come from a 3ds max Background and in Max the equivalent would be to collapse the Particle wrapper / Blob mesh / thinkbox frost mesh into a simple editable poly or mesh to prevent it from being updated again. Now i do understand that Houdini likes to keep everything procedural, but i'm sure there is a simple way to prevent this heavy task to be processed each frame while still being able to display it throughout my entire animation frame range as a steady object. I looked into the file cache node, but i'm not sure how to display a single cache frame over my entire timeline.

Any help very welcome.

Cheers,

A.

Apparently putting a timeshift node right below the single cached frame and keeping it at frame 1 did the trick.
But i'd love to hear about any smarter or alternative ways.

Thanks.

A.

The FileCache node is what you want. Simply browse to a folder and type a name for your object you want to cache. For instance my_mesh.bgeo.sc. If you are caching an animation make sure to include the $F option to record the frame number in the file name. my_particles_$F4.bgeo.sc.

Once you have a name click the SaveToDisk button. If you are caching an animation , change the drop down to cover the Range Of Frames your animation occupies. When you click SaveToDisk with an animation range selected you will see a progress dialog box pop up till the export has completed. When exporting a single frame you may get the impression the export did not work on small geometry. Go ahead and check the folder to verify that the FileCache did write your single frame of geometry to the disk.

After you have exported your single frame or frame range of geometry activate the Load From Disk checkbox. Now each time the result for the network is requested, the file will be loaded instead. Remember to move the Display flag to the FileCache or a node below.

If you need to go back and alter the nodes above the FileCache just click SaveToDisk again to lock in those new changes.

but i'm not sure how to display a single cache frame over my entire timeline.

Don't include the $F in your filename. Just browse to a single file.