Hello,

I have a cop network being referenced by a pop network, and it seems that the cop net is being recooked each frame, even though the cop net has no animated parameters (direct or referenced). The frames are cached for replay, but when new frames are played, it chugs again; for example, if I play frames 1-10, it will be very slow, and then if I replay, it will be quick from frames 1-10, then slow again from frame 11 on.

Is there any way to tell Houdini to just cook the cop net for the first frame and re-use that data for every other frame, since it doesn't change? My current work around is to just save the image from the cop net and then load it using the file cop. This does speed things up wonderfully, but, since I'm using Apprentice, the saved image has to be small and watermarked. Is there a way to do a “static cop net cache” type thing without saving an external image?

Thanks,

Jeremy.

I'm not sure what your problem is but first try the latest daily 8.1 build to see if the problem is already fixed. Just because you're using Apprentice, it doesn't mean you have to composite with watermarked images. When rendering (or saving) your images, use the .picnc format which is the proprietary non-commercial image format for Houdini. These have no watermark. Only when you convert them to some non-proprietary format (like .tiff's for example), will they become watermarked.

You can use a Trim COP to trim out the first frame as a single image (Trim = ‘Single Image’, Start = 1). That might help reduce the cooking.

You can use a Trim COP to trim out the first frame as a single image (Trim = ‘Single Image’, Start = 1). That might help reduce the cooking.

emcjagger
This does speed things up wonderfully, but, since I'm using Apprentice, the saved image has to be small and watermarked. Is there a way to do a “static cop net cache” type thing without saving an external image?

I think you're SOL.

However, if your image data doesn't change, then instead of saving out, try a screen grab and use that.
The only way to get around COPs slowdown is to really not use it.
I find there's just something plain wrong with it.

There's been major fixes just recently applied to COPs - most of the discussion has been on the mailing list rather than here. As Edward suggests, grabbing the latest build should be mandantory before doing a lot of COPs work.

Cheers,

J.C.

I've been of the mailing list a while so I guess i'm not up to date there, but I've been keeping bang up to date on the builds, and I'm still finding COPs to be problematic. I'm using win2k, so that perhaps doesn't help.

But I'm experiencing issues that seem to indicate that COPs when I'm in SOPs.

The display flag is left on, and COPs aren't being referenced anywhere. Unchecking the display flag will return Houdini to operating at full speed.

It's a curious issue, but it won't go away.

Jerry

SESI would love a simple hip file that demonstrates that, I'm sure. Could well be a windows issue - I've never seen anything like that. What's particularly bizarre is you suggest you're in SOPs, but a COP's flag is affecting things? :?:

Cheers,

J.C.

Like JC says Sesi seem especially keen at the moment to fix all COPs issues so sending in a hip is a real must right now. If you do it I bet they fix the problem.

Yeah, i know it sounds crazy. I was having some issues with scrubbing geometry in SOPs. Essentially just a file in reading bgeos from disk.

It seems, by default, Houdini would set a display flag in a COPnet after a file load even if you unchecked it before a save. And despite being set not to cook COPs on first load, scrubbing would be tedious.

However going into COPs un unchecking the display flag would cure things.

Now I don't know the under the hood stuff, but it's a fairly compelling argument. It's something that I get consitently.

It could well be a win2k issue. We don't have Linux here so I can't test. I might try getting a dual boot going at home to see if I can get it to replicate there, but there it's winXP. Worth a go i guess.

I was talking to Jenny at SESI and she said they didn't have a win2k system so I'm thinking I mif=ght be stuck with this for a bit.

Have they test on XP for you? Any chance of upgrading to XP from win2k?

Very very few bugs in Houdini actually turn out to be OS-specific (as much as people love to blame MS for everything). So please send in any problem files you've got to support, and we can figure out if the problem happens on other platforms for you. It isn't your job to install a new OS just to save us some work

If we can't reproduce it on the systems we have available for testing, then we can start worrying about whether it's an OS-specific issue or not.

Thanks,
Mark

Wow, thanks for all the feedback everyone! Twod's Trim cop suggestion did the trick nicely. Edward's .picnc worked too – not as elegant for this purpose, but good to know I can save full sized unwatermarked images. Apprentice rocks!

Cheers,

Jeremy