Houdini 8.0.655 Linux

I've got a Wire Object Dop with a “Creation Frame” set to 12. (btw, this is the cause of the problem it seems!) Then there's a Wire Constraint and a Wire Solver appended to that. A simple wire dop setup..

At Frame-1, the Object Merge Sop which extracts the DOPs geom is yellow. The warning says:

“Invalid Sop Specified: /obj/dopnet1:wireobject1/Geometry”.

Okay. Sure. The trouble is it stays yellow, past frame 12 when there is DOP geometry! For example, at frame-14, if some toggles are clicked on the Object Merge Sop, it recooks and all is good.

Putting a Switch Sop below the Object Merge, and switching to it after frame-12 doesn't help as the Object Merge Sop stays yellow (no geometry is extracted from Dops). Perhaps the Wire Object Creation Frame must be “1”, and the geometry going into DOP's has to be dummied for frames 1-12..

Is there some trick to make the Object Merge Sop re-check for valid DOP's Geometry?

cheers,
ben.

i don't know if there is a proper answer, but how about using a switch sop after the object merge and have the merge and an add sop in it, then just switch between the add sop and the merge on frame 12. That way the object merge won't try and cook until there is geometry available.

Hey simon,

that's what i was trying to say about the “switch sop”. That approach doesn't work. At frame 1, the object merge goes yellow anyway (it does cook) and it stays yellow. So, by frame 12, when the switch switches to it, it hits the “invalid sop”.

It appears that once the object merge goes yellow the only way back is to manually wake it up.

Doh! sorry dude, completely didn't read that part of your post…

That's weird then, what is causing the object merge to cook? in my experience switch sops only cook the inputs that they are accessing at the time. Must be something in dops forcing it to cook.

Can you put an expression in the object merge that changes the actual path it is using depending on $F

eg

if($F<12,“../add1”,path to dops thingy)

hey ben

can you dump your sim to disk first and fileIn it ?
not great, but hey.