Slowing Machine Down! Doing something wrong??

[animatorguy]

Hi,

 

I've used animation master for a number of projects, and feel relatively comfortable with modeling and animating objects. Recently I have run into a problem when I try and copy and paste a model inside the same object. For example, I'm making an auditorium with about 200 chairs in it. I created the original chair then copied all the points and splines and pasted it next to the original chair. I kept this up and then started doing it by rows of 15 chairs. after creating about 7 rows with 15 chairs in each my computer takes forever to copy even one chair. If I click somewhere to begin creating another point, it pauses for about 2 min before reacting.

 

Are there just too many splines for Animation master to deal with, or is there a better way to set this up? Would it be better to add multiple copies of the same object into the choreography and build my rows there?

 

I uploaded the project file.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Bruce

 

p.s. I'm on a Macbook Pro 2 Ghz dual core. 2GB of ram, with Animation master v15 running on leopard.

Church_stage_1.prj

[Gerry]

I haven't dealt with this sort of thing myself but maybe this is a case where you should assemble the scene in an action.

[robcat2075]

I tried it, I could just barely open it. There is a certain wall you hit with large splineage. I think you've hit it. But multiple copies will be a better solution for you.

 

I forget the exact work flow for assembling sets as action objects that Gerry mentioned, but it's somewhere in the TWO forums.

 

If you were to put one chair as multiple models in a chor you'd have the flexibility of turning any of them temporarily to seen/unseen so A"M only had to display the particular ones you needed to animate around at any moment (faster screen), then turn them all back on for rendering.

 

You could organize them by row in folders for easy finding.

 

You can shift or CTRL select multiple objects in the chor and flick them all to a different state at once, instead of having to set each one individually.

 

 

S Gross made a plugin for quickly adding many copies of a model to a chor:

 

Multiply plugin

[Rodney]

If I click somewhere to begin creating another point, it pauses for about 2 min before reacting.

 

I don't think A:M is pausing here. Its working.

If you have any textures or bones or groups A:M has to rename those as it gets them out of the paste buffer to avoid conflicts. Its also possible A:M can hang if it encounters an event where its not sure what process to perform. I don't know whats going on deep inside of A:M but lets say it gets to 'Chairseat999' as a group... does A:M know what to do to create Chair seat 1000? (only an example here)

 

You should investigate creating your more complex models in a Choreography.

You can start by doing something simple and work to the more complex. Save out of the Chor as a Model every once in awhile and then reimport those models in.

 

Try this...

Drop 4 empty models into a Chor.

Offset each of the models Xaxis Translation by 100cm from each other in their properties (i.e. -100, 0, 100, 200).

Now copy and paste a chair or some other model into the that original model.

Go back into your Chor. You'll see four models.

Switch to Modeling Mode - Shortcut Key F5 (still in the Chor) adjust some splines and see your changes effect all the models

Switch to Muscle Mode - Shortcut Key F7 (still in the Chor) adjust more splines and see your changes only change that model

 

You can build up very complex models individually and as groups in this way.

If you save often and reimport those models you should be able to continue to work quickly with less lag time.

Save decaling and rigging for later if possible. If the models don't change in the Chor they'll automatically get updated when you update the original model.

 

If you plan ahead your can optimize your effort by dropping multiple models in between other models to fill in the spaces.

The next thing you know you've got one giant model.

 

Note: I'd have to test with huge models to determine the true difference in realtime responsiveness on that scale. I'm not sure I have the patience for that yet.

 

I know I've not explained this well enough.

 

Bottom line: This is one way you can create large complex models without the lag time.

[Master chief]

as some one who works with game models i to have encountered the slowness wall that comes from having a lot of items in am and i have a few suggestions , note that some may not apply

 

1 make a model/choreograph as simple as it can be

 

2 in choreograph mode have 40 copy's of one model not 1 copy that has 40 models in it that way when you modify one of these "people" it doest have to redraw the entire 40 selection

 

3 if your modifying a model in its own window( not in choreograph) never use the shaded / shaded wire, mode as this will cause the model to be completely redrawn every time , which can take up to 20 seconds and am becomes unresponsive till its done

 

4 if your working on a big model, use the hide button to remove all but a small area around the target area this greatly reduces render check times making it go faster

 

5 if at all possible try not to have 40k+ patches in a model , unfortunately for me some models iv extracted from games have this much and not only does it take a very long time to import bu it can take up to 2-3 Min's just to go from wire frame to shaded

 

6 after every major modeling victory save the file as a completely new name , i have unfortunately lost quite a bit due to a project eventually failing apart due to slow corruption due to unknown reasons , which will not only slow u down but send you back wards.

 

please note that all of these suggestions come from managing game models which are big and bulky to begin with so may not apply to smaller models that are hand written.

 

Update: after i managed to download the church file it opened quite easyaly and rendering time was really fast which lead me to anothe rpossable problem which would be the hard ware doing the rendering , you may have to face the fact that your computer may not be powerful enough to render a larger file very quickly but so far the stage looks pretty good

 

this is a quick render of it

[Jeetman]

It's interesting. There are mov files it asked me for:

 

green screen test - alpha.mov

green screen test -transparent c+a.mov

bruce body shot.mov

 

 

I had no link to them so I cancelled them. After the project opened, I had no problems. I had no slow downs at all in wire frame but a slight slow down in shaded mode.

 

If you are projecting mov's on layers (which is what I think you are doing), I think that would slow things down a lot in the choreography but I wouldn't think it would effect the model mode. I'd try to remove the mov decals (only as a test) and see if it make a difference. If not, then I'm with Master Chief in thinking it may be your computer.

 

George

[Rodney]

green screen test - alpha.mov

green screen test -transparent c+a.mov

bruce body shot.mov

 

If those .mov files are referenced in every chair that'd certainly slow things down.

If unnecessary I'd remove them.

If necessary I'd consider substituting smaller proxy images for them, turning them off or temporarily removing them or using sequential images instead. (I'm sure I've missed other options)