preview ponderings

[dblhelix]

i'm making snow, and i don't understand what the preview is on about.

the chor is huge, it's a landscape. there's no motion anywhere, yet.

when pressing play with the marker on frame 0, there then appears the rendering indicator; the line at the bottom of the window with a percentage telling how big a portion has already been rendered. the rendering is very quick.

the marker then moves to either frame 16 or 18, and renders that.

then it moves to frame 0 and remains there, though the play button is visibly still on.

there is no motion, it's not snowing, not even by two frames.

 

any idea what's going on? is this just beyond capacity for my machine?

[robcat2075]

Are these particles?

[robcat2075]

Anytime I have a situation that doesn't work like i expect i start removing elements until I get something that works like I would expect with what is left. Then i know the last thing i removed is either the problem and I'm either not using it right or my expectation wasn't right.

[John Bigboote]

I put a real nice snow project in the Contributors Cue, you could use or refer to.

[HomeSlice]

It seems like you are leaving out some information. I'm not sure what you are trying to do or what exactly your problem is.

When I am previewing stuff in real time in the chor, I never hit the "Play" button. I always hold down the [+] (plus key) on the NUMPAD. It works better, at least for me.

[dblhelix]

thanks guys!

it's about learning particles, yes, and that was a breeze with a brilliantly disarming introduction by jason1025 and in-depth tuts by HomeSlice!

 

started off with streaks, just for fun, though will move on to sprites, have made a snowflake of my own.

 

now: it's snowing alright, except when i look through the camera and press play.

judging by the repeated behavior of the machine, it feels i should get a two frame crashy animation,

frame 0 followed by frame 16/18, repeat.

now it only shows frame 16 but the cursor stays immobile on frame 0, though the program is "playing".

i've crashed a:m often enough to know what that procedure looks like . this is new.

pgdown didn't help. suspecting i've found a new way/place to choke the poor thing.

 

someone once posted a detailed list of what to choose from the graphics card menu,

i'd be interested in that but don't know what to search! does anyone remember/ venture a guess who it might have been so i can search by username?

 

robcat, really good standard approach! will try, guessing when amount of landscape/emitter decreases things get easier.

John Bigboote, thanks! will look at that prj to learn; last stop last night was about not understanding alpha, couldn't see my snowflake.

and HomeSlice, "+" is news with a Covert Op flavour, curious that this should work better!

[NancyGormezano]

suspecting i've found a new way/place to choke the poor thing.

 

yes, more than likely you have too high an emission rate for your particles, or streaks for your computer to display, process in real-time playback mode. And if you are banging on keys willy-nilly (or doing continuous render-lock) - you can easily cause crashes.

 

someone once posted a detailed list of what to choose from the graphics card menu,

i'd be interested in that but don't know what to search! does anyone remember/ venture a guess who it might have been so i can search by username?

 

not sure what you are looking for, perhaps tools/options/global/real-time driver/opengl (or directx)

 

last stop last night was about not understanding alpha, couldn't see my snowflake.

 

yup, that'll do it.

 

and HomeSlice, "+" is news , curious that this should work better!

 

Hoo hoo! - first I've heard of using + for play forward (- for play backwards!) - It does work better! I think what Holmes was meaning about "better" was that you can use the shortcut, instead of having to move the mouse, for easier control, manuevering. Both methods work.

 

Some day I might even read the shortcut descriptions again (Tools/Customize/Keyboard) - I'm sure to find even more diabolical secret stuff hidden in the Code of HA:Mmurabi.

[HomeSlice]

I think what Holmes was meaning about "better" was that you can use the shortcut, instead of having to move the mouse, for easier control, manuevering.

What I like most about the [+] key method is that the sound does not get out of sync with the animation when previewing in real time. If the scene is complex, it will play back in slow motion, but the audio always stays in sync with the animation. It is also a little quicker and easier to test motion backward and forward with the [+] and [-] keys instead of scrubbing with the mouse. Also, if there are a lot of particles and stuff going on, the computer can choke if I just hit the play button. With the [+] button, the computer has a chance to recalculate on each frame before advancing to the next frame. However, when testing particles, only use the [-] key sparingly. Every time you hit the [-] key, the computer has to recalculate the particles from frame 0 to the current frame. (Unless you bake the particle systems).