crazy chorepgraphy settings

[bubba]

Somehow my choreography settings are going haywire. From one day to the next they change. I have been working on a fluids project for several days. Last Saturday I thought I just about had it right. When I started again on Monday, nothing was the same. Real-time rendering slowed to a crawl. I could not change the size of the particles, Nothing was the same. I started from scratch by creating a new project. Last night I left it this way:

 

Fluids7e.mov

 

When I started again today this is what I got:

 

Fluids7f.mov

 

Even though I had changed the size in the channel (by dragging the key frame marker) it did nothing. I then opened the the property panel of the Fluid Emitter in the chor (all changes to the Fluid Emitter are done in the chor, except for color.) It still said 3.5cm for the size at birth. So I changed the size to 1cm, and instead of changing the current driver, A:M created a whole new set of drivers!! I have outlined the two in the screen capture. Also notice the difference in spelling.

 

 

Lastly, I embedded and consolidated the project. Here it is if anyone wishes to give me a hand figuring out what is happening.

 

Lava.zip

 

Thanks.

[robcat2075]

What happens if you delete the first "Shortcut to Lava"?

[John Bigboote]

Weirdness may be (as Rob noted) in that you use the same material twice, if you need 2X particles, can't you just double the amount? If you really-really need the 2nd emitter- I'd recommend making a new model with a simple patches for the 2nd emitter which can be hidden inside the volcano and controlled as a separate model... separately.

[robcat2075]

When I open your PRJ, the new instance ( the top one) isn't there yet, but it appears if I make a change in the Size>At Birth value down in the Groups properties.

 

For some reason, the original channels for the fluid props not obeyed. If I manually make a change in the original curves it makes no difference. That's probably errant behavior, I think I 've encountered this before but couldn't duplicate it. I'll try to study the circumstances later.

 

I've tried to recreate the original channels you made in a new chor. I can reload this and it seems to behave properly. See if this works better for you.

 

LavaC.prj

[bubba]

Weirdness may be (as Rob noted) in that you use the same material twice, if you need 2X particles, can't you just double the amount? If you really-really need the 2nd emitter- I'd recommend making a new model with a simple patches for the 2nd emitter which can be hidden inside the volcano and controlled as a separate model... separately.

 

 

Where did I use the same material twice?

[NancyGormezano]

You didn't use the material twice. What I believe is confusing everyone are the 2 sets of properties shown in your screen capture for the emitter (chor data).

 

The first set represents those properties you change in the chor. I believe the 2nd set represents those properties that are available to change in the material.

I notice when I was playing that even tho I hadn't changed object collisions to ON, and the default was set to OFF, it was set to on, in the 2nd set of props.

 

The other errant behavior that I notice is if I "bake particles" - then the simulation goes icky, and unpredictable, even if one changes the baked particle property to OFF. I suspect you would be better off for now, not baking particles for consistent behavior. I think there is conflict between the baked particle data (stored in a file) and using the "on the fly" data for fluids.

[bubba]

The other errant behavior that I notice is if I "bake particles" - then the simulation goes icky, and unpredictable, even if one changes the baked particle property to OFF. I suspect you would be better off for now, not baking particles for consistent behavior. I think there is conflict between the baked particle data (stored in a file) and using the "on the fly" data for fluids.

 

 

I did not think I was "baking particles." I don't even know what that means. When I look at the property panel it shows OFF (grayed out.)

[NancyGormezano]

I did not think I was "baking particles." I don't even know what that means. When I look at the property panel it shows OFF (grayed out.)

 

Then I don't know what your problem is. And yes I see from your screen capture that you hadn't baked particles: right click in chor window, choose bake particle systems, note new items (particle file, index, etc) that show up in chor data.

 

I find that I usually have most luck with particles and other tricky things (eg hair, dynamics) if I do not embed anything (save material, models, chor as separate from project), and before I render, I close and restart A:M fresh. I have not played much with fluids, so no help here.

 

Your particular project behaved weirdly on my system. It came up with an empty window for your volcano model that I could not close, so I unembedded everything in order to play with it.

[robcat2075]

Baking wasn't the problem.

 

Does the new PRJ work?

[bubba]

Sorry I have not got back sooner on that question. I opened your updated project and saw only a single set of drivers. But when I played it nothing happened. Now I have mucked it up a bit by moving to the release version of 16. But my old version looks correct now. I just wish that real-time rendering was faster. I have it dropping frames but the timeline still jumps to the ends about half-way through the animation.

[robcat2075]

Sorry I have not got back sooner on that question. I opened your updated project and saw only a single set of drivers. But when I played it nothing happened.

 

absolutely nothing? I open it up in V16 and particles come out of the volcano when I slide the time.

 

Are you sure you have Show particles on?

[bubba]

Are you sure you have Show particles on?

 

 

Ah, sorry. It is always the little things that trip you up. Yes I did not have Show Particles turned on. Works fine now. Thanks.