continuing a sim or picking up a sim

[tallen]

To anyone's' knowledge, is there any way to pick up a sim from some point halfway through the sim? Reason: A typical frustration with a farm render. It crashed... and we trying to pick it up where we left off.

Can it be done? We tried picking it up from the last complete frame. No go. The sim seems to want to cook every preceding frame before the crash, which is of course hours long.

Anyone have any luck with this? Some special way? Have to ask!

thanks!

[TheUsualAlex]

Hi Tom, yeah, you probably would have to use the File DOP to write out the .sim file tho... that's the only way to allow you to pick up from where you last left off... Unfortunately, this could potentially resulting in a huge .sim file in your directory. hope that helped... File SOP can read the .sim file too.

[tallen]

Thanks Alex, we'll give it another try. We actually tried it and got two (unsatisfactory) results. On the first attempt the sim just sat there for an hour which lead us to believe that the sim was in fact trying to recook all the previous frames. On the second attempt we just got what was probably a user error, so perhaps we'll try again, thanks.

-tom

Hi Tom, yeah, you probably would have to use the File DOP to write out the .sim file tho... that's the only way to allow you to pick up from where you last left off... Unfortunately, this could potentially resulting in a huge .sim file in your directory. hope that helped... File SOP can read the .sim file too.

[Owl]

Thanks Alex, we'll give it another try. We actually tried it and got two (unsatisfactory) results. On the first attempt the sim just sat there for an hour which lead us to believe that the sim was in fact trying to recook all the previous frames. On the second attempt we just got what was probably a user error, so perhaps we'll try again, thanks.

-tom

hi,

i remember having luck with putting a file dop between final output node and a rop node where rop node would overwrite file each frame, and file dop would be set to auto mode and actual sequence - it would read up to the last frame from hard drive and then start simulating. And maybe (just maybe) your dop network is trying to cache the simulation instead of recooking it?

[tallen]

The kind folks at SESI have instructed me to use the Explicit Cache parameter located on a Dop Network. That, in conjunction with using the file dop (and saving as .sim), will allow the user to 'pick up' a sim that has crashed some between here and there. Really cool. I suggest you check it out.

Thanks for all the help!

-tom

[RontheDon]

The kind folks at SESI have instructed me to use the Explicit Cache parameter located on a Dop Network. That, in conjunction with using the file dop (and saving as .sim), will allow the user to 'pick up' a sim that has crashed some between here and there. Really cool. I suggest you check it out.

Thanks for all the help!

-tom

VERY helpful!

thanks mate