General caching-questions and problems

[Nygma]

Hio to everyone,

well I have some general questions and problems regarding caching of sims (volume-wise). This happened and has been tried in 12.1 and 12.5.

1. When I create a new explicit cache in a given directory this works pretty good (well sometimes it just stops when files get too big, but I got used to that... ). However if this simulation is paused and then restarted again after a close/open of Houdini it most likely won't continue the simulation. Most often it just creates 1kb files for the rest of the simulation and then just switches to playback. Any idea what this could be? It doesn't happen always but I would say in about 80% of the situations.

2. If the simulation continues as planned, the process creates two identical frames. Let's say it stopped at frame 53 before and should go on with 54, the frame from 53 and the newly created 54 are the same (even in file size). Is this the normal way or am I doing something wrong here?

3. This is more of a general question - are there better ways than using the "explicit cache" for such simulations? I pretty much like this way, but maybe there are other, better ways in writing sims out.

4. When simulation is done in the viewport, Houdini starts to playback the created files over and over again, even if there is set something else in the playback settings. Is there a way to stop that and just finish simulation after it simmed ok?

Well lots of questions and stuff - sorry for that - I am thankful for every answer of course and maybe some issues have occurred to someone else as well although I didn't find anything about it.

Thank you in advance.

[traiano]

I been experiencing similar problems. Explicit cache is fine. Be sure to do it with the timeline as one way only and not looped so it doesnt starts again once it finished. when is done, turn off explicit cache, go back to frame 1 and load your .sim as one file only.