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Hey guys! Can you help me? Im a new User!


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Hi everybody!

 

I am a new Houdini user. Yay! I have experience in Cinema 4D, and 3ds Max so I am not no to 3D, just new to Houdini! I have a small problem And I dont know why this is happening. I did a pyro tutorial and my computer crashes and I dont know why. I have a PC, INTEL I7-3930K 3.2GHZ with a 120 GB SSD. My C drive gets full pretty fast, but only when im running Houdini. When I run Cinema 4D, or Max, I never run into these issues. I had 20 GB's on the drive free, but when I come back to my computer its almost all gone out of memory. 

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hey, thanks!  Although Im having issues with that process. I change my path on the explicit catch files to another drive on my PC. I can run one sim properly, and then if I want to re-do the sim, it seems like I have to stop, and make another cache folder with a different name, and then run the sim again. Is this right? Do I have to always make another folder, just to run some simple test in the viewport? Also im finding that it I put   _${OS}_$SF  on the end of the file names, it writes out in a sequence. Do I always have to do this? Seems like alot, just to test something out, or just trying to make a flipbook. Im using Houdini 13 Apprentice by the way!

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20 GB is very small for pyro simulation work.  You can try ticking 'Compress .sim Files' on the AutoDopNetwork, or, uncheck Cache Simulation on 'AutoDopNetork' node

 

Never had to make new folders to run tests, probably as there is enough hard-drive space.

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So if i uncheck cache Simulation, that should do the trick? Will it run the same way, with the speed of the SSD, but without the fast playback because it is not cached? Is this the standard way of working with simulations if you just want to make a flipbook? Im away, and I wont be at my computer for a few days, so I cant test it on my workstation just yet:(

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When you say, "just want to make a flipbook" it is exactly the same data as when you render through Mantra. Not sure your expectation of volumes is but any decently detailed volumes take a lot of space, they are totally different to particles, keyframing or other 'normal' 3d operations.

 

Simply consider 20GB free is on HD is very very small.  100GB to 1TB should available for caching or writing out simulations

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Yes, I understand that when you are writing out data, to use for rendering or whatever else, you need alot more than 20gb of space. I was just wondering how to simply make flipbooks, without writing out the data, Just to test the simulation without having my computer crash because the SSD was getting filled up. I just wanted to know how to test things, and see how the sim behaved in real time, reviewing the filpbook, without having to write the data. I was running out of memory, but I didnt know why. 

 

My other question for now is about the VDB nodes. Im looking at a waterfall tutorial on the sidefx website. I know that it is in Houdini 12.5, nd I am using Houdini 13. I see that there are some extra VDB nodes where you write out the data, for the surface, and splash. I see alot of people talking about VBD workflow. What is this? I understand using VDB for collisions from the tutorial from k240, but not for anything else. Can anyone help me understand this?

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Yes, I understand that when you are writing out data, to use for rendering or whatever else, you need alot more than 20gb of space. I was just wondering how to simply make flipbooks, without writing out the data, Just to test the simulation without having my computer crash because the SSD was getting filled up. I just wanted to know how to test things, and see how the sim behaved in real time, reviewing the filpbook, without having to write the data. I was running out of memory, but I didnt know why. 

 

My other question for now is about the VDB nodes. Im looking at a waterfall tutorial on the sidefx website. I know that it is in Houdini 12.5, nd I am using Houdini 13. I see that there are some extra VDB nodes where you write out the data, for the surface, and splash. I see alot of people talking about VBD workflow. What is this? I understand using VDB for collisions from the tutorial from k240, but not for anything else. Can anyone help me understand this?

About the first part, well you can always set your sims to a lower resolution for previewing and then when you're ready just up all things. Just understand that there might be small change in the look of your sims from the low-res version to the high-res.

 

About VDBs, it's basically a data structure to deal with sparse volumetric data. You can find more here:

http://www.openvdb.org/about/

 

and I highly suggest you look into the houdini example files here:

http://www.openvdb.org/download/

 

Cheers

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Yes, I understand that when you are writing out data, to use for rendering or whatever else, you need alot more than 20gb of space. I was just wondering how to simply make flipbooks, without writing out the data, Just to test the simulation without having my computer crash because the SSD was getting filled up. I just wanted to know how to test things, and see how the sim behaved in real time, reviewing the filpbook, without having to write the data. I was running out of memory, but I didnt know why. 

 

 

 

We can help you better if;

 

You let us know how much Ram your computer has?

 

Can you please upload your project file here.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Edit:

 

hi,

 

 when you do a pyro sim,houdini automaticaly write  a cache for you .you should change your cache directory , check this : http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&p=122143&sid=c0485abfd809b5a93ceb3887e8ee8611

 

 

Testing this and the Cache is only written when the DOP Network/Cache Memory setting is reached.

Edited by tar
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