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Cache Optimization


Mark01

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Hi All! 

Are there any ways to optimise/reduce the file size of Houdini caches. 

I'm caching a (very small) FLIP fluid sim with a 'File Cache' Node at the moment and each frame is about 100MB. Multiply by 500 frames and that's a BIG cache! - not to mention the time its taking!

I am sure it shouldn't be this large considering this is only a very small fluid sim so any tips would be great!

I know a lot of people have this issue with sims so hopefully kind people can help us out! 

Thanks in advance!

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7 hours ago, Atom said:

Use a larger particle separation. That will reduce file size. It will also speed up your simulation time and lower the quality of the simulation.

Hey Atom! Thanks for the advise. I will give it a go however the particle separation is already at 0.1 which I thought was quite high?

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2 hours ago, lukeiamyourfather said:

In the big picture 100MB per frame for a simulation cache is not that much. Drives are cheap and 10GBASE-T networking hardware is now affordable. If storing a 50GB cache is an issue I suggest looking at upgrading hardware.

I agree it's not massive, but I'm just trying to find ways to optimise it and save time. Also i'm guessing the small the file, the easier and faster it is to read from?

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Miles, the value 0.1 is related to the size of the entire container so 0.1 in one scene is not the same as 0.1 in another. You can't rely on a "magic" number in this case. What I do is create a float variable on the fluidobject and establish a voxel estimate based upon the particle separation and the size of the box that contains the fluid.

ch("../flipsolver1/limit_sizex")/ch("particlesep")*ch("../flipsolver1/limit_sizey")/ch("particlesep")*ch("../flipsolver1/limit_sizez")/ch("particlesep")

This will report a scientific notation number with +6,+7 +8 or more. +6 means millions of voxels, +7 means 10 million voxels and +8 means 100 million voxels. Small t5weaks to particle separation can have a big effect. Being able to see the voxel count change is really helpful. It will even update when the system is in Manual mode.

Edited by Atom
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