How are you guys doing with 2014? It seems very buggy to me.

[adrencg]

Did you reported it or sent the CER? This would help.

Another unrelated weird thing in regard to weight maps and ICE Syflex...when using an "active area" map, disconnecting the map will not really disconnect it. I have to destroy the ICE tree and rebuild it. Or copy/cut it, then destroy and re-paste into a new ICE tree to clear the "active area" map.

Ice syflex has some internal caching mechanism. What you spotted is not a bug. And the only workaround so far is to copy the ice tree and paste it in the new cloth

Thanks for answering back.

If I disconnect something, and it stays connected -- then that's a bug. The basic idea of something not being a bug is that it works as you expect it to, and no workaround is needed.

Can you elaborate on this internal caching mechanism and why it doesn't clear itself?

[chrischia]

Thanks for answering back.

If I disconnect something, and it stays connected -- then that's a bug. The basic idea of something not being a bug is that it works as you expect it to, and no workaround is needed.

Can you elaborate on this internal caching mechanism and why it doesn't clear itself?

Will have to email the syflex developer.
Will get back to you.

I am curious to know too

[chrischia]

Thanks for answering back.

If I disconnect something, and it stays connected -- then that's a bug. The basic idea of something not being a bug is that it works as you expect it to, and no workaround is needed.

Can you elaborate on this internal caching mechanism and why it doesn't clear itself?

Hi,
See below for the reply from Syflex Dev :
-----------------------------
There are a few weightmaps, some are cached, other aren't:

The weightMap on the syflexCloth node is not cached.
It is read at the beginning of each evaluation.

The "crop" attribute is not cached either, but it needs to have as many elements as there are points on the cloth.

The stiffness map is cached: it is used only when creating the springs.
I added a reset attribute on the "Syflex Cloth Springs" node (the one that is is inside the SyflexCloth node).
You need to set the reset, run one frame of the simulation, then put it back to off.

-----------------------------

Hope this helps.

[rray]

From the Syflex Dev's reply it looks like this is probably be why it doesn't work in ICE yet, at least not to the full extent that would be possible (and would be an easy fix and super cool to have btw)

In ICE what's connected to the stiffness map is dynamic input data, but the node can work only with (more or less) static input data if it works this way. Just a guess but it looks like the best option would be to remove that reset switch and have syflex check the ICE subtree's dirty flag instead and recalculate the cache if it's true, meaning the dynamic data has changed.

[chrischia]

And Syflex Dev also mentioned that the "cached behaviour" which most of us experienced, also happened in the animated weightmap.
They have acknowledged that and are looking into a fix.

Thanks everyone for your input. I have also conveyed the suggestion to workaround the static data to them too.

Cheers,
Chris

[rray]

Good to hear. Thanks, Chris.

[adrencg]

I'm onto another bug that's been responsible for a lot of lost work. I can't duplicate it exactly yet, but I'm seeing a pattern of a crash when switching to shape modeling mode after doing a lot of geometry modifications in the modeling stack. I freeze the modeling, then switch to shape modeling -- crash.

[chrischia]

I'm onto another bug that's been responsible for a lot of lost work. I can't duplicate it exactly yet, but I'm seeing a pattern of a crash when switching to shape modeling mode after doing a lot of geometry modifications in the modeling stack. I freeze the modeling, then switch to shape modeling -- crash.

So did you apply the weightmap to the syflex before starting to modify the modeling stack?
If so, I would advise to unplugin the weightmap and recreate a new map if the geometry topo has changed.

[adrencg]

Here's a crash I've noticed several times. When painting a weight map being used for "active area" in Syflex, I get a crash when switching from add to smooth mode. It's happened at least at least enough times for me to be scared when doing it.

[adrencg]

The crashing with weight painting...please guys I hope you can find a fix for this because its really bad. Is this something you've tracked down yet?

I didn't install sp2 yet, but I didn't notice anything about a fix for it in the list. Will I do better with sp2?

[adrencg]

Switching construction modes is what's killing me tonight. About 10 crashes when switching to any construction mode.

[mattmos]

Have you tried deleting your user profile and starting fresh? You're getting waaay more crashes than me (using 2014 sp2) and i'm doing a lot of weight map stuff, ice data etc, really it feels like one of the more stable releases to me. The only thing i havent touched yet is syflex...

[adrencg]

Have you tried deleting your user profile and starting fresh? You're getting waaay more crashes than me (using 2014 sp2) and i'm doing a lot of weight map stuff, ice data etc, really it feels like one of the more stable releases to me. The only thing i havent touched yet is syflex...

I'm going to try sp2 today. I've been avoiding it because in all honesty every upgrade of Softimage since 2013 sp1 has been getting worse and worse for me. I could work for weeks in 2013 without a crash, now I deal with lost work and crashes all day.

[Ahmidou]

Sp2 isn't going to help you in this case, the two fixed bugs were very specifics.

[adrencg]

Chris, have you guys seen the crash bug with switching construction modes? It happens to me about 50% of the time.

[j3st3r]

We have massive boolean crashes. Here's a sample, if anyone can make the boolean in this scene (the sphere is to be differenced out of the other object) I'd be really happy.