Phoenix: Restore a aborted simulation

Deadline
1

Hey,
is it somehow possible to restore a aborted phoenix simulation?

Phoenix calculates simulation only on a single node - so, if the slave crashes and restarts it’s calculating the simulation from the beginning and not from the last “safe-frame”. Is there any option? Event? Script? Any suggestion? :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
Simon

2

Hmm. I’m not sure if Phoenix supports any sort of check pointing and it looks like it’s only useful if you’ve enabled some sort of “Backup Interval”:
docs.chaosgroup.com/display/P213M/Simulation

What app are you running this sim inside of? I don’t think we have any plugin-specific settings in Maya or Cinema. 3DS Max is a special case, but I can’t recall anything for Phoenix specifically.

3

We’re using 3dsMax here.

As far as i know is the “Backup Interval” required for any kind of “restore” stopped/paused PhoenixFD simulations - and of course, in the case of a crashed simulation on Deadline, you can start 3dsMax, load your scene, hit the restore button and submit the scene again to Deadline - but, it would a much smoother workflow to have something like “restart the simulation from the last save-frame”…

Cheers!

4

docs.chaosgroup.com/display/P21 … t-StartSim

Currently the simulation code does not pass the cache path or the start frame as optional arguments to the A_StartSim() function.
(The SMTD Workflow script uses the same function calls as the Deadline submitter Chaos Group ship with Phoenix.)

	local thePhoenixFD = execute (du.GetJobInfoEntry "PhoenixFDToSimulate")
	local theIndex = du.CurrentFrame
	if theIndex < 1 or theIndex > thePhoenixFD.count do du.FailRender "Index Out Of Range!"
	local theObject = getNodeByName thePhoenixFD[theIndex]
	A_StartSim(theObject)
	A_Wait(theObject)

But from looking at the above documentation link, it would be possible to force the simulator to load from file and continue (if supported). However, there are a bunch of other parameters involved, and I am not a Phoenix guru, so I will have to educate myself a bit first…

5

Hey Bobo,
since this occurs more frequently for me I wanted to ask if you had success with it?

Cheers!

6

I am afraid not, too much travel…
I will has try to push it higher on my ToDo list.