1.5.1.38002
Had a case today where I tried to save a PRT out and it failed to do so…
Rendered the PRT, with PCache on.
Changed mode from Render to Save.
Changed saved channels (added lighting as emission, removed normals, etc).
Hit Save Particles.
The resulting PRT is 1KB. I’m assuming that the channels in the PCache were no longer valid, but because PCache was active it wasn’t retrieving the particles (and their new channels).
Cannot repro.
When the mode is set to Save Particles, the PCache appears to be ignored as expected.
In general, the memory channels should not play any role when saving particles. Being able to save the Cache to PRTs is a Wishlist item we have on the list since around 1.0, but it is still not possible, so I would expect the problem you had to be something else.
If you can find steps to reproduce 100%, please let us know!
The PCache button was both yellow AND greyed out. A greyish yellow?
I hit the Save 3 times, and nothing happened, then I saw the PCache button, turned from Save to Render, turned off the PCache, set it to Save, and 2 minutes later has a 400MB PRT.
The graying out is a UI feature, trying to illustrate that the PCache would not be used in Save Particles mode.
I don’t want to uncheck it because if you switch back to Rendering mode, you wouldn’t want it to be changed if you left it on.
Here is my test:
*Create a Teapot.
*Create a PRT Volume out of it.
*UNCHECK all source options, including PRT Volume.
*Render a frame - it will be empty.
*Check PCache button - the empty scene is now locked in Cache.
*Check the PRT Volume option and render - since the PCache is locked and empty, still nothing renders.
*With PCache still checked, I switch to Save Particles, specify a CSV file and save.
RESULT: All PRT Volume particles are saved to the file despite the PCache being empty and checked and rendering nothing.
At this point, I went to the Channels rollout and checked “Save Lighting into Emission”.
This should in theory perform the lighting pass of the rendering process and then save the particles.
With the empty PCache on (I even checked the empty LCache just in case), I expected to get an empty CSV, but it actually saved all particles, including the correct lighting.
So as far as I can tell, PCache and LCache are completely ignored when using Save Particles To File Sequence, with or without Lighting to Emission saving.
Can you repeat the above steps or provide your own?