Here is Stoke MX Beta build #2. We’ll get a change log going shortly.
(Attachments removed)
This list is WIP…
[size=150]New Cache Mechanism[/size]
The caching has been completely redone.
- Stoke will now always cache to memory, caching to disk is optional.
- The Memory Cache now has a Limit expressed in MegaBytes. Default limit is 4096MB.
- When simulating, the particles data will be stored in the Memory Cache.
- If Enable Disk Cache is checked, the particle data will also be sent to a secondary buffer (currently half the size of the Memory Limit) and will be written to PRTs in a separate thread. Thus when the simulation finishes, the memory cache will be ready for playback, while the PRT saving will continue in the background.
- If the Memory Cache limit is reached, frames will be dropped from the beginning of the cache if they are already saved to disk.
- If the scene is saved and then reloaded, the Stoke Memory Cache will be repopulated from disk, assuming the cache path contains valid data.
- The Memory Cache can be cleared and will be repopulated from disk if data is available as you scrub or play back - the cache usage will be displayed in the UI.
- The Memory Cache can be flushed, causing all unsaved data to be written to disk.
- The Memory Cache can also be saved to a different location as PRT sequence. This makes sense only when every frame has been simulated - currently, if Cache Nth is > 1, the resulting PRT sequence will be missing the intermediate frames.
- When a PRT Loader is created via the [+] button, the cache will be flushed first to ensure all data is saved to disk.
- The cache size can be set to 0 to force reloading from disk cache on every frame.
- The cache size can be set to a very large value to use all available memory.
[size=150]UI Changes[/size]
- Setting default jitter to 0.0 for particles
- Default velocity scale to 1.0
- Fixed Velocity Field filter to exclude already picked objects
- Changed Velocity list to be single-selection
- Fixed help link
- Fixed Directory browser default path
- Graying out Velocity Scale when nothing is selected in the ListView
- Added “Vary Randomness Over Time” option
- Now respecting animated RandomSeed within the simulation loop
- Disabling the [+] button when Krakatoa is not installed.
- Added PRT Hair as a possible velocity source (Velocity from Tangent, for example)
- Updated creation MacroScript to add pre-selected objects to Stoke.
- Added version and prefix fields to output path
- Added rcmenu for selecting/exploring/setting and getting default path
- Options to save cache from mem to disk, flush etc.
[size=150]Bug Fixes[/size]
- Playback interpolation will now respect the Age channel and only show particles that are already born.
- Deleting “Dead” particles was corrupting acquired channels. This has been fixed.
- Deleted velocity sources were breaking the UI, this has been fixed.
[size=150]Stoke Object Creation [/size]
- If multiple objects are selected when the Stoke MacroScript is executed, they will be added as Emitters and/or Velocity objects if they pass the respective filters. For example, selecting a Teapot and a Wind SpaceWarp and then clicking the Stoke MacroScript button will add the Teapot as Distribution object and the Wind as Velocity source.
- The Version string of the output path will be set to the largest version number in the cache output folder, plus one. E.g. if there are folders “v001”, “bobo010” and “123”, the new object will be set to “v124” because “123” is the highest number. Creating another Stoke will set it to “v125” and so on. Note that the new cache folder will be created immediately.
[size=150]Not Implemented Yet / Known Limitations:[/size]
- Stoke does not provide sub-frame sampling yet, but it is planned for the final release.
- Stoke does not support full PFlow systems, only the first Event (similar to Ember). This should be fixed before the final release. In the mean time you can save the PFlow to PRT using Krakatoa and emit from a PRT Loader instead.
- Stoke cannot emit directly from a FumeFX grid yet. The workaround is to use a PRT FumeFX to seed particles by Fire threshold (or Smoke, if desired), and emit from the PRT FumeFX instead. Support for direct emission from FumeFX might be added at a later point.