This build is a release candidate; It has all the features we plan to add for Stoke 1.0 so its now just a matter of making sure everything works properly in all situations. Please let us know when you encounter any rough edges.
(Attachments removed)
[size=150]Bug Fixes[/size]
- When matching a Distribution Source PRT object’s particle count by ID, attempting to set the emitter’s Rate value from -1 to 0 failed in RC1. As result, the Emit Until controls were ignored when the “Use Seed Count As Rate” option was checked. This has been corrected.
[size=150]User Interface Changes[/size]
- Added File and Explore icons to the Network Path field.
- Added a button to update the Stoke objects list.
- Improved the disabling of the Partitioning buttons when no Stoke object is found, the path is invalid, or Deadline has not been detected on the system.
- Added Saving Thread Limit to both Local Partitioning and Deadline Partitioning. By default, all cores will be used to save PRT files.
- When deleting existing PRT files from a network location in the beginning of a simulation, a prompt will appear asking whether to delete or overwrite them directly. If the files are on a local drive, they will always be deleted first to ensure cancelling does not leave an old set of files as part of the new sequence. Deleting files over a VPN can be slow (100 files could take up to two minutes to delete), so you can opt out if you expect such low performance.
- Deadline Partitioning Jobs will now show Explore Output options in the Deadline Monitor.
[size=150]System Changes[/size]
- Cancelling the flushing now does not reset the Stoke cache. This also improves the UI update time when stopping the background saving. A MAXScript method CancelFlushParticleCache() has been exposed to cancel the saving.
- In previous builds, PRTs were always saved to a temporary folder before being moved to the final destination. In this build, saving PRTs to a local drive will save a temp. file directly in the destination folder. If the destination is a network drive, the temporary file will be written to the folder specified by the OS TEMP environment variable, unless a PRT_TEMPDIR environment variable is set to specify a custom location. This allows you to specify a faster temporary drive like an SSD if desired. Note that on typical 4 core / 8 thread systems, the saving on 8 threads is normally CPU-bound and cannot saturate the bandwidth of a regular SATA HDD, so writing to an SSD does not improve speed. This might be different on multi-CPU machines with 16 or 32 threads though.
- More information about the simulation and writing process will be output to the Listener when Stoke is set to Debug mode.
[size=150]Installer Changes[/size]
- Added support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2014
- Updated installer icon colors to new logo palette.
This is an updated Stoke UI Script which addresses some recently reported bugs.
A new RC3 will be posted later this week with deeper Core fixes.
We are posting this to let you test the script fixes longer without having to wait for the full RC3 installer.
To update, please copy the content of the attached ZIP into the C:\Program Files\Thinkbox\Stoke MX\Scripts\ folder while logged in as Administrator. You might want to back up the original file first.
[size=150]Changes[/size]
- Added optional per-object Grid settings. This allows you to have two particle systems that have completely different grid settings to better capture their specific motion, or set one to use Fluid Motion while another does not.
- The Velocity list will now show Scale, Grid Size, Padding and Fluid Motion since they can be all per-object.
- When the Use Global Grid Settings option is turned off, the Velocity Sources filter will allow the same particle source to be picked multiple times to add multiple versions together. This way, you can have the same particle system mixed with itself two or three times with different grid sizes to “blur” its influence. Be sure to set the Scale to less than 1.0 for the multiple instances since the mixing is currently additive.
- Added a checkbox to allow the picking of the same Distribution object more than once. It is unchecked by default, so picking Box001 will remove it from future picks. When checked, you can add the same object as many times as you want and give each instance different settings. This way, you can for example mix emission from vertices and edges, or surface plus volume etc.
- To facilitate the management of the same object picked more than once, the storage of the active objects for both lists had to be changed. Previously, the list of active objects was stored in the parameter block in addition to all objects. In this version, a boolean flags list stores the enabled state of the objects from the full list. As result, loading scenes saved with previous versions of Stoke will FORGET the disabled states of some objects - all objects will be turned on. Once modified manually, the new states will be recorded. Similarly, loading a scene saved with this version in an older version of Stoke will DISABLE all checkboxes because the active objects list would be empty.
[size=150]Bug Fixes[/size]
- Fixed a problem when attempting to use a [>>] preset button (e.g. Icon Size) while in Create mode but before a scene object is actually created. Now the menu won’t open unless a valid Stoke object is created.
- Fixed an error in the Pick Output Path function of the Folder menu which wasn’t expanding the $default path correctly.
- Fixed handling of Missing Plugins. When an instance of a plugin object (e.g. TP) was added to Stoke and the scene was loaded on a machine with that plugin missing, it was confusing Stoke because the object type was coming as undefined. This is now handled correctly.
- Worked around the Preview Nth problem not updating when Disk Cache is on. Looks like Stoke was attempting to access a non-existent PRT file. It will now use the previous frame to advance the time slider. A better fix might come in later.
StokeUI_20130422.zip (26.4 KB)
Here is yet another update of the Stoke UI script:
[size=150]Change List[/size]
- Implemented the File Name Prefix [>>] button to show a menu with two options - “Default Name ‘Stoke’” and “Object Name ‘Stoke001’” where the latter uses the name of the current Stoke object.
- Added an error trap and error message when the Add Magma and Delete Modifiers button for deleting by Age causes a problem. I have not figure out why, but during a demo in NYC it failed and I’d rather have it handle that rare case gracefully…
- The Geometry Mode property was not being managed correctly when adding/removing Distribution sources. If you added 3 objects, set the third to use Edges>Edge Selection and then deleted the first or second, the settings of the third were corrupted, switching to Surface mode instead. This has been fixed.
StokeUI_20130423.zip (26.6 KB)