Low res simulation for display/high-res render

[Joelaff]

Is there any way to do this easily? I have a very dense high-res simulation that I need for rendering. Since I am net rendering this is on a network drive, and is slow to scrub the timeline (like very slow).

It would be nice if there was a way to use a proxy low res simulation for display (or to read the simulation from a local disk for display, but use the network path for rendering).

I guess I could resimulate low res and put that in the Input field. But then I would have to switch that for rendering (either manually, or by script).

Thoughts?

Thanks.

[Ivaylo Katev]

currently no such mechanism is implemented, however we are considering it

[ivaylo.ivanov]

We must implement a separate command line tool that will allow such tasks. And the UI can be slightly reworked to allow second cache path for preview.

[Neilg]

Would it be possible to automatically reduce the resolution as it simulates and save a copy? Like when you're doing the high res sim, a check box which makes it take each frame as it's done and drop the resolution down to 1/4 or some arbitrary value, saving it in the same place as the high res one. With that mode active, you could have the low res one in the viewport but the high res one for renders.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

We will add something more easier to use. However generating this preview will not be without a performance hit, and you will be tempted to turn it off while testing the simulation. And then you may get your simulation ready, but no preview for it. Post-processing tools work always. It may not cost that much though... We will see. On big simulations you will probably not care for a couple more seconds.

[Ivaylo Katev]

it's a good idea to keep low res preview grid, because now even if we reduce the cells, the entire file is loaded and decompressed. this have to be implemented in one or other moment, just question of time.

[Joelaff]

Both of these methods sound good.

Of course, the built-in, create a preview as you go method is ideal from a user feedback standpoint, but I do understand that it might slow things down, especially when testing. Then the user might forget to turn it on for hi-res sim.

It might be nice to a Production vs. Test popup menu for storing the settings. This would essentially be the presets you have now, but there could be two special presets with every scene, one fore production, and one for testing. They would automatically get stored (for instance if you had production active and changed something and the switched to testing the settings would be stored in production.

You would also want a method to copy production to testing and testing to production (possibly with a checkbox NOT to copy the grid resolution, so that you could copy everything except the grid settings very easily... This would necessitate storing the grid bounding box in scene units, rather than in cells, which is how I think everyone would like it anyway!)

But I would take a commandline tool to create the proxy, and then two input source filename settings, one for in Max, the other for rendering.