Birth Volume Object Not Disabled When Hidden

[Joelaff]

I realize the topic is confusing, and not even precisely the problem...

I have a box object as a Birth Volume for Foam and Splashes. If this box is hidden (via Max) , but not excluded from the sim then it affects the liquid as well and acts like a solid object (I did not turn off solid object-- and what I was seeing was that my liquid was not being emitted inside the box-- I didn't test it for collisions, etc.)) even though Exclude Hidden Objects in on for the sim.

So in order to use this a Birth Volume I had to manually add it to the Exclude Objects list for the sim (or make it non-solid I suppose). I found it confusing that the hidden object was affecting the sim with Exclude Hidden Objects on. So I guess what is happening is that objects used as Birth Volumes are internally still evaluated fully. I would expect them only to be evaluated as birth volumes, and not to be used as part of the sim. (IIRC this is how Confine Geometry works-- you can leave it hidden, and not have to manually add it to the Exclusion list).

We are using nightly build 2021012030547 Max 2021.1

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Yess, we added this per request just lately in the nightlies The specific use case is when you have some heavy or complex geometry that you do not want in your view all the time. If anyone else has any thoughts on whether birth volumes should keep working if hidden, or not, please write here. We thought this was a good suggestion indeed, but if it needs to be re-thought, let's do that...

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

[Joelaff]

I see. So the behavior is by design. That is fine, but should probably be called out with a warning in the docs.

It confused me that my liquid went away when I enabled the birth volume. I figured it out, but I wasn't sure what was up at first, since I had tweaked a bunch of other things at the same time.

(My emitter was inside the birth volume.)

[Joelaff]

The change log brings up another question I have had for a while..

Is there any way to make a change log that shows each change listed per version (I guess that's with each build)? With the current format it is difficult to see what was actually changes from one build to the next. Since you guys are kind enough to make the nightlies available it is often useful to see what changed between different nightlies, as opposed to what changed since the release version.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ahum, you mean like:

2021-Feb-08 - 30581:
* fixed regression "something something"

2021-Feb-06 - 30580:
* added "new thing"
* fixed "something buggy"

2021-Feb-05 - 30577:
* created regression"something something"


I added a note to the docs when I did the birth volumes change, but now I see that I better also mention something about excluding the volume

[Joelaff]

Yeah, something like that. Did I miss that somewhere?

The file nightly_changelog.txt in the zip file (e.g. nightly_changelog_30581.zip) doesn't seem to have that per build info. Is it in some other doc?

I can also find the release change logs on line, but I am not finding the nightlies one like you pasted above. I am guessing this user error

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

nono, this is just how I imagined it. So we are on the same page I hope I can smuggle this sooner, but I'm right in the middle of something long, so it might take a while

[Joelaff]

Haha! No worries. I guess that is just the standard change log format I am used to from OSS, etc. If there is some easy way to do it that would be great. (Excel for the dates vs the build number comes to mind just because you don't have to write any SQL to pull a query, LOL, not that we can't write that crap from our sleep like most people.)

The advantage of Excel or a proper DB is that you can reformat it however you want. By Excel of course I mean LibreOffice...

HOWEVER, I would hate to take any of your great skillz away form the real goal, which is making Phoenix better. So if a different change log format slows you down, fugettabought it!

But, yes, like you showed above. It would be great to know what was new. Maybe this is even auto-created from the notes for your commits into your RCS.