reopenin a scene with initialized skinnging layers fails

[Sophia Zauner]

When I initialize a skinning layer (so that a ngSkinToolsData Node is created) and save the scene.

I am not able to reopen that scene again.

If I initialize the layer, do some tweaks and and bake the skinning (Edit - Delete Custom Nodes),

save the scene and open it again, everything is fine.

Or is the workflow meant to work over exporting and importing the layers as XML files instead

of saving the scene with its custom nodes?

However, I love the features of your tool... skinning is much more fun with ngSkinTolls :)

I am working with ngSkinTools for Maya2012 x64, Windows

version: 1.0beta, released on January 16, 2013

[viktoras]

hi, gonna investigate this. We've had this before and I presumed I had that solved already.

--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com

[viktoras]

hi again,

I could not reproduce that. I created a new scene, initialized layers, saved it, closed maya, opened it again and opened the file. layers were there...

In the past there were problems with 2012 maya as in that version a compiler version changed, so it really sounds like you're loading a 2011 plugin in 2012 maya - though I can't imagine how that could work, never tried.

Could you do some more homework for me:

* if this is not your first installation of the plugin, uninstall/delete any ngskintools installations, then install it again - make sure first that this is exactly 2012, 64 bit plugin;

* in plugin manager (maya menu window>settings/preferences>plugin manager) make sure the ngSkinTools.mll is loaded (it should autoload on scene open, but just in case)

* try opening scene I attached. I saved that on my maya 2012. I'm able to open that myself on 2012. It's  a simple plane with a couple of joints and two layers. see if you can open that.

let me know how that works.

--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com

[Sophia Zauner]

hi, i just did my homework... :)

i am able to correctly load your testfile, so its not a problem of the wrong version,
of your plugin, right?

did a quick test with a clean version of my mesh (with just 4 bones) and it works
correctly too.

after that i increased the joint count up to 50 (the scene size doubled from approx. 5mb
without your plugin to approx. 10mb with initialized layer)
as i tried to open the 10mb file the loading of the file stop for about 5 seconds, but it
opened.

do you think the problem could be the filesize? the file I cant open anymore has approx.
60mb and without the use of your plugin the fiesize is just around 6mb.

Before i go to sleep I will try to open the scene again... perhaps it just takes ages to
open a file with so much data in layer data stored.

thanks for your quick reply!






viktoras schrieb:

hi again,

I could not reproduce that. I created a new scene, initialized layers,
saved it, closed maya, opened it again and opened the file. layers
were there...

In the past there were problems with 2012 maya as in that version a
compiler version changed, so it really sounds like you're loading a
2011 plugin in 2012 maya - though I can't imagine how that could work,
never tried.

Could you do some more homework for me:
* if this is not your first installation of the plugin,
uninstall/delete any ngskintools installations, then install it again
- make sure first that this is exactly 2012, 64 bit plugin;
* in plugin manager (maya menu window>settings/preferences>plugin
manager) make sure the ngSkinTools.mll is loaded (it should autoload
on scene open, but just in case)

* try opening scene I attached. I save d that on my maya 2012. I'm able

to open that myself on 2012. It's  a simple plane with a couple of
joints and two layers. see if you can open that.

let me know how that works.


On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 7:53 PM, viktoras <ituden...@gmail.com
<mailto:ituden...@gmail.com>> wrote:

    hi, gonna investigate this. We've had this before and I presumed I
    had that solved already.


    On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 6:46 PM, Sophia Zauner
    <zauner...@googlemail.com

    <mailto:zauner...@googlemail.com>> wrote:

        When I initialize a skinning layer (so that a ngSkinToolsData
        Node is created) and save the scene.
        I am not able to reopen that scene again.

&nbs p;       If I initialize the layer, do some tweaks and and bake the

        skinning (Edit - Delete Custom Nodes),
        save the scene and open it again, everything is fine.

        Or is the workflow meant to work over exporting and importing
        the layers as XML files instead
        of saving the scene with its custom nodes?

        However, I love the features of your tool... skinning is much
        more fun with ngSkinTolls :)

        I am working with ngSkinTools for Maya2012 x64, Windows
        version: 1.0beta, released on January 16, 2013

< BR>     --
    viktoras m.
    www.neglostyti.com <http://www.neglostyti.com>




--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com <http://www.neglostyti.com>

[viktoras]

hm.. The demo model I've used is not the densiest mesh in the world, but it for sure does not lack joints:) It's done in 2011 maya, though, my default test platform. Could you get exact numbers for your scene? vertex count and influences count for the scene. If possible, let me know if there's any other post-skin deformation added to the model, like mesh smooth or anything. I'd see if I can reproduce a slow load on my machine on 2012.

--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com

[Sophia Zauner]

good things come to those who wait!

// File read in 994 seconds.

everything is fine within the scene. all skinning layers are still there.

So I guess maya is just fighting with all that data on the startup.

My mesh has a vertex count of around 28000 and is skinning to 177 joints, no

other influences and right now the mesh hast just the skincluster as an input

and no post-skin deformations.

[viktoras]

hm.

that is a lot of joints after all:) I'll see what is causing to be it so slow with this many joints. Could you try doing one more thing..

on that mesh, create a new layer, and skin everything to one joint (flood replace 1.0 weight). delete the layer underneath, so you'll have a mesh that's bound to a lot of influences, but really only having weights for one influence.

let's see how that saves/loads.

--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com

[viktoras]

Hi,

I'll need you to do some homework again:) I really can't reproduce the situation. I started with 30k mesh skinned to 200 influences, created a few layers - one skinned to all joints, some to one or two, some more - all in all a 200mb file size. I can get that loaded in roughly one second, so it gets nowhere close to load times you have. This is all running on a 4 year old core 2 duo laptop CPU  - so unless you have a 486 Pentium, the issue must be somewhere else.

Could you experiment a bit, what might be causing that slow load?

* start with an empty scene, a plane 200x150 segments, add a good bunch of joints, like 200; save it, load it, inspect performance;

* initialize layers, and save/load with one layer, inspect performance again;

* add more layers, paint some weights on a few influences in each (empty layers don't take that much space), inspect performance again when loading/saving.


It really could be that it will not start acting up with a simple plane - then there could be an issue with your mesh.. We'll see. Let's try this first.

--
viktoras m.
www.neglostyti.com

[Sophia Zauner]

Hi!

Homework, like back in my school days... :)
Yes, I will go through your tests and try it out. Hopefully I´ll be able to make it tonight.

[Sophia Zauner]

Hi! 

Sorry for the late reply!

I went through my homework and here comes what I found out:

What I tried first, was to create the highres plane and smooth bind

it to the 200 joints:

without your plugin: approx. 11mb

with your plugin: approx. 70mb

Then I did a relax (through your UI) with ridiculously high settings:

without your plugin: approx. 46mb - loading time: 4 seconds

with your plugin: approx. 110mb - loading time: 1475 seconds

... so I thought okay, what would happen if I´d weight the geometry

more reasonable. 

So if we look just at two joints as an example unreasonable weights

would be (for example after using the relax tool) like:

joint1:  0.886453122

joint2:  0.113546878

... and of course there is a lot of data if such long floats

have to be stored in your node.

so I tried to clean the weighting, so that there are just

a few influences per vertex and with less data behind the decimal point:

without your plugin: approx. 10mb

with your plugin: approx. 12mb

and loading time wasn´t an issue at all with the 12 mb file.

So I think a lot of influences with a lot of numbers behind the

decimal point is what is causing the long loading times.

What do you think?

[viktoras]

Hi,

Hm.....I guess our problem was simple to begin with - are we talking about .ma files?:) Can you try and see if save/load is faster with .mb? I can easily the slowness with ASCII file. Don't know if something could be done easily about it though - will have to have a look at some point.

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--

Viktoras Makauskas

www.neglostyti.com - www.ngskintools.com