file size limit?

[Kris Rivel]

Is there a limit to file size for the scene file in Softimage?!  If so, anyway to increase the limit?

Kris

[Daniel Rajcic]

Hi Kris

I haven't encountered a filesize limit yet, so I'm not sure if there is one. But if you think that the filesize is the problem (how big the file is in terms of KB/MB), then maybe try to use reference models. Those will not only keep your file size small, because they link to external models somewhere else on your harddrive, but they also give you the chance to troubleshoot your scene. If you are dealing with many highres objects for example, reference models give you the possibility to load and off-load them on demand. That way you could see if a specific object makes your machine run out of memory.

Just an idea - maybe it helps?

 

cheers,

Daniel

[Alan Fregtman]

Hi Kris,

I believe the "limit" is that it must an amount you can fully load in
RAM, provided you have enough available. (The fattest scene I ever saw
was about 400MB, but it's pretty rare.)

Cheers,

-- Alan

[Leoung O'Young]

Hi Kris,

We are working with a 700GB scene, it takes a long time to load but it is doable like Alan said you have to have enough ram
We have 12GB on the Workstation and I noticed it take over 8 GB just to hold the scene in ram and hits over 11 GB when rendering..

Leoung

[Sebastian Kowalski]

700 GB ?

[peter boeykens]

Just to add that the relationship between scene size and complexity is not a simple one.

 

On the current project we have 600mb scenes (Leoung, certainly you are talking about a 700mb not gb scene?) that aren't all that heavy and 10mb scenes that are very demanding.

 

References are essential in keeping your scene size down - but they can also gather lots of superficial data which bogs things down.

I've seen a 300mb scene where everything was referenced go down to less than 50mb by rebuilding it - with in the end the same contents in the scene. And the scene behaved much better afterwards.

 

Geometry is one thing that can make scene sizes rocket - a single 200mb mesh isn't all that uncommon, but it wont grind XSI to a halt.

Referencing will reduce scene size extremely in such cases - but on interaction it hardly matters - XSI is loading a big scene or a small scene with big models - once all is loaded it doesn’t make any difference.

(of course the referencing has consequences to what you can and cannot do with those models)

 

Also passes take up a lot of data, and our scenes triple in size on average when you compare before and after building the passes - and that definitely makes a scene slower to interact with.

 

Another area where scene size and slowness go hand in hand is materials. If you remove models but the materials linger in the scene - that can bloat the scene and break the scene.

 

just some thoughts...

[Juan Brockhaus]

another thing I came across quite often is people not deleting unused UV
sets, clusters, etc.

they bloat up a scene quite a lot with heavy meshes.

just my 2 cents,

Juan

On 24/03/11 09:08, peter boeykens wrote:
> Just to add that the relationship between scene size and complexity is
> not a simple one.
> On the current project we have 600mb scenes (Leoung, certainly you are
> talking about a 700mb not gb scene?) that aren't all that heavy and 10mb
> scenes that are very demanding.
> References are essential in keeping your scene size down - but they can
> also gather lots of superficial data which bogs things down.
> I've seen a 300mb scene where everything was referenced go down to less
> than 50mb by rebuilding it - with in the end the same contents in the
> scene. And the scene behaved much better afterwards.
> Geometry is one thing that can make scene sizes rocket - a single 200mb
> mesh isn't all that uncommon, but it wont grind XSI to a halt.
> Referencing will reduce scene size extremely in such cases - but on
> interaction it hardly matters - XSI is loading a big scene or a small

> scene with big models - once all is loaded it doesn�t make any difference.

> (of course the referencing has consequences to what you can and cannot
> do with those models)
> Also passes take up a lot of data, and our scenes triple in size on
> average when you compare before and after building the passes - and that
> definitely makes a scene slower to interact with.
> Another area where scene size and slowness go hand in hand is materials.
> If you remove models but the materials linger in the scene - that can
> bloat the scene and break the scene.
> just some thoughts...
>

> *From:* Leoung O'Young <mailto:digi...@digimata.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 24, 2011 6:03 AM
> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> <mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Subject:* Re: file size limit

[Neil Coleman]

From experience, we've found the scene size limit to be 2Gb (well, very slightly under). We regularly have to import large batches of poly meshes that push Soft over the scene size limit and annoyingly, Soft doesn't error when it tries to save beyond it. As the guys say, there's a lot you can do to keep the size lower - the first thing we do is to delete unnecessary UV sets as they can bloat scenes considerably.

 

Neil

 

---

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Kris Rivel
Sent: 23 March 2011 22:01
To: Softimage List
Subject: file size limit?

 

Is there a limit to file size for the scene file in Softimage?!  If so, anyway to increase the limit?

Kris

[Ben Houston]

If that is the case, that sounds like Softimage may be using a signed
32 bit int (maximum value is 2,147,483,647) to index into the binary
file at least in some places. Given that Softimage designed its file
formats for XSI in the age of 32 bit computers, this isn't a
surprising design choice. It is likely feasible, with some effort and
time on Softimage's part, to raise that to a 64 bit int at some point,
especially since Softimage doesn't try to allow backwards
compatibility for its file formats, but that would likely only happen
within the context of a major release cycle.

-ben

--
Best regards,
Ben Houston
Voice: 613-762-4113 Skype: ben.exocortex Twitter: @exocortexcom
http://www.exocortex.com

[Christian Keller]

Even selected subcomponents on a lot of large polymeshes can make your scenesize bigger.  

-- 

christian keller

visual effects|direction

+49 0179 69 36 248

chr...@gmx.de

gesendet von meinem iDing

[Marc-Andre Carbonneau]

I had a 1.2gb city to deal with and although some passes needed to have the whole scene loaded, I ended up splitting it in layers afterwards. Much more manageable anyway.

[Kris Rivel]

Thanks everyone for the replies.  The scenes we are working with are around 2GB in size but it seems to crap out if its over 2.2 or 2.3GB.  We're on 64bit machines with at least 8gb of ram.

Kris

[Leoung O'Young]

Would adding more virtual memory help? I suppose once it goes into swap, it will crawl

[Mohammad Abdulfatah]

Sorry for the mini-hijacking of this thread, but since the subject of referenced models was brought up, I was wondering if anyone had any issues using them. I vaguely remember a few discussions on XSIBase.com where people reported scenes getting corrupted when using referenced model. Is there any truth to that? And is it that common of a problem?

Thanks guys.

-Mohammad

[Alan Fregtman]

Corrupted? Not in my experience.
Dirty Deltas? All the friggin' time.

I recommend reading this:
http://darkvertex.com/wp/2010/02/21/clean-softimage-deltas/