Hi James,
Hi Alessandro,
I tried with out with a vehicle simulation with good success. One more
bug though and a question:
3. After clicking File -> New and using the chrono_import option I get
this error. Closing and re-opening Blender resolves it. [...]
I will look at it when I find some spare time. Thanks for reporting bugs.
However, to confirm, it appears that if I click chrono_import (after
having already imported a simulation), it will clear the previous data
as it loads the new? I do not need to fully close and re-launch the
program to ensure it is using the new data?
Yes, all times you perform the chrono_import menu, it clears the
previous data and loads the new data.
Few caveats, anyway: it is not 100% sure that there will be "leftovers"
at each call to chrono_import... to be on the safe side, you might run
the Blender menus under File/Cleanup/... that remove orphan objects
that are not referenced anymore.
Also, here when I want to be completely sure to start from scratch, I
really close and restart Blender.
Also, with my vehicle simulation (15 bodies in chrono_assets, none in
chrono_frame_assets), I only get 5 FPS during playback. I expected it
to be higher since I eliminated exporting bodies that change each
frame (like springs) and used only bodies that need a new position /
rotation. Is this expected behavior due to the CPU-bound task of
instantiating / uninstantiating objects each frame?
Yes, this is the expected performance caused by Blender
instantiating/uninstantiating objects, even if the adoption of
non-mutable assets should make things speedier. I think that until it
drops to 1 fps, it is still acceptable as Blender is used for hi quality
renderings, rather then for interactive viewing. The problem is when it
becomes even slower, so also the GUI of Blender starts to act as
"freezing" and it becomes not so manageable.
best regards
Alessandro
Thanks,
James
On Tuesday, May 2, 2023 at 9:21:41 PM UTC-4 James Baxter wrote:
Hi Alessandro,
I have been trying this out today, and am very excited! It is
going to be really something to take vehicle simulations from
Chrono and render them with photo-realism.
I did have a few comments about bugs I ran into:
1. When enabling the Chrono importer add-on in blender, I received
this error:
https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/API_Changes/#Restricted_Context.
I was able to work past it by moving the following lines from
register() to execute():
# this is needed to avoid crashes when pressing F12 for
rendering
bpy.context.scene.render.use_lock_interface = True
bpy.context.scene.ch_meshsetting_index = -1
bpy.context.scene.ch_meshsetting.clear()
bpy.context.scene.ch_glyph_setting_index = -1
bpy.context.scene.ch_glyph_setting.clear()
I am very confident that was not the proper fix to the issue, but
it prevented me from receiving the error. I had gotten the error
with both Blender 3.5.1 and 3.4.1 on Windows. This allowed me to
use it on 3.5.1. I did not try hitting F12
2: When running demo_POST_blender1.cpp, it crashed due to line 301
in ChBlender.cpp:
std::string abspath_pic_output = filesystem::path(base_path +
pic_path + "/" + pic_filename + "_######").make_absolute().str();
I am running Chrono on Ubuntu, and it seems the
filesystem::path::make_absolute() method requires the file to
actually exist; I'm not sure if it is different on Windows. I was
able to resolve the problem by creating the directory
(anim/photo_######) manually.
Thanks again for releasing these updates; I'll let you know if I
run into more issues when I try using them with my own vehicle
simulations.
James
On Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:17:38 PM UTC-4 [email protected]
wrote:
Hi James,
I just sent my latest commits to GIThub containing the
documentation (a sketch of it, I mean) for the Blender add-on.
If things go as expected, the CI system will trigger a Doxygen
rebuild that will turn into an updated documentation at
https://api.projectchrono.org/development/ , where you should
find a new link to Chrono::Blender, one row below the
Chrono::Solidworks link.
Now it is too late in the night for waiting the CI to finish,
and I must sleep, tomorrow I will see if all was ok or the
Doxygen pipeline had troubles.
regards
Alessandro
On 28/04/2023 19:47, James Baxter wrote:
Hi Alessandro,
I will plan to begin working on this on Monday, have you been
able to write any documentation? The page I linked earlier
still appears to be empty.
Thanks,
James
On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 8:18:40 AM UTC-4 James Baxter
wrote:
Alessandro,
Thank you; I will plan to try out your documentation and
code late next week and will be happy to provide feedback.
James
On Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 2:40:08 AM UTC-4
[email protected] wrote:
Hi James
You are right, there is a Blender pipeline under
development that could do what you need, and I am in
charge of it.
I was going to write the documentation about how to
install and use the Blender add-in but I've been
postponing it for two months.
I hope to write at least some basic guidelines in the
next days.
Best regards
Alessandro Tasora
Il mar 18 apr 2023, 15:31 James Baxter
<[email protected]> ha scritto:
Hello, I am looking to render some vehicle
simulations I have made, and I am finding the
built in Irrlicht renderer difficult to use and
lacking some features I need (textures don't
apply properly to things that aren't geometry
primitives, exported frames are all black), so
I'm thinking setting up a pipeline to a different
rendering tool makes more sense.
I see that there is some work done on a pipeline
for blender, but I'm having trouble finding any
documentation. This page appears to be empty:
https://api.projectchrono.org/development/blender_visualization.html
*In general, is there a specific tool that you'd
recommend as the lowest resistance path to being
able to render vehicle simulations with full
control over textures, lighting, etc; and is
there any code / documentation you can point me to?*
I have found the following, but would like to
make sure I'm starting in the right place so I
don't reinvent the wheel
https://github.com/projectchrono/chrono/blob/main/src/demos/postprocess/demo_POST_blender1.cpp
https://github.com/projectchrono/chrono/tree/main/src/demos/tools/blender_py
Thanks,
James
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