Hi James,
I got the same problem (crashing when rendering animations) but I fixed
it by turning ON the "lock interface" feature.
Please check the menu Render/Lock Interface: is it turned on or off? By
default it is off.
Anyway, In line 1964 of chrono_import.py I added
# this is needed to avoid crashes when pressing F12 for rendering
bpy.context.scene.render.use_lock_interface = True
and this means that the lock interface feature should be already turned
ON as soon as you register the plugin...
This said, maybe the crash is caused by something else.
Let me know
Alessandro
On 04/05/2023 18:43, James Baxter wrote:
Hi Alessandro,
Unfortunately, Blender is crashing for me when I try to render these
scenes. I've attached the log for when I render the demo simulation.
It was able to render the first couple frames (saving to a series of
images, not a direct video file) before crashing. My computer's total
RAM usage stayed well below 100% the entire time. This is with all
renderers (cycles, evee, workbench), and I have checked that I can
render simple animations (a manually keyframed box that jumped around
a bit) without crashing. I also ran the blender benchmarker and it
didn't seem to have any problems.
Therefore, I believe the issue is caused by the chrono_import tool,
not by inadequate hardware or a bad installation. Please let me know
your thoughts.
Thanks,
James
On Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 4:32:36 PM UTC-4 [email protected] wrote:
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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