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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