Re: Scene crash on startup - any advice

[Jason S]

This Thread contains a great roundup of the (comparatively -extremely few-) things to keep in mind, allowing to (comparatively -extremely easily-)  deal with (and effectively troubleshoot) virtually any project scope with SI, and is what makes it 'limitless' while remaining very managable/workable. Wish we could somehow pin stuff! On 08/04/14 11:46, Matt Lind wrote: Nested models is where you went wrong.  Don’t nest models inside of each other, especially if they’re referenced as it creates a situation where dependencies cannot be resolved should one of the nested items get updated.  Softimage has decent infrastructure for managing dependencies between scene and referenced model, but not when the dependency is between two or more models.   If you have many copies of the same model throughout your scene, consider using instances which eliminates the problem of duplicate material libraries and accelerates interactivity of your scene considerably.  This will also reduce file size quite a bit as you only need one master model for the instances, not one referenced model per instance as you’re doing now.    You can use standins as  you mentioned.  The difference between the two is instances will be of greatest benefit in the viewports whereas standins are of benefit at render time.     Matt         From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jon Hunt Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 1:34 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Scene crash on startup - any advice   Thank you both Peter and Matt for your lengthy replies. I've found your replies informative and interesting. I am trying best possible to work to best practices and feel a little reassured! I am not doing much else other than laying out the models in the scene. I do have some geo in there (landscape) and some models I have made local.   In summary the scene is a large camera move that flies through a village that is fairly dense with houses. I have built 3 variations of house with windows/doors/chimneys and so it is modular so I can avoid any repetition and build a custom house. This inevitably means I have reference models inside reference models. However through research I have not gone more than 2 levels deep with them and arranged the embedded ref models inside nulls for any SRT transforms. All models have master files that I have setup and refer back to when I make any changes.   I think where I have gone wrong is if I want to make another variation of a house on the fly, I have taken a house model and made the top part of the hierarchy local and duplicated sub parts which are still referenced in. In doing this it has prompted me to share or copy material libraries. If I want another variation. I should build it in master file and bring it back in. I have done this 4/5 times in say 40 models, so I know where to fix it. Another workflow I could be using (should be using?) is stand ins. I did do a test render on Friday without using them and with a basic lightning setup up it munched it up. I am not overly concerned about the scene being to heavy now. I am unsure of this crossover as to when I should be using standins verses ref models. This is a separate conversation I am sure. I also have a deadline looming and need the darn shot rendered! Thanks, Jon     On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote: A scene size of 53 MB containing mostly referenced models indicates there is still a lot of data, such as animation (FCurves) or data applied on top of the referenced models in model deltas, still in the scene.   the first thing to try is rolling back your scene to a previous version (including referenced models) if you have been using source control.   The "done fixing hidden cluster" error indicates a geometry problem.  With a scene containing many referenced models, it's likely one or more models was imported into the scene as a referenced model, modified in some way that applied a dependency which needs geometry information, and the referenced model was later edited offline outside the scene.  Next time the scene opens, Softimage is surprised because the referenced model is in a different state than the last time the scene was saved and has all this dependency data it doesn't know what to do with, so mayhem breaks out.  For example, if you applied an object-to-cluster constraint, the constraint operator has a dependency on the cluster.  If you delete the cluster from the referenced model outside the scene, the next time the scene opens and uses that model, Softimage will see the constraint operator and try to connect to a now non-existent cluster, then get confused.    There are some topology operators which generate hidden clusters behind the curtains from user view which are used as a scratchpad for calculations.  It's very possible the above scenario has occurred and the operator's cluster in question cannot reconnect to it's dependencies because one or more of it's inputs has disappeared from the model being changed outside the scene.   One test is to open each referenced model locally in an empty scene.  Check the script log before doing any work on each model, if you get the error message again, then you've found the problem.  Freeze its modeling construction history using "Freeze M", then export to update the .emdl.  If you know of constraints or other operators, such as object-to-cluster, and have knowingly deleted the cluster, then try recreating the cluster to satisfy the scene next time it is opened.   If all the models import successfully into empty scenes, then reopen the original scene and see if the error still occurs.  If it does, then the problem is likely caused by data local to the scene and not in a referenced model.  Data in model deltas is considered local to the scene, not the model.  However, it's unlikely the problem is in model deltas if it's giving you 'hidden cluster' errors, but in the rare chance it is, check the 'removed items' section of the delta and cross reference it with the other categories for dangling entries.  Every item appearing in the removed items list will have an associated entry in another category of the model delta.  for example, if you import the referenced model, change it's position, then undo that action, there will be entries in the 'stored positions' category to record the position change, and an associated entry in the 'removed items' category to undo that position change (All the entries in the deltas are evaluated, and the removed items list acts to cancel out anything that appears in the previous lists).  If you cannot find a pair for each entry, then something's wrong.  In which case, flush the item from the removed items list by selecting and deleting it.  I recommend this over deleting the entire delta as some tend to do, because deleting a model delta is often unnecessary and only loses all your work.  In most cases the problem isn't too hard to find as long as you pay attention to what you're looking for.     Matt               ---------------------------- Hi List, Asked a thousand times before I'm sure. I have researched and having no Joy and could really do with some suggestions please. Soft 2014 SP2 - Scene opens at Uni on an identically specced HP workstation machine. I noticed my home machine (when the file did work) took about 20mins to load whereas at Uni it was around 5 minutes. Scene size 53mb Scene contains mostly reference models. Following the help topics I turned on scene debugging>Load recovery journal file. I have have pointed it to an existing text file but it hasn't written anything to that.  I do have a .lrf file but I am unsure what to do with this? I restart xsi and I get prompted 5 or so time about having a ghost model. It continues to load but then hangs without crashing after sticking on "done fixing hidden cluster" Any input would be muchly appreciated Jon