[studiotractor]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has been having a similar problem as this with the new plugin:

When writing an MXS to Maxwell Studio from Rhino, camera loading take an abnormally long time, i.e. 5-10 minutes; even when there are only 4-5 'saved views' in the Rhino file. After MXST finishes loading, there exists a vast multitude more cameras than originally existed in the Rhino file. These 'extra' cameras have names like "CAMERA1 392", "CAMERA1 393", CAMERA1 394", etc. Is there a way to purge these before writing an MXS to MXST from Rhino?

Also, it might be worth mentioning that I had previously denoted particular saved views in Rhino with "***" as in "CAMERA1***". I have since removed the asterisks, however the problem remains. If anyone has any suggestions, I would gladly try anything at this point, as we have a portfolio of work due tomorrow evening.

Thanks!

Andrew

[JDHill]

Hi Andrew,

Have you enabled the 'Cache MXS Meshes' option in Plugin Options? Because - it is not possible at this time to remove a camera from an existing in-memory MXS - it needs to be flushed and started again. The purpose of Cache MXS Meshes is exactly the opposite of this - it wants to hold on to in-memory MXS data as long as possible. If you have this enabled, and you are writing alot of MXS files without adding/removing/moving geometry, it is entirely possible to end up with a large number of cameras in the MXS - one way would be to run an animation with Cache MXS Meshes on, and then to keep on working with the scene without disturbing the geometry. Still, I created an MXS with about thirteen-hundred cameras just now, and while it takes about ten seconds to load in MXST, it's nowhere near your five or ten minutes - so there must be something else going on there.

Also, I checked the '***' naming, and that will cause a problem. I looked at the code, and it is not allowing characters which are illegal for file paths - this is a leftover from the past, so I went in and removed it.

JD

[studiotractor]

Hi JD,

Thanks for the quick response. I checked the 'Cache MXS Meshes' option in the plugin menu, and it is in fact not enabled. So if it is not related to the above issue; then I am inclined to think that it's related to using asterisks in naming my camera views. Is there any way to recover this file?

Thanks again,

Andrew

[JDHill]

Hi Andrew,

Yes, I kept looking into this after posting, and those asterisks could easily cause you to have several thousands of Cameras in the document. There is no automatic way to remove them all, since the plugin thinks that they are supposed to be there - what I would do here would be to:

1. select all the geometry in the model
2. main menu > Edit > Cut
3. type at the command-line: Maxwell_SaveAsWithoutMaxwellData
4. choose Yes
5. choose a new file name
6. you will now be in the newly-saved document
7. main menu > Edit > Paste
8. check that everything went okay
9. save back over the original document

This should get you all of your geometry and the Materials attached to it without also bringing in the Cameras. You will lose date/time/location/etc., but that should be all.

JD

[studiotractor]

Update:

I've found that I can delete views from MXST, however S L O W L Y when selecting more than a few at once. Also, here is a view from MXST of what we are currently experiencing.






Andrew

[studiotractor]

Wow, thank you JD!

I saw your response seconds after sending my last post. I was never aware of that command, but I will give it a shot; it seems very handy and I'm sure there will be scenarios in the future in which I'll need it again.

Best,

Andrew