Xgen error "Candidate guides have not been associated"

[pshwayka]

Hi,

I've been having an occasional issue with the splines/random primitives/placing and shaping guides workflow for creating Xgen hair.  I can create the splines on a mesh, edit them, and save the scene.  I can also reopen the scene and continue to add and edit splines.  However, sometimes when I open the scene I get the error mentioned in the subject of this post. The splines are visible in the outliner tree, but I can no longer see them in the scene. Can anyone advise me on how to "re-associate" the guides?

I've had this happen on more than one scene, so I don't think it is specific to a particular scene file.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[pshwayka]

I have discovered what causes this problem. If you are working on a scene that contains Xgen hair that was created by placing and shaping guides, and you do a “delete all by type->history,” it causes the guides to become disassociated with the mesh they were originally created on…even if you have not modified the guides from a previously saved file. Support ticket has been updated.

[3dMastermind]

Hi and thanks for reporting.

I have logged the following:

SPR-17884  XGen error "Candidate guides have not been associated" when using 'delete all by type'

[pshwayka]

Thanks Manny!

[Chtenelis]

So we will not be able to delete by all type history while grooming in xgen?

[Chtenelis]

Do you know how to associate the guides if this happen?

[Anonymous]

2 years later.. the problem is still there x)
So yeah, I better find out how to associate those guides again

[Michael_Todd]

XGen is dependent on history and that's unlikely to change. Guides that are no longer associated with a mesh (they require the face ID's and intrinsic face UV's) after deleting history are lost unless you can undo back to before the history deletion.

If you can, I'd advise using the Guides to Curves Utility when the guides are still valid and keeping the resultant curves around in case you need to convert them back to guides.

The simplest option is to export the collection to file before the history is deleted. Then, if you need to rebuild the guides after history is deleted, you can delete the current collection and import the XGen file, which will rebuild the guides. Material bindings are not saved in the XGen file so you'll have to reattach any materials to the descriptions but that should be all you need to do to get working guides back after deleting ALL history.

Deleting ALL history is not advisable when using XGen

[bms1988]

I just've been encountered the same problem. In my case, it turned out to be caused by few glitchy guides with no verticies, that's impossible to rebuild. You could locate them converting all your guides to curves (with "hide" checkbox) — the process will stumble on the glitchy curve. Delete it and repeat untill all you guides will be hidden - then unhide them and update the xgen preview - then it works (for me at least)

[t_smith5]

Bumping an old thread here, but I'm having problems exporting the collections and descriptions when I get the issue about 'Cadidate guides have not been associated'. I've tried exporting both, but the collections come in empty (just their names), and the descriptions do the same too. No guides come in with them. I've spent the whole afternoon fighting XGen with various problems. It's been frustrating as hell.

[532169286]

thank you so mush!!I have finally solved this problem!!!