Morph animation problem - very slow performance

[pawel_karbarz]

Hi!

I got a scene with simple geosphere and I'm using vol.select + morp modifier to animate appearing of the object. The problem is, performance in this case is extremely poor. It looks like very simple animation (probably just around 5000 polygons scale from 1 to 100), but max can't handle it. Did someone have similar problem?

Thanks!

[MartinBeh]

Can post the .max file?

What is the purpose of the vol.select in addition to the morph?

[pawel_karbarz · Accepted solution]

I can't post anything from this project (confidential), but I find a solution if someone else have same problem. This is related to parametric animation, that's why I'm use morph and vol select.

The solution is simple. After this two modifiers I'm add a point cache, setup a animation frame range of the object and click record. 3ds write all information about animation into xml files. Last step is click "disable modifiers below (we don't need them now). If need change something, just turn on modifiers and after changes record file again. This make my viewport smooth as never before. I realize that point cache doesn't work nice with slice modifier, so I keep it after point cache, but this one do not affect performance.

Cheers!

[MartinBeh]

Caching/baking is always an option for slow mesh deformation.

But I'd be interested in better understanding why it is so slow in the first place.

Could you upload mockup copy of your setup, just with a high-density sphere or teapot, for example?

[pawel_karbarz]

I can't upload anything from this PC (monitored activity), because the policy of the company.

Anyway you can reproduce this:

1. Create geosphere (16 or around)

2. Convert to editable poly

3. Add morph modifier

4. Back to editable poly, select all veretex -> break (to make all polygons separate)

5. Back to morph modifier -> capture state

6. Back to editable poly, select all polygons, rescale (localy) all of them to value = 1

7. Back to morph modifier -> select second slot and capture this state

8. Add vol.select modifier below the morph

9. In morph setup one of the captured value to 100 (depends what you need)

10. In vol.select choose a cylinder -> fit

11. Select the gizmo of the vol.select and rescale cylinder a little bit (just to be a little bit bigger than sphere)

12. In vol.select choose vertex and tick "soft selection" (setup the soft selection as you want)

13. Next, when you move a gizmo from vol.select you can see how the object appear and disappear

This is what I'm done with it. Event one of that object can slow viewport performance, few of them make almost impossible to clearly preview animation in viewport and generating preview take a lot of time.

[MartinBeh]

Great, those are good instructions - and it gives a pretty transition effect.

Attached is a R2023 .max file of what I did with your instructions, just so you can double-check.

But I do not yet see the massive slow-down: One such object (on a 16-segment geosphere, 5120 polys) works quite smoothly on my old laptop.
When I make 20 independent copies , it gets slow (around 4 fps) but that seems somewhat reasonable, too.
So maybe there is something additional in your scene that causes the slowdown?

On a sidenote: You could probably get a very similar effect (locally scaling elements up/down based on a softselection) using the Data Channel modifier, but not sure how fast that is and whether it is worth the effort

[pawel_karbarz]

Thanks for the answer. I will check Data channel modifier next time. For now is ok. Maybe the problem with my scene is related to lot of other objects (with simple animation like moving from point A to B) and also camera animation. I try new scene just with the sphere animation and works smooth, so the problem is deeper and maybe another solution is to create new project and merge all object into it (it's help many times before).