Understanding the Cache

Helper

THE POST BELOW IS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD. RELATED SUPPORT INFORMATION MIGHT BE OUTDATED OR DEPRECATED

On 13/03/2012 at 05:35, xxxxxxxx wrote:

I still don't understand how caching in Cinema 4D works. I can obtain the virtual object hierarchy using c4d.BaseObject.GetCache(). The returned hierarchy is exactly the same as the object keeps a reference to. That means, modifieng the hierarchy returned by ~.GetCache() takes immidiate effect on the generator object, as I'm modifieng it directly.

For example, when I create a standart Cloner object and execute this script in the Script Manager

import c4d  
def main() :  
  cache = op.GetCache()  
  for child in cache.GetChildren() :  
      pos = child.GetAbsPos()  
      child.SetAbsPos(pos * 2)  
  c4d.EventAdd()

This will immidiately double the clones positions. However, this will only last until the Cloner's cache is being rebuilt again.

So far, so good. Let's say I'd like to modify the points of a primitive cube continiously. I'd create a PythonTag, get the cache in it and modify that cache. As the PythonTag is executed even has not been rebuilt, I need to check if the cache has changed the last time I modified it.

import c4d  
prevDirty = 0  
def main() :  
  global prevDirty  
  og = op.GetOrigin()  
  dirty = og.GetDirty(c4d.DIRTY_CACHE)  
  if prevDirty < dirty:  
      cache = og.GetCache()  
      for i, p in enumerate(cache.GetAllPoints()) :  
          cache.SetPoint(i, p * 2)  
      cache.Message(c4d.MSG_UPDATE)  
  prevDirty = dirty

This works pretty fine. But when you hit Render To Picture Viewer, you can see that the cube has still it's original size in the first frame but was affected correctly in all other frames. (Don't forget to set the Tags priority to Generators, Thanks to Lennart [tcastudios]).

I also noticed that this seems to work most time in the Physical renderer, but not in the Advanced, Software or Hardware renderer.
**
How can I modify the cache so it does have effect to the rendered object?**

Thanks very much,
Niklas

PS: Here is another example scene with a tag modifieng a cloner's cache.

Helper

THE POST BELOW IS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD. RELATED SUPPORT INFORMATION MIGHT BE OUTDATED OR DEPRECATED

On 13/03/2012 at 05:59, xxxxxxxx wrote:

As far as I understand, cache and deformcache are read only.
The SDK states that caches are not to be modified and that is maybe
why things are funky in your tests?

Cheers
Lennart

Helper

THE POST BELOW IS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD. RELATED SUPPORT INFORMATION MIGHT BE OUTDATED OR DEPRECATED

On 15/03/2012 at 14:21, xxxxxxxx wrote:

That might be the reason Lennart. But I am curious how, for example, the Dynamics Tag is implemented if they are not allowed to modify the cache? Or the ChamferMaker plugin?

Thank you!
-Niklas