Monthly Archives: January 2011

XSI List – 2010 retrospective

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I compiled these numbers by copying and pasting from an Outlook message list view to Excel, and then creating some pivot tables.

There were 365 posts on threads with “Lagoa” in the subject.

Gear/StudioNest threads came in at positions #11 and #12.

The “test” thread came in at #23, with 39 posts.

Top 10 threads (by number of posts)

Thread Posts
Soft 2011 198
Thanks Autodesk. 125
XSI – ICE UI brainstorming 105
ICE Bullet physics… 84
more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk) 79
Softimage Studios 78
A Softimage message 77
GEAR 1.0.0 Released 74
Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 73
Viewcube tip 68

Top 10 Posters

Poster Posts
Alan Fregtman 463
Eric Thivierge 429
Stephen Blair 338
Steven Caron 278
Raffaele Fragapane 257
David Rivera 245
Joe Williamsen 224
Matt Lind 218
Stefan Andersson 186
Morten Bartholdy 182

Windows Search makes me happy

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I’ve been very happy with Windows Search since I upgraded to Windows 7. Just one click and I can search all my e-mail archives, as well the files and documents on my computer.

I have extensive Outlook e-mail archives, so the ability to search them all from one place has come in very handy. For example, an xsibase user recently posted about a problem creating submenus in Python. This jogged something in my memory, so I clicked the Windows Start button, typed in “menu AddItem”, and in a few minutes I had tracked down the answer (again).

And just this morning, I used Windows Search to track down some code snippet I had written five years ago and emailed to somebody.

Getting started with Windows Search
Windows search tips and tricks

Using a hidden parameter to store values

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Here’s a simple self-installing property that shows how to use a “hidden” parameter to store a collection as a comma-separated string. I say the parameter is “hidden” because it is not shown on the property page (PPG).

function XSILoadPlugin( in_reg )
{
	in_reg.Author = "blairs";
	in_reg.Name = "SaveCollectionPlugin";
	in_reg.Major = 1;
	in_reg.Minor = 0;

	in_reg.RegisterProperty("SaveCollection");

	return true;
}

function XSIUnloadPlugin( in_reg )
{
	var strPluginName;
	strPluginName = in_reg.Name;
	Application.LogMessage(strPluginName + " has been unloaded.",siVerbose);
	return true;
}

function SaveCollection_Define( in_ctxt )
{
	var oCustomProperty;
	oCustomProperty = in_ctxt.Source;
	
	// Used to store the list of passes as a comma-separated string
	oCustomProperty.AddParameter2("Passes",siString,"",null,null,null,null,siClassifUnknown,siPersistable | siKeyable);
	
	return true;
}

function SaveCollection_DefineLayout( in_ctxt )
{
	var oLayout,oItem;
	oLayout = in_ctxt.Source;
	oLayout.Clear();
	oLayout.AddButton("Set");
	oLayout.AddButton("Get");
	return true;
}

// Save a list of passes in the Passes parameter
function SaveCollection_Set_OnClicked( )
{
	Application.LogMessage("SaveCollection_Test_OnClicked called",siVerbose);
	PPG.Passes.Value = ActiveProject.ActiveScene.Passes.GetAsText();
}

// Get the list of passes from the Passes parameter
function SaveCollection_Get_OnClicked( )
{
	Application.LogMessage("SaveCollection_Test_OnClicked called",siVerbose);

	// Split the string into an array
	var x = PPG.Passes.Value.split(",");
	for ( var i = 0; i < x.length; i++ )
	{
		LogMessage( x[i] );
	}

}

The strange case of error 211005: timeout waiting for finished rectangles

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In this case, Softimage 2010SP1 stopped rendering one day (but strangely, 7.5 and 2011 still worked). If you drew a render region, nothing would happen for a long time, and then you would get this error:

' ERROR : DISP 0.4  error  211005: timeout waiting for finished rectangles

If you tried to render a frame to file, you’d get the same error, and a truncated image file that couldn’t be read. The mental ray diagnostics looked like this:

' INFO : JOB  0.8  progr:    99.4%    rendered on Example.8
' INFO : JOB  0.9  progr:    99.7%    rendered on Example.9
' INFO : JOB  0.14 progr:   100.0%    rendered on Example.14
' ERROR : DISP 0.4  error  211005: timeout waiting for finished rectangles
' INFO : RC   0.4  info : rendering statistics
' INFO : RC   0.4  info :   type                           number   per eye ray
' INFO : RC   0.4  info :   eye rays                        32900          1.00
' INFO : PHEN 0.4  progr: calling output shaders
' INFO : PHEN 0.4  progr: Writing image file 'C:\Softimage\Softimage_2010_SP1\Data\XSI_SAMPLES\Render_Pictures\Default_Pass_Main.1.pic' (Channel 'Main').
' ERROR : DISP 0.4  error  211005: timeout waiting for finished rectangles
' INFO : RC   0.4  progr: rendering finished
' INFO : RC   0.4  info : wallclock  0:03:59.65 for rendering
' INFO : RC   0.4  info : allocated 17 MB, max resident 18 MB
' INFO : GAPM 0.4  info : triangle count (including retessellation) :         112
' ERROR : 21000-REND-RenderPasses - Unspecified failure
RenderPasses "Passes.Default_Pass", 1, 1, 1, siRenderVerbosityDefault
Command failed, returned -2147467259

Softimage would stop responding shortly afterwards.

Eventually we tracked this down to a conflict with the OGRE Exporter.
We removed the exporter, and Softimage 2010 SP1 was able to render again. We then reinstalled the OGRE addon, and Softimage 2010 SP1 still rendered.

I suspected some sort of application conflict all along, but it took awhile to find the root cause of the problem.