Save Options Rollout

These controls provide the most commonly used options as well as the SAVE… button for processing on the local workstation:

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Saving Mode

  • Choose whether objects should be combined into one mesh or kept separate, and what coordinate system they will be saved in.

    Save ALL Objects to ONE MESH In WORLD SPACE Coordinates

    • Take all source objects and combine them into a single geometry cache, storing the vertex data in world space. When loading, you have to put the XMesh Loader at the world origin [0,0,0] and the geometry will align correctly to the original.

    Save EACH Object to INDIVIDUAL MESH In WORLD SPACE Coordinates

    • Saves each object to a separate XMesh file sequence (the name of the object will be appended to the specified output file name). If the “Make Sub-Folder Per Object” checkbutton is checked, each sequence will go into a sub-folder named after the object being saved. When loading each XMesh cache, each XMesh Loader must be placed at the World Origin to align to the source.

    Save EACH Object To INDIVIDUAL MESH In OBJECT SPACE Coordinates

    • Similar to the previous option, but the vertex list will be stored in object space, not in world space. As result, loading an XMesh will require the XMesh Loader to be placed exactly where the original object was. The toolset does not provide means to store / restore this data, it is up to the user to align the XMeshes in world space to place the caches as needed.

>Make Sub-Folder Per Object

  • When checked, if saving each object to a seaprate XMesh file, an additional subfolder with the name of the object will be inserted into the path.
  • When unchecked, all XMesh files of individual objects will be saved to the same folder.

>Save Material Library

  • When checked, a material library will be saved. Its filename is taken from the saved mesh sequence, but with the extension .mat

>Create XMesh Loaders

  • When checked, the XMesh Saver will create an XMesh Loader for each of the saved sequences.

Frame Range To Save

  • When opening the dialog, the From and To values will be set to the current scene range. You can change them as needed.
  • The Samples drop-down list defaults to 1 Sample.
    • The list shows all possible Sample numbers based on the current Frames Per Second settings so that all samples would be taken on Tick values.
    • A Sample 2 would save a file on every full frame and every half frame, with the file name using a comma delimiter for the sub-frame info, e.g _0001,5.xmesh.
    • The Samples drop-down list provides a tooltip showing the first up to 20 sample times plus the last sample’s time.
  • Sub-frame sampling is useful when caching fast-moving or fast rotating geometry.
    • For example, to capture the rotation of particles and better interpolate motion blur from the rotation, using 2 or more samples would be good idea.
  • Changing the time values will also output to complete list of samples to the XMesh Saver Log Window.
  • The “Set to Scene Range” will reset the controls to the scene range.
  • The “Set to Current Frame” button will set both From and To to the current slider time, useful for caching a single frame.

Proxy Sequence

  • This group of controls provides options to generate a proxy sequence for viewport display automatically.

>Save Proxy Sequence

  • When checked, XMesh Saver will perform two saving passes - one in viewport mode and one in render mode.
  • When in viewport mode, all modifiers set to Viewport only or Both, as well as the Viewport options of objects that support separate view/render settings like Particle Flow, Frost, Krakatoa PRT Loader, PRT Volume etc. will be activated.
  • When in render mode, all modifiers set to Renderer only or Both, as well as the Render options of objects that have separate control for viewport and render will be activated.

Add … Modifier

  • This drop-down list provides several options for producing lower-resolution geometry for proxy saving from objects that don’t provide render/viewport modes natively.

    DON’T Optimize Proxy Meshes

    • This option is useful when you want to create a Proxy that reflects only the Viewport geometry of objects that support separate meshing for viewport and renderer, like Particle Flow, Frost, meshes with TurboSmooth with lower viewport settings etc. without autmatically decimating the polygons of regular geometry objects.
    • Note that in this mode, manually added Modifiers set to Viewport Only will still be respected, so you can set up your own optimization using custom Optimize/Multires/ProOptimizer modifiers that affect the viewport only.
    • Also note that objects that depend on other objects where the latter have separate viewport/renderer quality settings will be affected indirectly.
    • For example, a Frost object saved from a PRT Volume will not only reflect its own Viewport meshing settings, but also the PRT Volume’s Viewport Spacing settings!

    Add OPTIMIZE Modifier

    • When this option is selected, a temporary Optimize modifier with default settings will be added to all geometry objects except for Frost and Particle Flow.
    • The Optimize modifier uses the angle threshold of neighbor faces to determine the decimation amount, so it is relatively adaptive and will typically remove tessellation from flat surfaces.
    • This is a quick and dirty method - no controls are exposed for this modifier in the XMesh Saver UI, so if you want to produce specific optimization on every object, you can add your own Optimize modifiers set to Viewport Only and dial in the desired settings, then use the DON’T Optimize Proxy Meshes option instead.

    Add MULTIRES Modifier

    • When this option is selected, a temporary MultiRes modifier will be added to all geometry objects except for Frost and Particle Flow.
    • The modifier will be updated and set to the Percentage specified by the “Proxy Vertex Percentage:” value exposed in the XMesh Saver MX UI, as long as the vertex count is above the “Proxy Min.Vertices” threshold - see below for details.

    Add PROOPTIMIZER Modifier

    • When this option is selected, a temporary ProOptimizer modifier will be added to all geometry objects except for Frost and Particle Flow.
    • The modifier will be updated and set to the Percentage specified by the Proxy Vertex Percentage:” value exposed in the XMesh Saver MX UI, as long as the vertex count is above the “Proxy Min.Vertices” threshold - see below for details.

Proxy Vertex Percentage value

  • This value defines the vertex percentage used by the MultiRes and ProOptimizer modifiers.
  • For example, if you have a geometry object with 100,000 vertices and the Percentage is set to 1%, only 1,000 vertices will be saved and the rest will be decimated as needed.
  • This value is dependent on the Proxy Min.Vertices value thoug - see below.

Proxy Min.Vertices value

  • This value defines the minimum number of vertices to be left in each geometry object’s proxy mesh, assuming the object had more vertices before optimization.
  • This is useful to prevent over-optimization of important geometry features.
  • For example, if a mesh has 100,000 vertices and 1% was requested as Proxy, but you need at least 5,000 vertices to see enough detail in the proxy, you can set the Proxy Min.Vertices to 5000 and the percentage will be corrected to produce no less than 5,000 vertices. On the other hand, if a box with 8 vertices / 12 faces was also in the scene, it will not be optimized at all because it has way less than 5,000 vertices.
  • Setting this value to 0 will disable the threshold and only use the Percentage - in the above examples, the large geometry will be optimized down to 1,000 verticles and the box will totally disappear because 1% of 8 vertices produces 0 vertices.

SAVE… Button

  • Save the objects on the local workstation.
  • When it can’t save, the button is disabled, and the button’s text shows the reason why.
  • When saving is enabled, the button’s text shows how many objects will be saved and in what mode.