Plexus 2 preview issues
  • matt Arnoldmatt Arnold
    I briefly used Plexus 1 for some quick and easy animations. Usually creating a path, cranking the replicator up to maybe 80, adding some noise and containing it in a sphere. Always a crowd pleaser (P.S. I'd almost always be working in 1080p).

    I was commissioned for a job and decided to buy plexus 2 and aim higher. How exactly I wasn't sure but knew I wanted to push it much further than I had done before.

    I found very quickly that it didn't take much pushing to slow my computer to a crawl. Below are the specks for my computer. I realise it's not exactly a render farm, but once my vertices rose above about 50, scrubbing would take 5-10 seconds to update. I couldn't really do anything in the comp until I switched the plexus layer off. Strangely, even with caps lock on to prevent previews didn't work.

    Also, I found that if I was using a moving camera, changing the camera path wouldn't update my plexus layer. Even after I'd purged all memory. Only when I toggle the preview resolution do I get a current plexus update. Weird.

    Things are at their worst if I have multiple groups. I had nearly all 10 groups active once, with point and beam renderers on. It was a nightmare. That was an extreem example, but even for one geometry layer, one effector and maybe two renderers, my computer buckles. Doing the old 'noisy sphere' like I did on plexus 1 makes it dramatically slower, working in 720p! I didn't have that problem on plexus 1.

    I've checked the web for some info, and seen a couple of comments about the preview issue (I found others that had that problem, but didn't find any solutions), but not much about the dramatic slowing down of the machine. This leads me to believe that either plexus 2 is just too powerful for my laptop, or maybe there are some bugs with my OS or AE version, or I haven't optimised my preferences in AE to manage Plexus 2. Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and re-install everything, been a while since I did that. Jeez I hate reinstalls.

    If anyone has any info it would be much appreciated. I hope I can work with Plexus 2 on this computer in the future, it's a really cool plugin.

    Thanks

    MacBook Pro, Late 2011
    Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
    Memory: 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
    Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024MB
    OS: OS x 10.7.5
    AE CS6 V 11.0.0.378
  • Lloyd AlvarezLloyd Alvarez
    Are you using lights?  If so try switching to using Nulls instead.  The problem is the new hash-cache in CS6 tries to pre-cache the entire comp when using lights that causes the slow-down. Another tip is to turn off the "Show Cache Indicators" in the timeline window (the right side flyout menu has this pref).  Hopefully these two tips help you out.

  • matt Arnoldmatt Arnold
    Hmmm, working on a particularly convoluted plexus now using nulls instead of lights. I've unchecked the 'show cache indicators' setting. Still getting long pauses when I so much as click on anything. Spinning wheel of death as they say.

    I did however read the post you replied to about the previewing issue using a 3d camera. I was having this problem too. Since I disabled the disk cache things are still slow but at least previewing, that's a huge relief! 

    Thanks for your help
Add a Comment