Erratic Performance in Sculpting

[JBT27]

I often bring in a terrain mesh from LW and add some detail in Sculpt. But I've noticed over several versions that performance and workflow can be very erratic.

I have a mesh right now which is about 137,000 quads, that I need to detail. If I have View-Wireframe on, the cursor appears to get stuck on vertices (snap is off), so if I'm in Draw mode, that area keeps getting taller or deeper, depending what Depth I set, and no matter how I move the mouse, the cursor is stuck for several seconds.

With Wireframe view off, this does not happen. It can also happen using the Ctrl+LMB key, with and without Wireframe on. It also, when Wireframe is on, seems to be affected by how far I am zoomed in to the mesh. It's a bit subjective, but when zoomed out and sculpting large areas, and with Wireframe on, the sticking does not happen, but the closer I zoom in the worse it gets.

Sorry I can't be much more specific than that.

Using the GL-64 version 3.3.01 - about to upgrade to the .04 version.

Thanks.

Julian.

[AbnRanger]

I often bring in a terrain mesh from LW and add some detail in Sculpt. But I've noticed over several versions that performance and workflow can be very erratic.

I have a mesh right now which is about 137,000 quads, that I need to detail. If I have View-Wireframe on, the cursor appears to get stuck on vertices (snap is off), so if I'm in Draw mode, that area keeps getting taller or deeper, depending what Depth I set, and no matter how I move the mouse, the cursor is stuck for several seconds.

With Wireframe view off, this does not happen. It can also happen using the Ctrl+LMB key, with and without Wireframe on. It also, when Wireframe is on, seems to be affected by how far I am zoomed in to the mesh. It's a bit subjective, but when zoomed out and sculpting large areas, and with Wireframe on, the sticking does not happen, but the closer I zoom in the worse it gets.

Sorry I can't be much more specific than that.

Using the GL-64 version 3.3.01 - about to upgrade to the .04 version.

Thanks.

Julian.

You can report this in the Bugfixes threads, and probably get aquicker response...and also, if you could record a quick video example (you could use JING, or BB Flashback Express, Camstudio, etc.), as that helps Andrew see exactly what is happening. And if it is really a major issue for you, you could PM or e-mail Andrew and send him a copy of the file, so he can try to reproduce it.

Otherwise, what will often happen is he and others will chime in with a "Works fine for me." Plus, make sure to mention what OS and whether your version is CUDA enabled. It sounds like it could possibly be a graphic card driver issue, so you can try to eliminate that from the equation by updating your drivers, perhaps.

For me...I notice a performance hit when wireframes are on (it gives your card more work to do), and I try to leave them off, and only turn them on when or if I need to examine the mesh. It is not a good idea to try and sculpt with it on, in my opinion.

[JBT27]

You can report this in the Bugfixes threads, and probably get quicker response...and also, if you could record a quick video example (you could use JING, or BB Flashback Express, Camstudio, etc.), and that help Andrew see exactly what is happening. And if it is really a major issue for you, you could PM or e-mail Andrew and send him a copy of the file, so he can try to reproduce it.

Otherwise, what will often happen is he and others will chime in with a "Works fine for me." Plus, make sure to mention what OS and whether your version is CUDA enabled. It sounds like it could possibly be a graphic card driver issue, so you can try to eliminate that from the equation by updating your drivers, perhaps.

For me...I notice a performance hit when wireframes are on (it gives your card more work to do), and I try to leave them off, and only turn them on when or if I need to examine the mesh. It is not a good idea to try and sculpt with it on, in my opinion.

Great - thanks. Oh yes - the bane of reporting problems on forums: 'Works fine for me!'

This has been a problem across two different cards and two or three drivers, though I still wouldn't rule that out of course.

OK, so I'll check some more, maybe sort out a video - haven't got any of those tools but will check now.

But perhaps the key problem is sculpting with the wireframe visible, as you suggest, though the fact the cursor gets hung-up on verts, as opposed to general sluggishness, and the fact it gets worse as you zoom in, tends to suggest there's more going on here.

Thanks again - I'll post more fully shortly in the Bugfixes threads.

Julian.

[AbnRanger]

Great - thanks. Oh yes - the bane of reporting problems on forums: 'Works fine for me!'

This has been a problem across two different cards and two or three drivers, though I still wouldn't rule that out of course.

OK, so I'll check some more, maybe sort out a video - haven't got any of those tools but will check now.

But perhaps the key problem is sculpting with the wireframe visible, as you suggest, though the fact the cursor gets hung-up on verts, as opposed to general sluggishness, and the fact it gets worse as you zoom in, tends to suggest there's more going on here.

Thanks again - I'll post more fully shortly in the Bugfixes threads.

Julian.

It sounds like a lot...and when you are up against a tight deadline, you might feel like you don't have time to go through these steps...but really, it takes about 10-15min for me, and you'll get something actually done instead of posting on here and often seeing little to no response. If it's a bug, it's best to get these things directly under Andrew's nose, so to speak. He does respond pretty fast.

Jing may be a good one to try first, as it gives you a free screen capture app and will host your videos for free. I use BB Flashback Express (it's free)...and upload the videos to either youtube or Vimeo. As far as sending files...they can get pretty big, so look at Adrive.com (50GB free and no ads...no download wait time). I zip the files before I send them to Andrew, so to save space and upload time.

He says that when he gets a bug report, he generally drops what he is doing and investigates it...so, it's well worth taking the time to go through these steps. It helps you and all of us.