FP is getting FAR Too Slow

[CCGI]

So I've emailed through to iToo Support regarding the following:

"Hi there,

It seems every release FP gets slower and slower to open.

During the SOA academy I asked you guys about your roadmap to get FP and RC to speed up/utilize multithreading.
I've attached a 2:21 video to show you just what I mean and you can imagine how infuriating it is that it just gets slower and slower..
Been using your plugins for the past 7/8 years and you need to make it more usable.
Can you investigate this as a matter of priority. It would make myself and the team here much happier to have a responsive piece of software to use.
Happy to chat through what we can do to address this here also if you have any ideas of where to start.
The video is just a blank scene, I'm waiting for one of the logical processors in our 64 logical processor bank to complete whatever it is that it's needing to process ahead of utilizing FP. Surely if spread over the full available processors we could have a much nicer UX."

Had the following Response:

"Thanks for contacting iToo Software and for your confidence in our plug-ins.
I'm sorry to hear you're facing these troubles. Please try setting these options in the forestpack.ini located by default under C:\Users\karma\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2020 - 64bit\ENU\en-US\plugcfg:

checkTexturePaths=0
collectTexturePaths=0

to see if there's any difference.
Thanks in advance for any further comments on this issue you can share about it with us / our user community (in case some user(s) will run into similar troubles)."

After trying this fix we're still getting loading times of >2minutes

Why is this  the case? It seems to be getting slower and slower each release in terms of initial start-ups..

This also has a vast impact on loading times when opening scenes with FP already in. - Happy to pack up these scenes for you but I've a feeling it's the same issue so would like my initial problem solved.

I can confirm this is also the case for other users with similarly spec'd workstations in our team.


I've since been tasked with producing a minidump of 3ds max so will be sending this on shortly, fingers crossed for a speedy fix.

Message was as follows:
"Thanks for your swift reply. Please, download the Process Explorer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer and during the "freeze", run it, find the "3dsmax.exe" process, select it, go to Process > Create Dump > Create Minidump..., save the file, compress it and send it to us by using the Wetransfer. Hopefully, it'll point to the problem source. Thanks in advance."

[iToo]

Hi,

First of all, that loading time of 2 minutes is not normal. That indicated some kind of problem, because even in the worst case, FP should not take more than a couple of seconds to initialize.
There is nothing we can optimize or improve using multithreading. You see one CPU at 100% just because Max is freezed at some specific process.

In this case, checking your minidump, we see Max is stucked trying to load the Forest templates.
These are a set or simple geometries used for billboards. Usually are stored at C:\Program Files\Itoo Software\Forest Pack Pro\geometry\objects\geometry1.max.
Under normal conditions, this step should be immediate. Something is interfering with the load process.

Since this issue also happens with other users of your team, there must be something in common, which is causing it.

- In your organization, Forest is installed by default, or do you use some custom configuration ? (i.e. Forest files moved to a network folder)
- What other plugins or scripts do you use ? We have seen cases of custom scripts causing undesired side effects.

I would suggest you try reinstalling Forest with the default settings, and also remove temporary other plugins or scripts, to see if there is some difference.

[CCGI]

Hi iToo,

Thanks for the reply; when installing we do the following:

TICK -  Advanced installation
Set a Shared Folder on the NAS "A:\iToo Libraries"

Scripts/Plugins commonly installed include:
GeOAutoSave.ms
ColorCorrect.dlm
BerconMaps_2020_64.dlt
Anima2.MAX.dli
FloorGenerator_max2020_64bit.dlm
glue.dlu
CityTraffic.dlo
MadCar.dlo
MultiTexture_max2020_ver2.04_64bit.dlt
splineOffset.dlm
tyFlow_2020.dlo

others: Pixamoon BitmapTracking/Resizing v1.71
Pulze - Scene Manager

[CCGI]

Just had a go launching it in a fresh install of MAX 2021 and it's night and day.

Took approximately 2-3 seconds..

Any idea of the scripts/plugins we use can cause the delay?

[Rokas]

We don't. But we are interested to know what will You find. Try installing Your usual plugins in batches of ~3 and test the performance after each batch.
This should be fairly quick way to troubleshoot which extension causes the troubles.

[3DFLOW]

Can you please update this matter cause we are having a terrible time with Forest Pack on our end, opening scenes with FPP became so rediculous we have to turn the Forest Pack objects in a seperate layer OFF just to open scenes. We're talking alot of Forest Pack Objects, granted, but opening times are +5 minutes, +10 minutes in heavy cases.

A clearcut list of options to try would be nice, regardless of our personal set-up or plugins, I just want a LIST of things to try and see if it changes anything.

Doing this case by case would be a terrible bottleneck anyway, so please, a list somewhere to be found?

[iToo]

It's difficult to know what is the problem without checking your scene. There are multiple causes which may cause slowdown opening the file:

- Forest build time. It may happen with huge distributions, collisions checking, etc. I suggest to check build time of each FP object in General->Stats, isolate the more heavies and analyze them.
A trick to optimize heavy FP objects, is to set them to Custom Edit mode. In this way, item distribution is baked and doesn't need to be calculated on each update.

- Load of proxies, XRefs and textures used by FP, specially from network drives. This cannot be optimized from our side, because depends only of 3DS Max and your configuration.

If you have a particular FP which is causing problems, please send it to our support team. We may take a look and suggest more optimizations.

[3DFLOW]

Yeah ok. Sorry but I've been on this issue for +2 years now and it's really not ok anymore.. You want to deal with everyone individually but that's just clear to me that there is no "general" solution in sight.

The FPP plugin has been sluggish and slowing down max for a long time now.
Watch this, watch that, check ini files, dump-files; ...

Are you serious? This plugin should be standard stable before release and preferably bug-free.

Bigger files are just impossible. Dont fukin dream of "edge" mode you'll completely kill your parsing times. We installed, uninstalled, removed plugins and added everything again and it's almost impossible to find the bottleneck. All I know is when opening files the Forest Pack Pro plugin is making my files +10 minutes to open now. When installled fresh it works fine for about a week and the bullshit starts again. Did you add a ticking-timer in there for us to enjoy?

I've been working with Corona Scatter now on my new project and I can honestly say this FPP plugin is starting to get overrated for basic vegetation spreading. What's the point for using a spead-plugin if we're losing more time on this bullshit then gaining in rendering or parsing. It's just not fun anymore to use for the past 3 years... HOW MANY VERSIONS NOW?

[iToo]

Yeah ok. Sorry but I've been on this issue for +2 years now and it's really not ok anymore.. You want to deal with everyone individually but that's just clear to me that there is no "general" solution in sight.

The FPP plugin has been sluggish and slowing down max for a long time now.
Watch this, watch that, check ini files, dump-files; ...

Are you serious? This plugin should be standard stable before release and preferably bug-free.

Bigger files are just impossible. Dont fukin dream of "edge" mode you'll completely kill your parsing times. We installed, uninstalled, removed plugins and added everything again and it's almost impossible to find the bottleneck. All I know is when opening files the Forest Pack Pro plugin is making my files +10 minutes to open now. When installled fresh it works fine for about a week and the bullshit starts again. Did you add a ticking-timer in there for us to enjoy?

I've been working with Corona Scatter now on my new project and I can honestly say this FPP plugin is starting to get overrated for basic vegetation spreading. What's the point for using a spead-plugin if we're losing more time on this bullshit then gaining in rendering or parsing. It's just not fun anymore to use for the past 3 years... HOW MANY VERSIONS NOW?

I'm sorry you have these problems, but as you said there is not a general solution for all issues.

You're assuming that Forest Pack is buggy, and we can solve this problem with a patch or releasing a stable version.
Sometimes there are bugs (which we solve as soon are identified), but many problems are specific to the scene, Max configuration, or even compatibility with other plugins.

More than 10 minutes to load a Forest scene is not normal, at least you're using a heavy feature (as Collisions or Edge mode) over a huge terrain.
Futhermore, if you said that plugin works fine for some time when reinstalled. Well, of course there is not any hidden timer in our software, but also the plugin is exactly the same when you reinstall it. We don't store any persistent data in the disk.

Regarding other tools, Forest Pack is more complex and has much more features that other scattering plugins.
For example, you said that Edge mode is killing your parse times. Please note this feature was not intended for far views or large terrains, because it must check and store the position of each grass blade.
As far as i know, Corona or Chaos Scatter don't include a similar feature, so we cannot compare the efficiency with Forest Pack.

I know it can be a hassle, but i suggest you send us a sample scene so we can compare loading/render times here.

Thanks for your understanding.