Hello,

I have a really strange bug. When I create a string attribute "instancefile" on a (animated or static) pointcloud, houdini is freezing for minutes and the gpu running full of memory. Now the strange thing is: If I call it other then "instancefile" it works fine..
Try this: scatterpoints 30.0000pts -> attribute create SOP (attribute name: instancefile type: string value: $PT or `@ptum`)

Right now I found a silly solution. When its freezing, the GPU running full. If I closing the viewport everything went smooht. But its not a solution. Any Ideas?

thanks, tom

Why are you setting the value of instancefile to 'ptnum'? Instancefile is for setting which geometry files to use for instancing. It seems like Houdini's trying to display instances of bogus files with numbers for names. If thousands of points have unique instancefile values, then there will be thousands of unique instances created. More unique instances would have more overhead on the GPU. Maybe just put the value to "" until they have the actual instance file's path instead.

Thanks jsmack for your answer. Since the pointcloud represents a rbd sim every point has its own unique piece. Yes there is no real instancing happening but at the end I don't want to write out every frame with the heavy geo. SO the lighting department will only get the pointcloud (with instancefile attribt look to the static geo).
I only write the ptnum to instancefile for faster debuging. At the end in it will named "piece`@ptnum`.rs"

I looked to houdini documentation (instancing) saying:
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Note

You can set the Instancing Limit on the Geometry tab of the 3D View Display Options dialog to the maximum number of OpenGL primitives that can be instanced before some instances start being replaced by the Stand-In Geometry. This prevents the graphics card from being overrun by a huge amount of rendering which could halt or reset the graphics driver. Setting this to zero will always use the stand-in geometry.
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But it doesn't help. But why to the hell the "instancefile" triggering the viewport, when there is only a stupid unique number(as string) per point (instancefile). Can I say to viewport don't do it ?