Dynamica and frame rates: a quick guide

[mBakr]

Problems have been reported when the frame rate of the Maya scene containing a Dynamica simulation is changed (24fps to 25fps, for example). The simulation fails to reset properly on the first frame of the scene after playback.

In Dynamica v2.77, the dSolver node will correctly intercept the first frame value when the scene preference is changed, but it will NOT update when the user changes the first frame value manually.

The solution to this issue is to ensure that the Start Frame of the dSolver node matches the first frame of the Maya scene. These can become unsynchronized when the frame rate is changed and the user sets the first frame to a different value (often to correct for partial frame padding i.e. changing from 24 fps to 25 fps results in the first frame changing to 1.04). If the first frame of your scene is 1.0, verify that the Start Time of the dSolver is also 1.0. dSolver is connected to the dDebugDraw node which is selectable in the Outliner.

This solution was tested in Dynamica v2.77 in Maya 2010 on WinXP32.

UPDATE: this issue has been patched in the current source and should be integrated in the next Dynamica build.