I’ve set up a rigid body simulation that consists of the following…
about 10 items that actually are part of the simulation (there are other objects in the scene that are animating, but are not rigid bodies.
After simulating I baked to keyframes … The keyframes showed up, and I saved the file thinking my simulation would stay in tact.
But after re-opening the file, initially I do see the keyframes… however… as soon as I select any other item the keyframes disappear. I figured if I selected a non RB object the keyframes would not appear, but if I go back an select an object I know was a RB object… there are no keyframes, and it even seems like the simulation is messed up somehow.
So here are my questions…
Should I have selected each object that has been made rigid body first … then bake to keyframes (I don’t think I did this prior to baking) I just ran the simulation, and pressed the bake to keyframes button in the RB panel on the left.
Does baking RB simulations only work while the file is open… then once closed and reopened… you have to run the sim again and re-bake?
I’m stumped as to why this is happening. Unfortunately the file is too large to post. I am trying to simulate a car crash, so I wanted to lock in the falling object and then use shape keys to simulate the destruction of the car.
“Bake to Keyframes” generates keyframes for selected rigid bodies, not all, like the tooltip says.
As for losing simulations, if you don’t want to lose the pointcache after closing the file, you need to bake pointcache first.
Also note that when you use “Bake to Keyframes”, the selected objects will be removed from the simulation, so if you don’t bake all acrive objects the simulation will be different the next time you run it.
Hey Sergof… good to hear from you again… I must have missed that tool tip, so If I understand you correctly I should do the following to ensure that my entire RB simulation can be used after closing a file, without changes to the simulation.
before baking… select EVERY object that is controlled by rigid bodies.
Press Bake To Keyframes
Before closing the file also bake pointcache. (I’m not sure where to do that at? )
Then i can safely close the file.
After reopening it, the simulation should be identical to what it was after the baking keyframes.
If you know… was my failure to bake the point cache the reason the keyframes would disappear after reopening the file and selecting another object?
I don’t know what your exact problem was, probably you just didn’t select all relevant objects before generating keyframes.
Pointcache and keyframes are completely separate. If you bake pointcache (in the “Rigid Body Cache” panel in the scene tab) you don’t loose any settings, it uses less memory and is faster.
The keyframe approach is there for cases where pointcache doesn’t work for what you need (i.e. linking objects, adjusting movement).