Exactly and it betrays the bug/problem with iClone - multiple objects (more than a few dozen) are too much for it.

This really is unacceptable.  If it's not fixed by 8 folks will leave the program for far better solutions.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

I appear to have found a great solution to my problem of converting the output of a 9x9 to terrain.  It does not solve the ultimate problem of converting all 81 tiles to terrain; that still crashes iClone.  But as it turns out, I really don't want to do that anyway.  When I removed about 20 unneeded tiles to get the count down to around 60, the terrain conversion worked perfectly, but the frame rate was insanely low.  It would doubtless have been even worse if I had managed to convert all 81.

I had also given up on compressing all 81 tiles into a single huge tile, because that conversion seemed to hang iClone, followed by a hard crash.  But I accidentally discovered that the problem there was that I simply did not give it the enormous amount of time needed to complete, and if I did the tiniest thing like trying to move a window before it was done, iClone crashed.  But if I just go away and do something else, like maybe get a good night's sleep while it's crunching away, it eventually finishes correctly.  And as a bonus, the frame rate is excellent!  In summary, just to be clear, here is what I have so far found to work perfectly:

1) Select all tiles
2) In the Modify menu, unlink them from the Group.  This can take quite a while to complete.
3) Delete the Group
4) Select all tiles except one
5) In the Modify menu, attach the selected tiles to the one not selected
6) Under 'Edit' click Merge Sub-props.  This gives you a single prop that contains all original tiles.
7) Convert this prop to terrain.  WAIT FOR IT!  TOUCH NOTHING!

That last step is the critical one.  If you try to do anything while it is working, which takes a VERY long time, iClone will crash.

So far this has worked for me multiple times, so I'm confident that this is the way to go.

That's my opinion as well, but unfortunately it's not the solution here, or probably not.  I say that because before my underwater deletion, I tried the 'merge sub-props' trick on the original 81-tile project.  That one huge prop would not convert to terrain, at least not in the hour I let it run before giving up.  The next time I need a full 9x9 scene, which will likely be very soon, I'll do the merge sub-prop on the full 81 and let it run overnight.  Maybe it will be done by morning.

Cleaning your folder out is unlikely to be the problem.

As I said before (at the start of this thread) it's an iClone bug/issue.  Anytime objects in a scene get over a few dozen it will slow down the system TREMDOUSLY.  Particularly running a Python script.  When you merged all the objects you eliminated that issue.

So - at the risk of repeating exactly what I wrote before - I've got more than a dozen scenes with hundreds of objects that bring my powerhouse system to its knees.  I take these exact same scenes, merge them into one prop SO IT HAS THE SAME TEXTURES AND POLYS and it works fine.  iClone just can't handle a lot of objects in a scene despite the memory you have.  Clearly there is some issue with maintaining pivots/object centers/identities/whatever.  Shouldn't be, really, but perhaps their tree walking is badly written code.

We need to get this fixed, if not in 7, then in 8 for sure.  While no 3D system is immune to slowdowns with large scenes, it shouldn't be the number of objects that kills the program.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Thanks!  I'm going to try that now, and I'll let you know how it goes.

But I will say that I had a breakthrough last night that works in this case, though will not be a general solution.  I realized that almost 1/4 of my terrain will eventually be under water, so I figured out exactly which tiles will be hidden and I deleted them.  This got the count down from 81 to a little more than 60.  This was enough of a drop to let iClone successfully convert the remaining tiles to terrain in one shot.

That's when I got my next bad surprise.  Even with no other items except the water in the project, the frame rate plummeted to just a couple frames per second!

So then I did another trick that a kind and experienced user here had suggested in another context.  I went back to before the terrain conversion, when I had just the 60 prop tiles that would show.  I selected all but one and attached them all to the one not selected, creating a hierarchy.  Then I did "Merge sub-props' to get it down to just one prop.  I had no trouble converting this one huge prop to terrain, and now the frame rate is over 30 fps!  So I'm home free in this particular case, saved by the water.  I'll see how cleaning out TEMP goes, although I doubt if that's the solution, since I have hundreds of gigabytes of free space on my C drive.

Hi Timothy,

Try cleaning out your temp files. Start by quiting all running applications. Then try this:

I haven't found the exact cutoff, but I know that everything works perfectly at 5x5 max resolution, and fails at 9x9.  So there's a limit between 5 and 9.

I also learned that the size of the screen display makes a difference.  If I have the preview camera up close so the terrain mostly fills the screen, iClone crashes at 24 percent complete, but if I back off the camera so the terrain is just a tiny rectangle, it gets to almost 40 percent complete before iClone crashes.

It can't be a hardware or installation issue because the exact same thing happens on both my big tower that I use at home and the laptop that I use when traveling.

There are a million 'Preference' and 'Project setting' things that I just leave at their defaults because I have no idea what they do.  So maybe something is set wrong.  But I sure am getting tired of experimenting, because so far I've spent about 20 hours (seriously!) trying different experiments to try to figure out the problem.  The closest I've come is selecting a few tiles at a time and converting them.  That does not help if I just keep doing it over and over.  But it almost works if after each conversion I save the project, shut down iClone, restart it, load the project that I just saved, and do another block of tiles.  I can get almost all 81 tiles converted to terrain that way.

Talk about frustrating!

@TimothyMasters

You see, it works.

The last thing you can try is:
-generate a terrain: 5x5, 32x32, 2 K
-create some hills
-convert it to terrain. That should take about 10-20 seconds.

Do no other things (merge etc.)
What happens? This should go easily.

@Postfrosch
Thanks for the explanation.
A very nice picture!!!:):):)

Best Regards,
Arie

Thanks for doing that.  Wow, how discouraging.  Both of my computers crash when trying this.  I can't imagine what's wrong.

Hello TimothyMasters,
something is wrong with you.
Here you have a 9x9 terrain (= 81 fields) - created with the Natural Terrain Generator.
Look this Pictures
Image 1: 81 fields created as props 

Image 2:  81 fields topology created (still props)

Image 3: 81 fields props converted into 81 fields terrain

Creation - creating topology - converting to terrain approx. 8 minutesIClone crashes:None

Mine conclusion: works flawlessly
Greets from Germany
Postfrosch


Annother 9x9 Terrain:



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