Groom Bake modifier

You can use the Groom Bake Modifier to save information output from a modifier or chain of modifiers to an XPD cache file. The Groom Bake modifier provides a pointer to this data for other modifiers to use. This way, XGen reads the data from disk rather than processing it for other modifiers. When active in a modifier chain, Groom Bake modifier deactivates all modifiers below it.

For previews or renders, the primitive generator reads the XPD file created by the Groom Bake modifier . Modifiers that follow the Groom Bake in the chain remain active, and read the data from the XPD file. Use Groom Bake modifier to improve render time especially when a number of modifiers are used in the Description. You can only add one instance of a Groom Bake modifier to a Description.

Place Groom Bake in a modifier chain when:

• Using an animation-based modifier such as Plane Anim. In this case, place the Groom Bake modifier before the animation-based modifier. When rendering, only the animation data from each frame need is processed rather than for all modifiers in the chain.
• Alembic geometry is used in the modifier such as Mesh Cut.
• Passing data through the production pipeline.

Important notes

Avoid using theGroom Bake modifier for Descriptions that:

• Generate large number of spline primitives.
• Use a large number of proxies shapes such as an archived tree primitive.

In both cases, the resulting XPD files are large and can be slow to load.

Related topics

• Shape and control primitives using XGen modifiers