Evaluation Toolkit

Configuration

Contains settings to let you configure the behavior of the tools provided by the Evaluation Toolkit.

Graphviz Options

Use Graphviz system installation

Activate this option to use your system's Graphviz installation instead of the one provided with Maya.

Note: In order for Maya to locate find the Graphviz installation, ensure that the Graphviz folder that contains Graphviz executables is in the PATH environment variable. See Standard paths.

Show Graphviz Version

Displays the output of the dot -v command, which reports the dot command software version.

1) Modes

Choose the appropriate evaluation mode from the Evaluation Mode menu

Evaluation Mode menu

DG

Uses dependency graph-based evaluation mode for your scene. (See also Dependency graph.) This was the default evaluation mode before Maya 2016.

Serial

Uses the Evaluation Manager but limits evaluation to a single core (serial evaluation). Use Serial to troubleshoot your scene as it prioritizes scene fidelity over performance so you can locate evaluation errors.

Note: Sometimes scenes run more slowly in Serial evaluation mode than in DG mode. This is because Serial evaluates more nodes than DG mode. Because of this detailed evaluation, if the scene looks incorrect in Serial mode, it is unlikely to work properly in Parallel mode.

Sometimes improper evaluation in Serial mode is caused by custom plug-ins.

Serial (uncached)

Like Serial (above) but uncached redetermines the evaluation order at every frame. Not recommended.

Parallel

Parallelizes evaluation and uses all available cores to evaluate your scene. If this mode causes problems with your scene, disable it and return to the previous standard: DG evaluation mode.

See Profile a scene to improve performance.

This mode is active by default.

GPU Override

Works with the Evaluation Manager to accelerate deformations in either Serial or Parallel Evaluation mode. If your scene has standard Maya deformers and the mesh geometry is dense, this can improve performance. Results vary based on the deformers and density of meshes in your scenes.

Note: GPU override works only with Viewport 2.0 and does not work with Quadro 4000 graphics cards on OSX.

You can find a technical explanation of GPU Override at Using Parallel Maya.

Include Controllers in Evaluation Graph

Activates/disables pre-population with the controller mechanism in the Evaluation Manager when building.

Advanced

Note: Unlike other Evaluation Toolkit settings, changes you make to the Advanced settings remain after Maya is restarted.

Manipulation

Toggles the Evaluation Manager for Manipulation. Valid only in Serial and Parallel modes.

Reduce Graph Rebuild

Toggles whether or not certain keying workflows (such as keying an unanimated attribute for the first time, adding a new different key to a static curve, or undoing those actions) invalidate the graph. Use this option to avoid graph rebuilds even when animating a previously static attribute.

This option is on by default.

Idle Action

Lets you disable the automatic Cache Evaluation. The Idle Action setting lets you set whether Cache evaluation occurs:

Setting	Behavior
Idle Rebuild and Prepare for Manip	This setting is the recommended default.
Off	Nothing happens when Maya is idle. To trigger the graph rebuild and build the cache, you must perform an action, such as changing the time.
Idle Rebuild	Rebuilds the cache only when the graph is invalidated. Only rebuilds and prepares evaluation using the Evaluation Manager, but no partitioning or scheduling occurs. To trigger the partition and scheduling, you need to perform an action, such as chaning the time.
Idle Prepare for Manip	Rebuilds the cache only when the graph is built, or when graph partitioning is invalidated. The graph must be rebuilt manually. This action rebuilds the cache if caching is enabled.

2) Heads Up Display

You can display Evaluation and Frame Rate information in a view panel using the following Heads Up Display (HUD) options. For more Heads Up Display options, see Heads Up Display (HUD) Options and Display scene information (HUD) in a view panel.

3) Debugging

Use these options in this section to identify the problem areas of your scene.

EM Validation

Toggles the trace object that tracks invalid evaluation graph paths. It logs data accesses that do not respect dependencies represented by the evaluation graph. These unexpected accesses could lead to evaluation errors and instabilities, such as crashes.

The output file contains missing dependencies detected during each playback frame. This only works in Serial mode.

Trace results are saved in Maya’s Temp directory, in the _MayaEvaluationGraphValidation.txt file by default but you can specify another location. Find the temporary directory on your machine with the getenv("TEMP") MEL command.

Computed Nodes Trace

Performs a high-level trace of the compute path by toggling the trace object that prints out the nodes being computed. This only works in DG and Serial modes.

Trace results are saved in Maya’s runtime directory in the file _Trace_Compute.txt. Find the runtime directory using the getenv ("MAYA_LOCATION") MEL command.

Launch Profiler

Opens the Profiler, a tool to help locate performance bottlenecks in your scene by recording and depicting the amount of time that each significant event, such as evaluation tasks, consumes.

Launch Analytics window

Opens the Analytics Objects Window, a tool to help analyze the contents of your scene or collection of scenes by running scripts on the scene(s) and reporting back what it finds. See Analytics Objects Window for descriptions of the tests you can run.

Launch Scene Lint window

Opens the Scene Lint window, a tool to optimize scene performance. Choose the process(es) to debug your scene (or choose Select All to run them all), and click Run Selected.

After running the selected process(es), click Apply All Selected Fixes to use the suggested improvements. Click Clear Results to wipe the previous processes from memory.

Note: There is a difference between the Evaluation Manager reverting to Serial from being in Safe mode due to invalid node dependencies in the scene, and the Evaluation Manager reverting to Serial because it was set to Serial in the Preferences window. Check that the Evaluation is set to Parallel in the Animation (Settings) preferences window.

Option	Description
flat-animation	Identifies flat animation curves which can be replaced by a single static value.
opencl-no-gpu	Identifies any mesh that potentially uses a slow OpenCL path.
animated-expression	Searches the scene for expression where the "animated" attribute value is set to 'true'.
smooth-mesh	Searches the scene for meshes with Smooth Mesh Preview enabled.
floating-curves	Deletes any floating curves from the scene.
caching-status	Provides information about possible Cached Playback issues.
GPU-Deformation	Provides information about GPU deformation issues.
unused-expression-outputs	Searches the scene for expressions that provide no input to anything.
evaluation-manager-status	Provides information about issues that may affect the Evaluation Manager.
mesh-zero-vertices	Provides information about issues that may affect the Evaluation Manager.
NURBS-tessellation	Ensures the efficient tessellation of NURBs.

Evaluation Graph Inspection

This section provides a collection of tools that let you see how your evaluation graph and scheduling graph are constructed.

Nodes to Inspect

For each of the tools in the Evaluation Graph Inspection section you can choose to inspect either the entire graph, in which case you would choose All from the drop down menu, or only a subset, when you would choose Selected.

When you choose Selected another field labeled Levels Deep appears. When displaying graph information you are usually interested in the connections between nodes. The Levels Deep value tells the tool how many steps away from the selected nodes to include in the output.

In this context, "steps away" means "number of connections it has to traverse in the graph to go from one node to another". For example, if you have the graph connections A -> B -> C then node B is depth one from both A and C, and C is depth 2 from A.

For clarity, the functions below will be described as if you chose the All option.

Graphical Output

Tools in this section will provide an output in either PDF or DOT format for visualization of the evaluation or scheduling graphs. The visualization is similar to what you see in the node editor for the dependency graph.

Format	Select the type of output you wish to produce. If PDF is set, then the graph is sent to a .pdf file. If DOT is set, then the graph is sent to a .dot file. In both cases, the tool attempts to open the file in your default application for the generated file so you can see it immediately. For example Adobe Acrobat for a .pdf file and graphviz for a .dot file. The Transitive Reduction checkbox is an option that tries to reduce the number of unnecessary connections in the graph being displayed. The resulting output is cleaner though it can take significantly longer to generate.
Output file	This field shows where the file is created. By default, it is stored in your MAYA_LOCATION directory. Enter a new file name or browse to a new directory to change the location. The extension on the filename always reflects your currently selected Format (.pdf or .dot).
Visual Graph	When you invoke the Show button the visual representation of the Evaluation Graph will be generated in the format you have selected, and the result will open in your default application for that file type. The Add Dirty Plugs option includes a list of all plugs being set dirty in each node by the Evaluation Manager. Normally, you would not want this amount of detail, but it's useful for discovering missing attribute dependencies in the graph
Visualize Scheduling Graph	When you invoke the Show button, the visual representation of the Scheduling Graph is generated in the format you have selected, and the result will open in your default application for that file type. The Scheduling Graph differs from the Evaluation Graph in that it groups sets of nodes together for evaluation as a group. For example, the invisibility evaluator clusters all of the invisible node together and evaluates them, by doing nothing, as one. The Add Cluster Contents option lets you switch the cluster nodes from displaying a count of the nodes they contain to a list of all nodes by name. This is useful when you want to see which nodes a particular custom evaluator has clustered together.

Text Output

Tools in this section will provide an output in either JSON or plain text format for visualization of the evaluation or scheduling graphs.

Format	Two types of output are available. The JSON format is more verbose; describing all node information and relationships in a key/value form. The Summary format compresses the information into a more compact display for quick reference
Output Location	You can choose to send the results to the Script Editor directly, or to an external File. The script editor is most useful when you want to quickly examine part of a scene; the external file is best for parsing and interpreting results offline.
Output File	This field is active only when you select the File option as the Output Location. It shows where the file will be created. By default, it will go into your MAYA_LOCATION directory. Enter a new file name or browse to a new directory to change that..
Evaluation Nodes	Prints a list of evaluation nodes and connections on the selected nodes, or the entire scene, if nothing is selected. Activate Show Dirty Plugs to print a list of plugs that the Evaluation Manager sets to dirty before evaluation and computation.
Evaluation Nodes	When you invoke the Show button, a list of all of the nodes in the Evaluation Graph is generated in the format you have selected. This usually means all of the nodes that are either animated or controllers. The Add Dirty Plugs option lets you include a list of all plugs being set dirty in each node by the Evaluation Manager.
Node Scheduling types	When you invoke the Show button, the scheduling types for the nodes in the Evaluation Graph are displayed. The types are Parallel, Serial, Globally Serial, and Untrusted. See the Using Parallel Maya for more information.
Scheduling Graph	When you invoke the Show button, the contents of the Scheduling Graph are displayed in the selected format. The Scheduling Graph differs from the Evaluation Graph in that it groups sets of nodes together for evaluation as a group. For example, the invisibility evaluator will cluster all of the invisible node together and evaluate them, by doing nothing, as one. Use the Add Cluster Contents option to include the set of nodes in all of the clusters being scheduled. This is useful for seeing which nodes a particular custom evaluator has clustered together.

Scene simplification

Retrieves the selected object's minimum dependencies.

Select minimal scene

Use this option identify everything required to evaluate the selected objects.

Remove all except minimal scene

Deletes every object that is not considered essential by the minimal scene selection option above.

Important: Data Loss! Do not accidentally save this version of the scene after activating this option.

Dynamic Attributes

Connected dynamic attributes sometimes create artificial dependencies that can prevent parallelism, which negate any performance gains from parallel evaluation. Use these tools to show connections between those types of dynamic attributes:

Print extra connections

Click Print to display a list of connections discovered between dynamic attributes. Results are displayed in the Script Editor.

Remove extra connections

Only use this option for debugging purposes, as it is meant to give an idea of potential performance gains that would occur when extra dependencies are removed. Use caution, as this option is an aggressive tool and could alter the evaluation output.

Important: Data Loss! Do not accidentally save this version of the scene after activating this option as data is lost.

Scene simplification

Retrieves the selected object's minimum dependencies.

Select minimal scene

Use this option identify everything required to evaluate the selected objects.

Remove all except minimal scene

Deletes all every object that is not considered essential by the minimal scene selection option above.

Important: Data Loss! Do not accidentally save this version of the scene after activating this option.

4) Custom Evaluators

Click the checkbox next to each Custom Evaluator to activate custom evaluation.

Use the (question mark) button to view supported configuration options for the associated custom evaluator. See the -c / -configuration flag in the evaluator command reference.

Use the ("i") button to query information related to the associated custom evaluator.

Use the ("n") button to open a window where you can view the nodes claimed by the associated custom evaluator.

For background on the invisibility, frozen, dynamics and deformer evaluators, see Evaluator Reference. More technical detail is available in the Using Parallel Maya document.

5) Dynamics

Mode

Choose from five options:

Name	Function
Disabled	Disables Parallel evaluation/Evaluation Manager as soon as there are active dynamics nodes in the scene.
Legacy 2016	Reproduces the default settings of the 2016 release, by disabling evaluation as soon as unsupported nodes appear in the scene. The following node types are unsupported: nucleus pointEmitter rigidSolver rigidBody particle geoConnector field fluidShape and any type derived from these.
Supported	Implements complex evaluation for supported dynamics nodes and disables Parallel evaluation/Evaluation Manager as soon as there are unsupported nodes in the scene. The following node types are unsupported: rigidSolver rigidNode particle (unless also a nBase) fluidShape fluidEmitter dynHolder collisionModel dynController dynGlobals spring membrane and any type derived from these.
Everything (NOT SUPPORTED)	Uses all nodes, even problematic ones, as this mode does not use a blocked list.
Custom (NOT SUPPORTED)	This mode lets you try unsupported combinations of the options below…

Advanced

Disabling Nodes

Disables the set of nodes that causes Parallel evaluation/Evaluation Manager.

Handled Nodes

The set of nodes read by the dynamics evaluator which that handles their evaluation.

Action

Select the action that the dynamics evaluator performs on the handled nodes.

Name	Function
None	Ignores the nodes.
Evaluate	Implements evaluation whenever special evaluation requirements are required.
Freeze	Causes the Dynamics evaluator to freeze all of the nodes it processes in their current state. No evaluation is performed, the node is unaffected; this is the fastest method.

6) GPU Override

Displays the following reports in the Script Editor. See Evaluator Reference for a description of this evaluator and Using Parallel Maya for technical information about GPU Override.

Active deformation chains

Compiles a list of deformation chains (that is, a mesh and at least one deformer,) that are handled by the GPU evaluator.

Mesh information

Prints information about the current GPU deformation support for each mesh. If the mesh is currently handled by the GPU deformer, its deformation chain appears in the list. If the mesh is not handled by the GPU deformer, the list displays the reason for its exclusion.

Selected nodes status

Prints information about the current GPU deformation support for the selected nodes. If the node is currently handled by the GPU deformer, its deformation chain appears in the list. If the node is not handled by the GPU deformer, the list displays the reason for its exclusion.

Clusters

Prints a list of nodes for each cluster handled by deformer evaluator. Each deformer chain has its own cluster.

Graphical Output

Expand the Graphical Output section of the GPU Override area to generate GPU deformer graphs that display information available with the deformerEvaluator -c command as a connected graph using Graphviz.

Format

Select a format for the output file: PDF, SVG, PNG, or DOT.

Output File

Enter a name for the Output file. Click the folder icon to browse to an output location.

Include Plugs

Include plugs shows the full graph

Disable this option if you do not want connections between nodes labelled with input and output plugs. This option is on by default.

Selected Only

Selected only shows a condensed form of the graph

Limits the graph to the selected nodes.

Omit Passthroughs

Omit passthroughs shows and even more limited view of the graph

Limits the graph to the selected nodes and leaves out any passthrough nodes.

Visualize Deformation Graph

Click the Show button to create the graph.

Reuse

Deformers

Lets you control the reuse stage of the GPU buffer.

Option	Behavior
Never	The nodes are never reused.
Immediate	This setting is the default. The nodes are reused if they still are valid after repartitioning.
Always	All nodes remain in memory during and after repartitioning for later reuse.

Sinks

Option	Behavior
Never	The nodes are never reused.
Immediate	This setting is the default. The nodes are reused if they still are valid after repartitioning.
Always	All nodes remain in memory during and after repartitioning for later reuse.

Debug

Limit Minimum Geometry Size

Disable this option to remove the Maya geometry vertex requirement, and allow all geometry go on the GPU. In Maya, a minimum number of vertices is set based on the detected graphics card. Use this option to temporarily override this limit for the duration of your Maya session.

Allow Downloads

Activate this option to enable GPU Downloads. This option is on by default.

Allow Download Rejections

Activate this option so that parts of the graph that need a GPU Download are rejected based on a review. This option is on by default.

Outliner

The GPU Outliner lets you keep track of nodes in the deformerEvaluator and the status of their blocking policies, if any.

GPU Outliner

The GPU Outliner has the following functionality:

• Shows which nodes are in the evaluator and how they are grouped.
• Shows which nodes evaluate on the GPU, cause a download to CPU, and which evaluate on the CPU.
• Has a filter so you can limit the view of nodes that, for example:
  • Match a wildcard name
  • Belong only to meshes
  • Evaluate only on the GPU
  • Filter for passthrough nodes
  • Display both upload/download status
  • Have a blocking policy set
  • Use the name of the target mesh for the group
  • Update when you open, create new, reference, or import a file.

Right-click the Outliner to open a contextual menu that lets you select nodes, visualize them as a graph, or set blocking policies.

Name	Function
Name	Shows the name of the target mesh for all elements grouped under this node.
Plug	The node plug.
Type	The associated deformer.
Eval	Where the node evaluation is done; evaluate on the GPU, cause a download to CPU, and or evaluate on the CPU.
Depth	The order in the chain.
Blocking policy	If a Blocking Policy has been applied to the node.
Status	The current upload/download state of the Blocking Policy.

7) Selection

Select the following:

Nodes under evaluation manager control

Changes the selection to only nodes under the control of the Evaluation Manager. Nodes that are not directly or indirectly animated are not included in the set.

Upstream nodes

Selects all nodes that are currently under Evaluation Manager control that are upstream from the current selection. The nodes selected before the operation depend on which upstream nodes are selected after the operation.

Downstream nodes

Selects all nodes that are currently under Evaluation Manager control that are downstream from the current selection. The downstream nodes selected that are selected after the operation depend on which nodes are selected before the operation.

Upstream versus Downstream nodes

All nodes with connections in the Evaluation Graph are considered either Upstream or Downstream.

In the following diagram, you can see how Upstream and Downstream nodes interact.

Upstream is required by:

• nurbsCone1_translateX => nurbsCone1
• nurbsCone1_translateX is upstream of nurbsCone1
• nurbsCone1_translateX is required by nurbsCone1

Downstream depends on:

• nurbsCone1_translateZ => nurbsCone1
• nurbsCone1 is downstream of nurbsCone1_translateZ
• nurbsCone1 depends on nurbsCone1_translateZ

8) Cycles

cycles and their part in the evaluation process can be found in Using Parallel Maya.

9) Validation

Performance

Runs emPerformanceTest on the current scene in DG, Serial, and Parallel mode. When you run these tests, results for each of the three modes (DG, Serial, and Parallel) are displayed. They also appear in the Script Editor. This test can be used to obtain benchmarks of your scene using different evaluation modes.

EM Correctness

Runs the emCorrectnessTest on the current scene. The Correctness Test runs the animation in Serial mode (without GPU Deformer Evaluation), and Parallel mode (with and without GPU Deformer Evaluation) and compares the evaluation output to validate correctness. When you run this test, results are displayed for each applicable mode. You can also view results in the Script Editor.

Caching

This area contains a list of Caching Correctness tests you can run on the current scene. Click Details to view the results in a new window (they are also displayed in the Script Editor).

10) Reports

This section contains reports that you can generate for the scene. Currently, there is only one report about expressions. Results are displayed in the Script Editor.

Expressions

If active, reports the total number of expression nodes, along with the number of safe and unsafe expression nodes.

Safe expressions are expressions which can have multiple outputs, as long as they are functions of its input.

Safe expressions only output is a function of its input (the input being read through DG connections) and call no command other than mathematical functions. These nodes cannot have any side effects so they can be evaluated at the same time as other nodes. You cannot evaluate unsafe expressions in parallel with any other nodes. Unsafe expressions cannot be evaluated in parallel with any other nodes

This report checks for the different types of expressions which might have a performance impact for your scene.

Click Generate to create the report.

Performance

If active, runs the sceneLint() command and performs the checks in the SceneLint tool.

11) Freezing

These options let you activate or disable sections of the DAG (Directed acyclic graph) to improve performance. When Explicit Propagation is activated, everything that is set to frozen (either directly or indirectly) is not scheduled for evaluation, which improves playback performance. If you select Runtime Propagation instead, sections of the graph are still scheduled but are skipped at runtime.

Animated frozen states are still scheduled as they first must be evaluated to determine if they are required.

Frozen Propagation

Activate this option to set any reference nodes that are frozen to force nodes that they reference to also be frozen, regardless of any edits applied to them.

Runtime

This setting enables downstream pruning only at runtime. The frozen nodes are still scheduled, but once they are found to be frozen, all downstream evaluation is skipped.

Explicit

Activating this option is equivalent to enabling the frozen evaluator. It uses the freeze options to prevent any scheduling of nodes not evaluated by direct or indirect freezing. This setting provides the maximum playback acceleration.

Downstream/Upstream freeze mode

Lets you specify the strictness of the Freeze mode. Choose from Upstream or Downstream.

None	No downstream/upstream propagation.
When All Parents are Frozen	The downstream/upstream node is frozen only when all of its upstream/downstream nodes are frozen.
Always	All downstream/upstream nodes from a frozen node are also frozen, even if they have other non-frozen inputs.

Freeze Invisible

Propagates the frozen state down the DAG (Directed acyclic graph) hierarchy to all invisible children. This lets you freeze (make invisible) a root node and freeze its entire DAG hierarchy. Without this option, you need have to freeze each node individually. Chose from Nodes or Display Layers to make a node that is a member of an invisible frozen display layer frozen as well.

Directly Frozen nodes

Click Select to choose which nodes are frozen.

Click Print to print a list of which nodes are frozen.

Click Unfreeze All to deselect every node that has been frozen.

12) Scheduling

Type used for selected node(s)

Print

Displays the actual scheduling types used by the scheduler for each selected nodes in the scene, taking into account overrides or displaying the unmodified scheduling type if no override is present.

13) Caching

Caching lets you speed up the process of animating, by making Maya redraw only the parts of the animation that you have changed. Previously, Maya needed to recompute all the animation data every time it changed, no matter how small.

This section contains the settings for selecting a caching mode, as well as controls for invalidating and flushing your cache. For information on how to cache your animation, see Create an animation cache to increase playback speed.

Cached Playback

Turn on this option to cache animation to memory to improve playback speed. See Use Cached Playback to improve playback speed.

% of RAM

Move the slider to specify a cut-off point when the cache process will stop. Use this setting to specify how much memory (in percent) to dedicate for Cached Playback purposes (and not all of Maya).

Note: This setting affects Cached Playback only. However, increasing this setting may affect other processes running on the computer running at the same time. Also, running multiple Maya sessions using Cached Playback may also impact performance if too much memory is allotted.

Stop caching at memory limit

Activate this option to abandon the cache process when the designated memory limit is reached (this is the default setting).

If Cached Playback is producing warnings about memory limits, you can disable this option to override the specified memory limit so that caching can continue. (Be aware that disabling this option may cause caching to use all your system’s available memory.)

See the Memory Management area in the Evaluation Toolkit Caching section to view your system's memory status.

Preferred Mode

Choose a caching mode to determine what is cached. If errors occur, click Invalidate cache and Flush cache and try another mode.

Hybrid Cache

This setting lets you extend Caching Playback to mixed with GPU deformation to improve caching with scenes that rely on heavy GPU computation and large rigs.

Note: This mode also turns on the GPU Override setting. However, if you disable it, it does not turn off GPU Override.

Instead of caching full geometry after deformation, Hybrid Cache retains and restores the input to the GPU deformation chain. Typically this results in less data being stored, given that the input to the deformer chain (a few matrices, a few animated parameters, and so on,) is usually much smaller than the geometry being deformed. This also caches the original undeformed static geometry only once for the whole animation and leaves it on the GPU, resulting in smaller transfers between CPU and GPU memory.

The fact that geometry stays on the GPU can result in great performance gains, especially for large geometries, as well as significant memory usage reduction.

Setting	Behavior
Disabled	Hybrid Cache is not used, geometries are cached normally. This setting is the default.
Smooth Mesh Preview	Hybrid Cache only applies to GPU-deformed evaluation clusters with at least one mesh using Smooth Mesh Preview.
All	Hybrid Cache applies to all GPU-deformed evaluation clusters.

Prevent frame skipping

Activate this option when you are playing back in real-time (see Playback in the Time Slider preferences) to ensure that Maya does not skip frames while it builds the Playback Cache.

Normally, when you play back animation in Real-time playback speed, Maya skips frames to maintain the rate. But if you intend to create a playback cache, you do not want any frames to be omitted.

Note: Once the Playback Cache is complete and the Time Slider is filled, frame skipping is active again if cached playback still cannot achieve the requested frame rate.

Show warning messages

Activate this option to display support messages in the script editor whenever an event occurs that disables or causes problems with caching. See Cached Playback Limitations and Cached Playback unsupported nodes for more information on conditions that can disable Cached Playback.

Discard frames outside playback range

Activate this option to flush any cached data from frames that fall outside of the current playback range. This means that if you resize your playback range so that some cached frames no longer fall within the active caching area, their caching data is lost.

Cache smooth meshes

Activate to include Smooth Mesh Preview in the Caching process.

Smooth Mesh Preview is not cached by default as it slows down Cached Playback significantly due to the amount of memory used by subdivided meshes.

Cache dynamics

Use this option to turn off dynamic object caching. (This setting is active by default)

Caching with dynamics nodes splits caching into separate animation and dynamics status lines on the Time Slider, represented by blue (animation) and pink (dynamics) lines.

The Animation Cache and Dynamics Caches shown as two different status lines.

Cache fill

The Cache fill menu section lets you control how the cache gets filled.

Order	Description	Command
Playback	Cache is filled only with playback (foreground). This setting is useful for debugging or scenes with background correctness issues.	syncOnly
Background	Cache is filled only in the background. Caution: This is the future default for scenes containing dynamics. This setting is still being tested.	asyncOnly
Playback & Background	The default setting. The cache fills both during playback and from background tasks.	syncAsync

Note:

You can view the Cache fill status in the Heads Up Display (HUD). When the Cache fill menu is set to:

• Playback, the cache HUD shows "On (sync)".
• Background, the cache HUD shows "On (async)".
• Playback & Background, the cache HUD shows "On (sync+async)".

For more Heads Up Display options, see Heads Up Display (HUD) Options and Display scene information (HUD) in a view panel.

Background fill direction

This menu lets you set the direction (or order) that Maya fills the cache in the background.

Order	Description
Forward & Backward	Builds the cache by reading the animation both ways. This setting is the default and is best for scrubbing.
Forward	Builds the cache by reading the animation from a position onward. This setting is good for playback.
Backward	Builds the cache by reading the animation from a position backward to the change.
Forward from Animation Start	Builds the cache from the beginning of the animation. Use this setting if you are using plug-ins.

Apply custom modes

Cached Playback has several modes designed to optimize the caching process for your system, documented in Choose a caching mode. The following custom caching modes are included for debugging purposes:

Mode	Description
Reapply Preferred Mode	These unsupported/debug modes do not persist in the preferences after you applying. One finishing testing with these modes, use this setting to reapply your preferred supported modes.
Shapes, evaluation cache	Takes the scene's transform, and geometry data (such as transforms, meshes, NURBS (curves and surface), subdivs, Bezier curves, lattice and baseLattice shapes, lights, cameras, and image planes) information, as well as their immediate parent transforms.
Viewport Software cache (without fallback)	Takes the scene's transform, and geometry data (such as transforms, meshes, NURBS (curves and surface), subdivs, Bezier curves, lattice and baseLattice shapes, lights, cameras, and image planes), and stores it in a format that the renderer can read. VP2 software cache uses this format after this translation, and so is closer to rendered result. Unlike Evaluation cache, it avoids the translation step that occurs when restoring from the cache and therefore faster. It stores the data in main memory, which maybe desirable or not. It still needs to send the data to the GPU after restoring from the cache. Note: This caching mode works only in the Viewport 2.0 viewport. Other viewports will not update correctly. For information on changing the Viewport, see Viewport 2.0 in Display preferences. VP2 Software Cache Data is stored in main memory, or RAM.
Viewport Hardware cache (without fallback)	Similar to Viewport 2 Software cache mode, above, except buffers are stored as hardware buffers on the GPU, or VRAM (instead of the CPU). The VP2 hardware cache stores the data directly on the GPU, which is faster except GPU memory is often limited, so it must be used with care.
Custom Caching (NOT SUPPORTED)	This option is not supported. This is the Mode that Maya defaults to if it reaches a caching point state that is not one of the supported modes. Because Maya bases the caching mode displayed in the Mode menu on the currently active caching points, if the caching points have been manually changed, the scene may reach a state that doesn’t match any of the Cache Modes offered.

Note: Fallback is a mechanism that recognizes situations where it might be unsafe to use VP2 caching on some nodes, for example, the way the node is used, what is animated, and so on. This mechanism "falls back" to using Evaluation Cache mode in these situation. Some debugging modes do not use this fallback mechanism. You can use it for debugging or analyze potential performance gains.

Flush cache synchronously

Normally, when you flush the cache, Maya momentarily freezes the user interface to free up the resources needed build the cache in the background. Activate this option if you want to keep control of Maya (that is, no freezing,) even if the cache is not fully flushed. When active, this option flushes the cache asynchronously, that is, in the background.

Note: This option refers to flushing the cache. It does not involve cache rebuilding.

This setting is useful if you want to ensure that the memory is fully released to do the job. Also, you can use this setting while performing automated tests or benchmarking, to ensure that you are measuring the right thing(s).

Invalidate cache

Used for debugging purposes, this option disconnects the current caching data from items selected in the scene. Clicking Invalidate cache only disconnects the cache data for the selected scene elements (or everything in the scene, if nothing is selected).

Note: To simply empty the cache data from memory, use Flush Cache, below.

Use this option to identify problematic controllers to see what happens when you manipulate only the selected controllers. The disconnected cache data from the scene is retained, but because some of the cached data has been disconnected from the cache, Maya is forced to re-cache the missing parts of the scene.

The cache is outdated (or rendered 'invalid',) anytime something changes in the animation data. For example, if you added a key to curve, the value of that curve changes for a few frames. These changes, however small, trigger the invalidation of those frames, the curve, and everything depending on it.

Note: Unlike flushing the cache, invalidating the cache only marks the data as invalid, causing the missing data to be re-evaluated. Invalidating the cache is faster than flushing it, because the re-caching happens right away as opposed to at the next evaluation.

Flush cache

Clears all stored cache data.

Primarily used for debugging purposes, flushing empties the whole cache and permanently discards any content so that cache file must be rebuilt.

Note: Because the flushing the cache clears any existing caching data, it may take a few minutes, depending on the size of what is stored.

Trigger rebuild

Restarts background evaluation to compute invalid or missing cache data.

Note: Click Flush cache before Rebuild cache to force recomputation of all cache data.

Dynamics

Refresh simulation on cache update

Turns on caching for dynamics and simulation nodes. Shows Dynamics updates ‘live’ in the Viewport when the cache catches up to that current frame. When off, you have to refresh the frame manually by changing the time to see the updated result of the simulation (given the frame is already cached in the background).

Memory Management

This area lets you allocate how much memory is devoted to caching your scene. This area also displays the current memory statistics to let you monitor your usage.

Update memory

Displays the amount of memory that used, the amount of physical memory on your system, and the amount of virtual memory Maya has allocated.

Safe mode messages

Prints information on what is causing the caching process to stop.

14) Invisibility

The Invisibility evaluator lets you manage visibility changes. Use Scheduling mode to manage visibility changes without the need to repartition.

Mode

There are two modes:

Mode	Function
Partitioning	Invisibility optimizations are handled at partitioning time, therefore visibility changes trigger repartitioning.
Scheduling	Invisibility optimizations are handled at scheduling time, therefore visibility changes do not trigger repartitioning.

Invalidate Visibility Information

Click Invalidate to invalidate any visibility information, forcing the Invisibility Evaluator to recompute it.

Advanced

Notification

Choose what viewport notifications are displayed when nodes become visible:

Notification Type	Function
None	No notifications.
Visibility	Visibility status notifications only.
Transform + Geometry	Transform, geometry, and visibility status.