"Ryan Bennitt" <rya### [at] lycoscouk> wrote:
> "George Pantazopoulos" <go### [at] tomyaboutpage> wrote in message
> news:web.45592660a65ea229c0bad8570@news.povray.org...
> > Hey thanks for your feedback, Ryan. I agree, my documentation could use
> > more
> > work. How do you think I could have made things easier?
>
> Well coming from the Windows side with minimal Unix experience, it took a
> lot of getting my head round just setting everything up. I think I'll put
> some notes together for other similarly minded Windows users. Also there
> will probably be more experienced users who can see what I've done and tell
> me how to do it better.
>

Thanks, I think you just helped me a lot. I went through that whole phase
myself, but I guess I temporarily forgot what it must be like for others
who haven't been there yet. Feel free to elaborate on that!

> > My reasoning was to allow flexibility in configuring the Servers. They can
> > have widely varying directory structures, but as long as you had a
> > PovBaseDir somewhere, you can give that location to pyxrsclient, and any
> > necessary scenes and includes could easily be found (and the relevant +L
> > entries automatically added to the command line for each Server when tiles
> > are rendered). Also, having a unified directory structure makes it much
> > easier to clone it for multiple servers when one or more scene files are
> > updated (either manually or using rsync).
>
> Having got the second PC going, I think I understand now. I hadn't actually
> realised that all the scene files had to be on both PC's before running the
> client. I naively thought that this would all be magically done for me...
>

I think its perfectly natural to expect that! I wanted to add this
functionality from the get-go, but at the time it was just too complex and
would have held up releasing anything at all, so my solution was to make it
as easy as I could. I've learned a lot since then, though.

> > Can you tell me more about what kind of systems you're running MegaPOV XRS
> > on? Also, what kind of renders are you doing?
>
> I've got two PC's, both with Windows XP installed and on a local network. My
> main PC is twice as fast as the other POV-Ray wise, so I'm going to get a
> theoretical 50% boost to processing power just using this. Not sure how the
> speed of the Cygwin compiled executable compares to native though, will have
> to benchmark and optimise if possible.
>

I'd be interested in seeing that.

My friend Rainer Mucke did some extensive benchmarking of MegaPOV XRS here:
http://www.overclock.at/forum/topic.php?id=247&s=8f6205f2881dc0fc4df8c49f273bcba3

That forum also has some POV-Ray 3.7 benchmarking, I noticed.

> As for renders, I check on the IRTC topics, start making a scene, and if
> it's complete before the deadline, I enter it. This month's "Complexity" is
> probably going to require all the processing power I can get, if I can think
> of a suitable subject...
>

Maybe some ideas: Fractals, dynamical systems, nature, also the simplicity
that is often found in the midst of complexity (think of the Mandlebrot Set
and all the mini-mandlebrot sets found within, or Feigenbaum constants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants). The three-body problem.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the Butterfly Effect.

> > Jaime Vives Piqueres found a way to virtually eliminate radiosity tiling
> > artifacts in his MegaPOV XRS renders. As I recall, he uses a two-pass
> > method. With a regular copy of MegaPOV he generates the radiosity data at
> > lower resolution and scene complexity. Then, he copies the rad data to all
> > the servers and does a usual XRS distributed render.
>
> Yeah, saw the thread. Makes sense, I'll give it a go.
>
> > Also, how did you hear about MegaPOV XRS? :-)
>
> It was on the main POV-Ray website. Saw it a while ago and thought I'd give
> it a go some time.
>
> Now I've got it working, I'll see if I can make it abit easier for me to
> use, particularly with keeping scene files in sync. I'm certainly hooked on
> its usefulness...
>

Congrats, and I'm glad its useful to you! I'll find it very helpful to hear
how you went about making it easier for you, Ryan, and I could share that
with others too. And feel free to make suggestions. Perhaps I should put up
a forum on the website..

Rock on,
George
http://www.gammaburst.net


> Ryan

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