"Chaanakya" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Alain <kua### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> > Le 8/21/2012 3:28 PM, Chaanakya a écrit :
> > > Hey guys!
> > >
> > > I've been trying to figure out exactly how the resume (or continue, +C) feature
> > > works in 3.7 RC6.  Whenever I try to resume, it either sits there with no output
> > > (after === [Rendering...] ===) or it sits there with the output "Rendered 1024
> > > of 14700000 pixels" (I'm rendering a 1400 x 1050 image).  Yes, I paused at a
> > > stage where every step takes a long time, but I'm confused by the output.  Is it
> > > actually resuming?  It says "Continued trace......On", so I would assume so.
> > > But then, why doesn't it resume the "Rendered" counter where it left off?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > >
> > > - Chaanakya
> > >
> > >
> >
> > It does effectively resume the render where it was interupted.
> > The pixel count don't take into acount the part of the image that was
> > done, only the part to be done. If the bit of the image is one that take
> > a LOT of time, it will look as if it's gone into limbo, but it's still
> > working and will eventualy show some progress.
> >
> > When resuming, you need to access the *.povstate file, that may be very
> > large and take some time to process, and re-parse the source file. If
> > the parse was long, it will take that same time every time you resume.
> > If the scene use radiosity, the pre trace step will be repeated, but
> > only for the part not yet rendered.
> > I've not yet resumed a photons scene.
>
> Alright.  Thanks for the info! :)

All what Alain said is correct completely. But I have some additional
suggestions.

If you intend to suspend POV, may be because you need your machine for other
purposes, you first should consider the STOP-button (if you have a windows os,
I'm not quiet sure about it on mac or linux, but I think to remember that the
editor which comes with the windows version is not available with mac os or
linux. But may be I'm be wrong with this). That will freeze POV and give you the
machine back but I assume that it doesn't swap the allocated memory by POV.

As with version 3.7 the saving of radiosity data is not supported within the
code as it was up to version 3.6. You can obtain this still over the command
line options. With the windows version you can add such options easily within
the field right to the resolutions, which is blank by default.

If you possess a machine with more than one thread another idea is to limit the
threads POV uses. For example, if you need your machine for some more simple
programs like MS Word or Excel and you have a Core i7 with 8 threads you can
type +WT6 in the command line field I mentioned above and have POV running and
may be enough resources for other tasks (the allocated memory is still an isuue
but may be it works. For axample: My picture "The tale of the magpie and the
diamond cuckoo" which I posted some days ago to the p.b.i. (look for "texturing
the orlov diamond..."), took with the raised max_trace_level 14 days to render,
but with +WT6 I was able to use the machine for other purposes without any
inconvience).

I'm still investigating this proton issue since I have a good reference picture
handy but it renders a while. You can save protons and load them. They are
stored after the proton pass immediately, so I expect that if you have once gone
throught this pass you can load them in a +C attempt without the need to
recompute them.

Best regards so far
Michael

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