Mick Hazelgrove wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> I have a pic with two HFs, several animal meshes and clouds using the
> stacked plane technique.
> 
> Each individual item parses and renders within a few minutes but put
> together I suspect a render time in excess of 3 days!
> 
> I believe this has something to do with the combination of the HF which use
> the superpatch slope texture method with some transparency in one of the
> textures and the sky.
> 
> Can anyone explain this and possibly suggest a solution.
> 
> BTW max_trace_level is set at 124 there are 80 odd planes in the sky! but I
> suspect could be lowered but at these render times I'm loath to experiment.
> 
> Mick

80 planes !!
Can you reduce this by using layered textures on fewer planes?
Perhaps combine some of your pigments with pigment_maps.
Do the cloud planes cast shadows, can you use no_shadow for at least
some of them?

Cheers, PoD.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Sep 1999 06:57:15 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>Notice how there is no scale given in the box's y direction ?

The things one learn every day... I think though that this is
internally converted to a unit box with the appropriate transformation
matrix applied, and since POV changes a zero scale to unity scale, you
might as well replace the zeroes with ones there as there's no
difference between them. There, I beat the bejesus out of boolean
algebra :)

>It works well and has the advantage that automatic bounding is
>very effecient for the box object. Also you will have a problem
>with Pov if you try to add manual bounding to a union of planes
>because Pov will simply remove the manual bounding unless you
>turn bounding off.This may cause the rest of your scene to take
>even longer to render and the savings for the planes being bounded
>may become moot. 22 hrs for a Pov scene to render is not all that
>uncommon and who said raytracing was fast anyway ?

I regret to say this, but you are wrong. You can use manual *and*
automatic bounding simultaneously. You just have to tell POV to keep
the user bounds, because by default it will remove them. The command
line option is -UR and the INI file setting is Remove_Bounds=off. In
case you are bounding a union you might have to have Split_Unions=off
or use -SU in the command line.


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 04 Sep 1999 06:57:15 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
> 
> >Notice how there is no scale given in the box's y direction ?
> 
> The things one learn every day... I think though that this is
> internally converted to a unit box with the appropriate transformation
> matrix applied, and since POV changes a zero scale to unity scale, you
> might as well replace the zeroes with ones there as there's no
> difference between them. There, I beat the bejesus out of boolean
> algebra :)

The proof comes from rendering the following:

camera{location z*-3.5 look_at 0 }
light_source { z*-13 rgb 1}
background{rgb .55}

box { <-1,0,-1>, <1,0,1> pigment{red 1}}

All that you will see once rendered is a thin red line. I found this about
9 months ago and it was discussed for a while and dropped as to why Pov
allows this. The important thing is that it does work. In fact it you attempt
to use it like a triangle in a CSG operation it suffers the same limitations
as a triangle or other similar infinitely thin Pov primitives.

> I regret to say this, but you are wrong. You can use manual *and*
> automatic bounding simultaneously. You just have to tell POV to keep
> the user bounds, because by default it will remove them. The command
> line option is -UR and the INI file setting is Remove_Bounds=off. In
> case you are bounding a union you might have to have Split_Unions=off
> or use -SU in the command line.
> 
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

I was not wrong I simply did not offer all of the possible solutions that
you did :)

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Sep 1999 13:13:44 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>The proof comes from rendering the following:
>
>camera{location z*-3.5 look_at 0 }
>light_source { z*-13 rgb 1}
>background{rgb .55}
>
>box { <-1,0,-1>, <1,0,1> pigment{red 1}}
>
>All that you will see once rendered is a thin red line. I found this about
>9 months ago and it was discussed for a while and dropped as to why Pov
>allows this. The important thing is that it does work. In fact it you attempt
>to use it like a triangle in a CSG operation it suffers the same limitations
>as a triangle or other similar infinitely thin Pov primitives.

I stand corrected and I thank you for showing me the light, master
Ken. :) 

"The stupid learn from their mistakes, the wise - from the mistakes of
others." :)

<snip>

>I was not wrong I simply did not offer all of the possible solutions that
>you did :)

Ever thought of becoming a lawyer? :)


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

Peter Popov wrote:

> >I was not wrong I simply did not offer all of the possible solutions that
> >you did :)
> 
> Ever thought of becoming a lawyer? :)
> 
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

I'm much too nice a guy to become a lawyer :)

Shut up Ron !!

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

Post a reply to this message

> Something tells me Mick might not be using 'media' at all but rather
> various textured planes instead (like the clouds, clouds, clouds post
> recently). If so then I'd suggest rendering those animal objects and
> HFs separately and combining later if you can via post-processing.

Well my point was that he should be using media.  It was designed for
that kind of thing.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

Mike wrote:
> 
> > Something tells me Mick might not be using 'media' at all but rather
> > various textured planes instead (like the clouds, clouds, clouds post
> > recently). If so then I'd suggest rendering those animal objects and
> > HFs separately and combining later if you can via post-processing.
> 
> Well my point was that he should be using media.  It was designed for
> that kind of thing.
> 
> -Mike

  As soon as you get your patch working I would be more than happy to
explore the possibilities of using media for applications such as these.
While it has been demonstrated that it can be done with the official
version of media the render times and parameter adjustments needed to
achieve the desired results are monstrous and difficult to achieve.

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

Post a reply to this message

> As soon as you get your patch working I would be more than happy to
> explore the possibilities of using media for applications such as these.
> While it has been demonstrated that it can be done with the official
> version of media the render times and parameter adjustments needed to
> achieve the desired results are monstrous and difficult to achieve.

It just so happens that I'm free after this weekend and that patch is high on
my list of things to do.  As I recall there's a lot of modification I need to
make, but hopefully I can come up with something next week.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

Mike wrote:
> 
> > As soon as you get your patch working I would be more than happy to
> > explore the possibilities of using media for applications such as these.
> > While it has been demonstrated that it can be done with the official
> > version of media the render times and parameter adjustments needed to
> > achieve the desired results are monstrous and difficult to achieve.
> 
> It just so happens that I'm free after this weekend and that patch is high on
> my list of things to do.  As I recall there's a lot of modification I need to
> make, but hopefully I can come up with something next week.
> 
> -Mike

object { Smiley scale 1000 }


-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Sep 1999 14:17:11 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>
>
>Peter Popov wrote:
>
>> >I was not wrong I simply did not offer all of the possible solutions that
>> >you did :)
>> 
>> Ever thought of becoming a lawyer? :)
>> 
>> Peter Popov
>> ICQ: 15002700
>
>I'm much too nice a guy to become a lawyer :)
>
>Shut up Ron !!

I didn't say anything.  For the record, I agree. :)

Post a reply to this message