After some considerable help from Chris, I finally got a spline based
animation sequence running at a fairly low test resolution. At low res. it
ran just fine..
For my final production I am trying to run a 512 x 384 version but am
finding that the system really gets bogged down in some locations.
I am getting a failure about one third through the series and even if I
restart the run from that place the system just dies.
Yes, it is a fairly complex scene but I do have a PIII with 128 Mb. ram....
Is there an way to trace a problem within the local scene ?

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David Vincent-Jones wrote:
> 
> After some considerable help from Chris, I finally got a spline based
> animation sequence running at a fairly low test resolution. At low res. it
> ran just fine..
> For my final production I am trying to run a 512 x 384 version but am
> finding that the system really gets bogged down in some locations.
> I am getting a failure about one third through the series and even if I
> restart the run from that place the system just dies.
> Yes, it is a fairly complex scene but I do have a PIII with 128 Mb. ram....
> Is there an way to trace a problem within the local scene ?

Crashes like this happen from time to time and they can be difficult to
track down. Some things you can try are to isolate exactly where in your
code the crash is occurring. The easiest way to do this is to comment out
such things as the background and floor planes you may have in the scene
leaving only active elements. Then start removing active elements until
you know exactly which piece of code is causing the problem. Sometimes
a tiny shift in the camera's position is all that is needed to fix a fault
like the one you are seeing. If you can isolate the problem code to a
specific function and you still cannot figure it out then post the least
amount of code that reproduces the fault on your system here so that
we can check to see if we can help you track it down.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings and A Happy New Millennium !
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Ken,  I ran a few tests last night and found that the transparent plane was
a major, but not total cause of the lockup.

This is my code:
#declare Sea =  plane { y, (0)
 texture { pigment {color rgbf <0.85,0.95,1.0,0.75>}
 finish  { ambient 0.1 reflection 0.05 brilliance 1.0}}}

When I commented out the above most of the frames ran fine with a time per
frame of around 8.5 minutes.

There was a significant speed-up when I then removed the AA 0.3; it came
down to 2.5 mins.

I do have 8Mb. video on an ATI card but anyway I reduced my screen
resolution down to 1024 x 768 , that did not change anything.

It almost feels as if the video is getting overloaded or not getting
sufficiently 'flushed' between frames.

Do you know of any tests that will really quantify the video performance for
PV usage.

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On Sun, 26 Dec 1999 01:12:07 -0800, "David Vincent-Jones"
<geo### [at] galaxynetcom> wrote:

>It almost feels as if the video is getting overloaded or not getting
>sufficiently 'flushed' between frames.
>
>Do you know of any tests that will really quantify the video performance for
>PV usage.

  Video performance, as it relates to pixel width to height to number of
displayed colors, is of no importance to POV-Ray. Resolution only makes
a difference in what you see on your monitor, not what POV-Ray renders.
The output image remains the same.

>This is my code:
>#declare Sea =  plane { y, (0)
> texture { pigment {color rgbf <0.85,0.95,1.0,0.75>}
> finish  { ambient 0.1 reflection 0.05 brilliance 1.0}}}
>
> [snip]
>
>When I commented out the above most of the frames ran fine with a time per
>frame of around 8.5 minutes.

  Just for argument's sake, try using a box scaled large enough for your
scene instead of the infinite plane. It may not make any difference but
I try to avoid using planes unless I can't make do with scaled primitive
shapes like boxes.

  Let's see what Ken advises to do next. We may have to examine your
complete scene code.

(p.s. - your system date is off by a few days and is messing up the
threading in my newsreader)

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

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