I have had success making INC files with a hundred primitives moving in
various flocking algorithms.   When I tried to replace the primitives
with an sPatch-modelled craft, my HDD swapped like the dickens upon
tracing.   I had 12 800 objects and I have 256 MB RAM.  Apparently, my
craft has 128 patches.

Have I just plain hit a resource wall?  Is there any trick to make it
less resource intensive: order of reorient vs. translate, avoid scaling,
bicubic settings, BOUNDING, etc.???

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"Greg M. Johnson" wrote:

> I have had success making INC files with a hundred primitives moving in
> various flocking algorithms.   When I tried to replace the primitives
> with an sPatch-modelled craft, my HDD swapped like the dickens upon
> tracing.   I had 12 800 objects and I have 256 MB RAM.  Apparently, my
> craft has 128 patches.
>
> Have I just plain hit a resource wall?  Is there any trick to make it
> less resource intensive: order of reorient vs. translate, avoid scaling,
> bicubic settings, BOUNDING, etc.???

12,800 patches is alot. Look at the u-steps and v-steps of the patches.
Lower
these numbers if possible, for starters.

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Export your craft to a mesh and use copies of that mesh. This way
you'll save quite a lot of memory.


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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On Sun, 22 Aug 1999 10:42:22 -0400, "Greg M. Johnson"
<"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote:

>I have had success making INC files with a hundred primitives moving in
>various flocking algorithms.   When I tried to replace the primitives
>with an sPatch-modelled craft, my HDD swapped like the dickens upon
>tracing.   I had 12 800 objects and I have 256 MB RAM.  Apparently, my
>craft has 128 patches.
>
>Have I just plain hit a resource wall?  Is there any trick to make it
>less resource intensive: order of reorient vs. translate, avoid scaling,
>bicubic settings, BOUNDING, etc.???
>
128 patches doesn't sound too bad. Can we see some code? For example,
you do parse the patches just once and then create the instances of
the object with something like:

object { MySpaceship rotate <MyRotX,MyRotY,MyRotZ> translate ... }

don't you?


Cheers,

Cliff Bowman
Why not pay my 3D Dr Who site a visit at http://www.who3d.cwc.net/

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I exported the sPatch model to a file I named as an INC and in the INC I
declare an object.

The parsing doesn't take too long, but the tracing was swapping like I've
never seen before.  Again, it has 12 800 objects, which I assume means 128
patches x 100 "objects".

I'll read up on "meshes."


#declare n=0    ;
#while (n<100)
        object{ rocky
                pigment{ color actorc[n]}}
                finish {ambient 0.3
                        phong 0.4
                        reflection .05
                       }
                Reorient(y,actorv[n])
                translate  actorp[n]
                }
#declare n=n+1   ;
#end


Cliff Bowman wrote:

> On Sun, 22 Aug 1999 10:42:22 -0400, "Greg M. Johnson"
> <"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote:
>
> >I have had success making INC files with a hundred primitives moving in
> >various flocking algorithms.   When I tried to replace the primitives
> >with an sPatch-modelled craft, my HDD swapped like the dickens upon
> >tracing.   I had 12 800 objects and I have 256 MB RAM.  Apparently, my
> >craft has 128 patches.
> >
> >Have I just plain hit a resource wall?  Is there any trick to make it
> >less resource intensive: order of reorient vs. translate, avoid scaling,
> >bicubic settings, BOUNDING, etc.???
> >
> 128 patches doesn't sound too bad. Can we see some code? For example,
> you do parse the patches just once and then create the instances of
> the object with something like:
>
> object { MySpaceship rotate <MyRotX,MyRotY,MyRotZ> translate ... }
>
> don't you?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cliff Bowman
> Why not pay my 3D Dr Who site a visit at http://www.who3d.cwc.net/

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Yep, the mesh solved it.  I exported the sPatch model to DXF and then
used 3DWin to convert the DXF to smooth triangles.  The resulting
animation traces almost faster than my old animation, which had 100
cylinders per "actor" in my flock of 100!!

Thanks!

Peter Popov wrote:

> Export your craft to a mesh and use copies of that mesh. This way
> you'll save quite a lot of memory.
>
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

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