Here's a set of files to demonstrate the render slow-up I spoke of in p.g.

1) Download all the files to a directory.
2) Change the font description and filepath in duelcaptions11.pov to some 
TTF font you have.
3) Render testscene.pov with these conditions:

+KFF20 +SF1 +EF10    Will be super fast
+KFF20 +SF11 +EF20  Will be super fast
+KFF20 +SF1 +EF20    Will be super slow, >>> the sum of the two above.

Now is this gross oversight in my duelcaptions.pov file (I think it's the 
killer), or a problem with how povray allocates resources at the beginning 
of a render session?

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Attachments:
Download 'duelcaptions11.pov.txt' (4 KB) Download 'charteszt12.pov.txt' (1 KB) Download 'testscene.pov.txt' (1 KB) Download 'quickscene.pov.txt' (1 KB)

I tried playing around with it a little.  Here's what I'm getting so far:
It doesn't have to be a switch.  So far it's seeming to do it with anything
that results in the contents of "charteszt12.pov" getting parsed in any
frames after having already done a virtually empty frame.  I'm pretty sure
#includes don't have anything to do with it because I tried it with
everything copy/pasted and all levels of #includes removed (including
removing the inclusion of shapes.inc and colors.inc)

//For testscene.pov:

//Fast all the way
#if (frame_number = 1)
  /* ...Either copy/paste or */ #include "charteszt12.pov"
#end

//Slow for frame number 2
#if (frame_number = 2)
  /* ...Either copy/paste or */ #include "charteszt12.pov"
#end

//Always parsed so always fast:
#if ((frame_number = 5) |  (frame_number != 5) )
  /* ...Either copy/paste or */ #include "charteszt12.pov"
#end

//This one's kindof interesting & consistent with what's
//been said... It's fast up until frame 16:
#if ((frame_number < 5) |  (frame_number > 15) )
  #include "charteszt12.pov"
#end

It'll even do it if the #include "charteszt12.pov" is brought outside the
#if statement with something like:

#if (clock > .8)
      #declare TheFileToRender = "quickscene.pov";
#end
#include TheFileToRender

Note of course that it'll be fast all the way if the ">" is changed into a
"<".

Sorry if this is nothing more than validation.  All I'm getting at here is
it doesn't seem to matter how you get there, switch or otherwise - it'll
render slow iff "chartezt12.pov" follows empty frames.

Charles









"Greg M. Johnson" <pte### [at] thecommononethatstartswithYcom> wrote:
> Here's a set of files to demonstrate the render slow-up I spoke of in p.g.
>
> 1) Download all the files to a directory.
> 2) Change the font description and filepath in duelcaptions11.pov to some
> TTF font you have.
> 3) Render testscene.pov with these conditions:
>
> +KFF20 +SF1 +EF10    Will be super fast
> +KFF20 +SF11 +EF20  Will be super fast
> +KFF20 +SF1 +EF20    Will be super slow, >>> the sum of the two above.
>
> Now is this gross oversight in my duelcaptions.pov file (I think it's the
> killer), or a problem with how povray allocates resources at the beginning
> of a render session?

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