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Quick question...

PostPosted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:08 am
by Cronicash
Is there any way that this plugin could be made a little more multi-tasked/ faster regarding animation on lite models. Just running one while im typing this and noticing cpu usage for octane alone is quite minimal whereas the 3ds-obj export is only one thread. Is it possible to get octane to render alternate obj files? Say render a file in octane while the exporter is still running in the background? As i notice its currently doing processes sequentially?

Also just out of interest why does it have to restart octane entirely between files instead of just reloading within the octane gui without closing?
Sorry for the noob questions..

Thanks

Ash.

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 4:43 am
by kilaD
Hi,

If there's no moving geometry you can check the "camera only" checkbox. This will skip the objexport for each frame.

Unfortenately what you ask is not possible to control from the script. But i would think it's something for future versions.

k

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 8:42 am
by Cronicash
Cheers. Well put.

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:08 am
by [gk]
IF the reload of mesh is a long one time wise there is the brute force method which is faster than using the script.
It requires manual work, but it is the fasted method however to get the job done.

write a script that dumps camera and target positions
Open the text file it was plotted to
manually copy past the 6 values, camera xyz and target xyz to octane and render.
This removes the loading of mesh, but that also means you have to be present and working through out the renders.

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:48 am
by Cronicash
[gk] wrote:IF the reload of mesh is a long one time wise there is the brute force method which is faster than using the script.
It requires manual work, but it is the fasted method however to get the job done.

write a script that dumps camera and target positions
Open the text file it was plotted to
manually copy past the 6 values, camera xyz and target xyz to octane and render.
This removes the loading of mesh, but that also means you have to be present and working through out the renders.


Or you could just untick the mesh box like kilad said lol?

I was meaning for it to export/load up another mesh while rendering, then setting octane to open up alternating .obj's (rendering one while creating another) Eg. So in the end you would just be asking octane to open 1.obj then 2.obj after that so while its taking time to render 2.obj the mesh is being loaded on 1.obj at the same time and vise versa... Just asking the obj exporter to write alternating two files (if you done more than two .obj files you could then use extras for other networked nodes rather than just network assist the same image). I was just thinking of this method for lite models where there is moving geometry and preloading octane again before waiting for the exporter to finish would help (as there would already be an exported/ alternate .obj to render)

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:39 am
by kilaD
Yes i understand your question, but preloading the mesh is also not possible, it would require controlling Octane to hold or pause the start of the rendering.

The whole procedure is based on a loop from max. Pseudocode:

for i = animation_start to animation_end do
(
slidertime = i
export obj
open obj in octane & start rendering
save image & close octane
wait for octane to close (to prevent spawning 100 Octanes in one go)
)

And while the loop is running max is locked down..


However, like Data would say, it's possible to export all the objs for every frame first, then rendering them in a loop.
Maybe timing the first frame to get an approximation, then start another instance of Octane just before the first is finished...
But this would be a more or less unconventional method, most likely introducing crashes. :)


Hope this helps

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:05 am
by kilaD
Cronicash wrote:Just running one while im typing this and noticing cpu usage for octane alone is quite minimal whereas the 3ds-obj export is only one thread.
Ash.


BTW: Octane only use the gpu (so to speak), while 3ds max maxscript does not support multithreading, which is classof :(

Re: Quick question...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 5:28 am
by Cronicash
Soz man was tryna reword it for "GK", not sure if he got was I was asking. I can understand the complexity of achieving it..
Cheers