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Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:42 pm
by Krisonrik
I remember reading out ID soft making their game engine capable of utilizing 10GB of texture through their streaming process. I am no programmer, just a thought and am curious as to whether it could be a solution to Octane's memory limitations. I mean could there be a way to do bucket rendering with Octane and then after the bucket size finish rendering, Octane can stream the texture that is needed for the next bucket and wipe the current texture memory usage. It would be so cool if we can get around the memory problem without waiting for few years of hardware development time. Still, I can't imagine 6GB - 12GB of VRAM being cheap.

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:45 pm
by radiance
Hi, an unbiased GI renderer needs to have all information present at all times, a ray can bounce on anything anywhere, so it's not possible unfortunately.
We're optimizing octane and with the new procedural materials you will be able to do far more complex stuff.

Radiance

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:50 pm
by Krisonrik
radiance wrote:Hi, an unbiased GI renderer needs to have all information present at all times, a ray can bounce on anything anywhere, so it's not possible unfortunately.
We're optimizing octane and with the new procedural materials you will be able to do far more complex stuff.

Radiance
Yeah I guess once we have a full library of procedural texture, things can get much easier. Is it possible to have things like composite map in Octane? Like what Max has. I'm not a bit Max fan, since I'm more of a Maya lover, but I do like the composite map in Max, makes life so much easier without the need to go back to Photoshop and do all the texture works.

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:31 am
by radiance
Krisonrik wrote:
radiance wrote:Hi, an unbiased GI renderer needs to have all information present at all times, a ray can bounce on anything anywhere, so it's not possible unfortunately.
We're optimizing octane and with the new procedural materials you will be able to do far more complex stuff.

Radiance
Yeah I guess once we have a full library of procedural texture, things can get much easier. Is it possible to have things like composite map in Octane? Like what Max has. I'm not a bit Max fan, since I'm more of a Maya lover, but I do like the composite map in Max, makes life so much easier without the need to go back to Photoshop and do all the texture works.
what's a composite map ?

Radiance

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:44 am
by andrian
multi layer map, like in photoshop

But this will lead to massive memory consumption no? better do this in max and export map in one single texture rather than eat your ram in octane..

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:48 am
by radiance
andrian wrote:multi layer map, like in photoshop

But this will lead to massive memory consumption no? better do this in max and export map in one single texture rather than eat your ram in octane..
you can do this with the mix texture.
but if you plan to mix 10 unique textures and don't reuse those on other materials it's better to prebake it first indeed.

Radiance

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 1:28 pm
by kubo
I might got it wrong but what I think he means is mixing two materials, not textures, like a mix for materials, say, you got concrete, and wet concrete materials, then you mix with a puddle map, but each material is its own and could be used separately.

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 2:33 pm
by radiance
kubo wrote:I might got it wrong but what I think he means is mixing two materials, not textures, like a mix for materials, say, you got concrete, and wet concrete materials, then you mix with a puddle map, but each material is its own and could be used separately.
a mix material will be for 2.3 ;)

Radiance

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 9:32 pm
by n1k
Composite map is useful when one ,for some reason, want to use ,for example, 2 different maps for same bump map channel, or 2 different maps for mask in mix map/material etc. It can be quite handy when creating complex shaders. Advantage is that you can create new maps from existing ones comping them and saving some RAM that way. At some point it would be nice if Octane could support this feature.

Cheers,
n1k

Re: Would streaming be a solution to memory cap?

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 9:44 pm
by radiance
n1k wrote:Composite map is useful when one ,for some reason, want to use ,for example, 2 different maps for same bump map channel, or 2 different maps for mask in mix map/material etc. It can be quite handy when creating complex shaders. Advantage is that you can create new maps from existing ones comping them and saving some RAM that way. At some point it would be nice if Octane could support this feature.

Cheers,
n1k
you can use the mix material to mix textures together in 2.2.
to mix materials you will have to wait until 2.3.

Radiance