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Author Topic: Forest Pro Material Efficiency Questions  (Read 9134 times)

Mike Truly

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Forest Pro Material Efficiency Questions
« on: July 18, 2007, 12:58:32 AM »
Carlos,

Lets say you have 5 separate FP objects which are zones of tree density.  Zone1 is closest, Zone5 is farthest.  The Zone1 trees can be seen but the farther zones, you really can't tell they are trees... just objects.

If I have a multi-sub material with 6 different sub-materials (kinds of trees) in it and this material is mapped to the closest Zone1, will render time be faster if I do NOT use the same material on the farther, Zone2-Zone5 trees but instead use a single, standard material with no maps?

Will the render time be faster if I DO apply the multi-sub material to all trees but only set the far zones (2-5) to use the first material ID?

So will excess material complexity eat memory and make rendering take longer?  (The maps are the same set of 6 tree maps for all trees so are they only loaded in memory once, therefore don't affect render time?).

Thanks!
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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iToo

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Re: Forest Pro Material Efficiency Questions
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2007, 05:41:45 PM »
Mike,

No, the materials doesn't take too much memory (at least if you don't use very huge textures). Also, if the material is applied to the closest trees, then it's already loaded in memory, so you don't gain nothing removing it for the farthest trees.

Do you get memory errors yet ? Perhaps the problem may be XShadow (if you are using it), because this plugin needs large segments of memory. If so, don't use shadow maps larger than 4096, and check the 'Disable exclusivity buffer' parameter.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Mike Truly

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Re: Forest Pro Material Efficiency Questions
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2007, 03:33:35 AM »
Carlos,

Thanks for the tips!  I am using XShadow but only for the region near the camera.  I will have to check the shadow map size but I think it's currently 8000.  I'll have to look at the exclusivity buffer... I don't think I'm using it.

Thanks again.
Sincerely,

Mike Truly
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iToo

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Re: Forest Pro Material Efficiency Questions
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2007, 07:34:24 AM »
Mike,

Sorry, my last post was not very clear: the 'Disable exclusivity buffer' checkbox must be CHECKED (so the buffer won't be used), because this feature is not very useful with large extensions of small trees, and it needs some buffers of memory.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software