Mem Use Prob?
Hi Don Hanson / All,
Following up on my Mem Use Prob? messages (#87922, #87986, & #88009) where
I documented the elements in the animation Fish.flc and showed memory useage
under various test situations:
It was my personal judgement that all materials & other maps and the extensive
use of transparency in this anim. were of little consequence w/r/t the total
memory useage. I also felt that even though only <100 Flock particles (71
actual count) were in the test rendered frame, that the *_entire amount
defined_* -> 150 ea. for the master and the two instances = 450 particles =
202,000 faces as defined below……..
((1 master + 2 instances) X 150 particles each)) X 400 faces = 202,000
…..was what was forcing the memory useage so high. In order to test this
theory I created 20 – 10k face spheres, a camera, 3 lights (including the
projector w/ the same bitmap), the fog, and the grad.BG. Rendering parameters
and image size (256×150) were also identical.
The test with the spheres caused the entire 32MB RAM to be used plus a 1.4MB
swap file – very similar numbers to the actual animation use.
To test my theory on the procedural mapping w/ transparency, I recreated the
scene using just the Beige Matte material on the Flock particles, and memory
useage only dropped to 29MB.
Therefore, I must conclude the following:
1) The various Yost IPAS routines as well as the Bubble IPAS routine and
the bitmaps and transparency have little bearing on the total memory
useage.
2) Even though the Flock routine only produced 71 visible particles in
the rendered frame, and only 150 were defined in the master cube and
then instanced twice, the memory results are the same as if all 450
particles were defined in the master object *AND* were all visible
in the frame.
This doesn't sound kosher to me. ANY COMMENTS ?
Regards,
Bill