Hello, All,
I am currently rendering a 16-second AVI animation at 320x240 pixels and 30 frames per second. I am using Bryce 5 on a single WindowsME PC (i.e. no Network Rendering, because I can't afford it at this time) with a Pentium III, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 40 gigabyte hard drive, and 24-bit on-board graphics acceleration. Even so, because I have six to eight transparent metaballs with a marble texture and the refraction property of water (about 133), joined by two other semi-reflective objects that have equally intricate textures, Bryce tells me that the animation will take over fifteen DAYS to render.
Although I am not too certain as to the accuracy of the source, I have heard that Bryce's extremely slow rendering times are caused by the use of software-based floating-point equations (i.e. equations involving exponents, roots, logarithms, trigonometry, etc.) in the rendering engine. On the other hand, I have read that all Pentiums contain a built-in piece of hardware known as the Floating-Point Unit (FPU, also known as the Math Coprocessor), which can execute several million of those complex mathematical calculations per second. (I believe that the Macintosh's CPU contains an FPU as well.) My question is whether or not Corel has ever explored (or will ever explore) the option of using FPU Calls instead of software-based floating-point equations in the source code(s) for Bryce 5. And if so, has Corel ever released (or will Corel ever release) a download patch or rebuild that will allow current PC and MAC users to take advantage of the speed and power of their CPU's FPU.
Anything to put an end to the fifteen-day nightmare!
Ken
I am currently rendering a 16-second AVI animation at 320x240 pixels and 30 frames per second. I am using Bryce 5 on a single WindowsME PC (i.e. no Network Rendering, because I can't afford it at this time) with a Pentium III, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 40 gigabyte hard drive, and 24-bit on-board graphics acceleration. Even so, because I have six to eight transparent metaballs with a marble texture and the refraction property of water (about 133), joined by two other semi-reflective objects that have equally intricate textures, Bryce tells me that the animation will take over fifteen DAYS to render.
Although I am not too certain as to the accuracy of the source, I have heard that Bryce's extremely slow rendering times are caused by the use of software-based floating-point equations (i.e. equations involving exponents, roots, logarithms, trigonometry, etc.) in the rendering engine. On the other hand, I have read that all Pentiums contain a built-in piece of hardware known as the Floating-Point Unit (FPU, also known as the Math Coprocessor), which can execute several million of those complex mathematical calculations per second. (I believe that the Macintosh's CPU contains an FPU as well.) My question is whether or not Corel has ever explored (or will ever explore) the option of using FPU Calls instead of software-based floating-point equations in the source code(s) for Bryce 5. And if so, has Corel ever released (or will Corel ever release) a download patch or rebuild that will allow current PC and MAC users to take advantage of the speed and power of their CPU's FPU.
Anything to put an end to the fifteen-day nightmare!
Ken
