Memory mapped texture

[Jukkat]

It's also called "Pyradmid map" in Mental Ray.

When converting textures to *.MAP file format, MR dont need to load textures into memory when rendering. Insted, it allows MR to stream or load in those pixels of the texture the rendering needs.

(conversion is done with imf_copy -p (input file) (outputfile) )

Something like this would be good to have, sains i have encountered many craches, becous of running out of memory when having many textures.

I have started to test this method becouse of this. Would be nice to have something similar in Vray.

Im no expert on this method in MR, so i dont know how good this would work in a production or a realy advanced/heavy scene yet. But this feature sure is a thing to consider when chosing renderer !

Anyways, thought i drop this as an ide

[Dynedain]

I believe this same thing is done by the "bitmap pager" option built into max

[Dynedain]

Also, I believe the vray image format (.img) works in a similar fashion and is a good solution for large maps when running out of memory.

[Jukkat]

ooh grate !! gona test this !

hmm, how do i convert a texture to a img file ?

[muzzy]

Also, I believe the vray image format (.img) works in a similar fashion and is a good solution for large maps when running out of memory.

If material textures are in .img format, vray doesn't load to memory ?
How to adjust bitmap pager settings can you explain more ?

Thanks

[Dynedain]

If material textures are in .img format, vray doesn't load to memory ?
How to adjust bitmap pager settings can you explain more ?

I haven't used the bitmap pager myself, it's a standard max feature, check the help file for it's exact use, but it should solve a lot of memory issues relating to texture size.

The Vray Image format has a lot of optimizations in place to allow you to render very large imagery. Scenes that would crash otherwise can be rendered to Vray Image without problem. You can reuse Vray Image files in bitmap slots with no problems as far as I've seen.

[muzzy]

Thanks, Dynedain

I'll test it

[vlado]

You can also take a look at this:

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPrevie....cfm/ID/247953

It's a commerical plugin though; still, it's probably a lot better than anything that we can code.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Jukkat]

way i converted my texture, was to use render to texture (turning off all but diffues) and saving it to *.img in frame buffer dialog.

this is prity slow process, isent there any faster/esyer way to convert texture files into img ?

anyway, this could help me alot. Gona test this

must look on that plugin vlado. does it stream in the textures ? or load in the whole texture that is needed ?

Thanks for all info Dynedain and Vlado !

[Dynedain]

this is prity slow process, isent there any faster/esyer way to convert texture files into img ?

You could try using the RAM Player to load up the image and save it to another format, I'm not sure if its possible to save to Vray Image that way though.