[Bf-committers] Qdune code

Joe Eagar joeedh at gmail.com
Thu Nov 8 06:29:10 CET 2007


Eh forgot the last paragraph I was planning to write.  Basically all 
this is only relevant if theres a decision to choose an external project 
to integrate instead of qdune.  I'm sure such a decision would have its 
own headaches and potential problems, which is why I'm not personally 
advocating it (that and since esshlo has kindly written us a micropoly 
renderer, it seems rude to reject it for something else).

Joe

Joe Eagar wrote:
> One of the core Aqsis devs mentioned that Aqsis suffers from speed 
> problems.  This was months ago, and current SVN could've improved a 
> lot for all I know, but at that time there was even a java REYES 
> renderer faster then Aqsis.
>
> I kindof don't think Aqsis would be a good investment for direct 
> integration into blender.  Pixie is miles ahead of Aqsis, which kindof 
> makes the deal for me.  I'm not sure how you could ever argue Aqsis 
> over Pixie, to be honest.  Pixie supports ray tracing (using the pixar 
> cache method), better shadow maps, etc (I know, all these are being 
> "worked on" for Aqsis).  Ray tracing especially is important for some 
> things.
>
> Joe
>
> Jonathan Merritt wrote:
>> Good grief Campbell, that's a very glib statement!
>>
>> Firstly, you don't say which version of Aqsis you tested, on what  
>> platform, how it was optimised, etc.  Considering qdune has never 
>> seen  a release, to have Aqsis fairly represented would presumably 
>> have  involved getting a current SVN build going...?  Aqsis SVN is 
>> faster  than the previous 1.2.0 release from Feb 2007.
>>
>> Secondly, of all the Aqsis geometric primitives, I would say that  
>> subdiv surfaces are among the *least* well-supported!  They're 
>> there,  and they work, but they aren't anywhere near as fast as NURBS 
>> for  example.  As with everything else, they are in development, and 
>> I'm  sure that if Blender were to become a major provider of subdiv 
>> content  then improving them would shoot way up the list of priorities.
>>
>> Thirdly, how were your simple subsurf tests performed?  I'm guessing  
>> you just chucked the same RIB file at both renderers right?  Did  
>> anyone count how many gprim splits were done or how many 
>> micropolygons  were produced?  I ask mainly because the basic 
>> "quality" settings of  renderers can be different.  Pixie vs Aqsis is 
>> a great example...  Pixie seems to end up with more coarse surface 
>> approximations, and  hence renders "faster".  It doesn't mean that 
>> Pixie *is* faster (I  would argue the reverse)... just that it's not 
>> as high quality by  default, doesn't have to do as much dicing and 
>> splitting, and then has  nowhere near as many micropolygons to shade 
>> and sample.  (The idea is  that whoever produces the scene can change 
>> these settings in the great  speed-quality tradeoff.)
>>
>> Finally, one of the best things about Aqsis is its test suite.  The  
>> tests are *not* specific to Aqsis and are more extensive than any  
>> other RenderMan test suite I'm aware of.  Can somebody please post 
>> the  results of running qdune on these tests?  Then we'll know 
>> whether it's  something to get excited about, or whether it's still a 
>> naiive  implementation with a great deal of work still to be done.
>>
>> Jonathan Merritt.
>>
>>
>> On 08/11/2007, at 8:44 AM, Campbell Barton wrote:
>>
>>  
>>> Aqsis was slower then qdune for simple subsurf tests,
>>> This is a fair comparison, qdune and aqsis both support this well.
>>> Pixie wont run on 64bit systems yet.
>>>
>>> Even if they were used, integration would still take a while.
>>>
>>> On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 16:35 -0500, David Bryant wrote:
>>>    
>>>> Maybe I'm taking a shot in the dark but,have you examined Aqsis'
>>>> source code? It's rederman compliant.
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