[Bf-cycles] Pause

[ZonedCode Media]

     All,

     Wow! I am impressed by the number of replies I got so fast. All of
them are very useful. I will reply to each of them one by one.

     Okay, first of all, many of you suggested improvements to my cooling
system. I am going to have to look into them, but as far as I know, my
cooling system works fine. I cleaned out the vents recently as well. My
computer is actually a Dell Vostro laptop. It originally had Windows XP
installed before my family installed Vista. Then I got my hands on it and
installed 64-bit Ubuntu. It's such a dinosaur of a laptop that I *have* to
overclock it to run Cycles. It doesn't even have a modern GPU. On a
mid-sized scene (80,000 verts with 5 textures), it will take 4+ hours to
render 2000 samples. I can't use Blender for scenes much much bigger than
150,000 verts because it crashes. It was never designed to run such heavy
loads, but unfortunately, I can't afford another computer.

     Luke, I will look into the thermal paste. Does it work for laptops?

     Robert, if you could send that script, I would be very appreciative.
That would help me a lot because I am often running my computer into the
ground.

     Carsten, that is a very good idea. I'd heard about it before, but I am
not sure how to combine the images in the compositor. Could you send me an
example node setup?

     Brecht, I would be willing to add this feature. Right now, I have a
script on my computer that updates from svn, and I am diving through the
code, trying to figure out how everything works. I leave on a mission for
my church on August 3, but until then, I don't have much to do, and this
feature would be useful because sometimes I have other processes, like
compiling, that I need to run.

     I am assuming that the render API is in the source/blender/render
folder. Correct me if I'm wrong. Now, to be honest, I am relatively new to
C and C++ (Java/Android is my specialty), but I am willing to work and
learn.

     I am also assuming that pausing should work similarly to canceling
(ie: finish tracing the current sample before pausing), but that it would
keep the current state.

     Graphics question: I have noticed that Cycles says, "Path Tracing
Sample <sample number here>". That would mean that Cycles is a path tracer,
not a classic ray tracer, correct? I have read the Rendering Equation paper
that introduced path tracing some 20 years ago. What are the advantages of
using path tracing instead of ray tracing in Blender?

     Anyway, thanks everyone for your answers.

     God Bless,

     Gavin Howard

On Jun 3, 2012 3:48 AM, "Brecht Van Lommel" <brechtvanlommel at pandora.be>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> There's no support for this at the moment. If it's added, it should
> probably be part of the jobs/renderengine API in Blender, not just a
> cycles feature. It's not really a priority for me, someone else would
> have to implement this.
>
> But, this really sounds like either your CPU fans are not working well
> or you need to install more. If you computer shuts down under heavy
> operation that's not because it's not good enough, it's because the
> cooling is broken.
>
> Brecht.
>
> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 5:32 AM, ZonedCode Media
> <zonedcodemedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >      All,
> >
> >      New user of Blender and especially Cycles. I have a problem. My
> > computer isn't very good. In fact, whenever I am rendering, it
overheats and
> > shuts off, even when I am blowing cool air into the room. I can get
about
> > 300 samples before it shuts down, but for some things I am doing, I
need as
> > many as 5000. However, if I can pause the rendering, my computer should
have
> > the chance to cool down.
> >
> >      I know that Cycles can pause rendering in the rendered view on the
3D
> > Viewport. However, I have not been able to find out if it can be paused
in
> > the final rendering. My question: can it be paused, and if so, what is
the
> > python command (I am going to write a script that pauses rendering
every 200
> > samples and waiting 10-15 minutes for the computer to cool down).
> >
> >      If not, is it on the todo list? I might be willing to dive into the
> > code and put it there if needed.
> >
> >      Sorry, it's a really random question, but it can apply other places
> > too.
> >
> >      God Bless,
> >
> >      Gavin Howard
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-cycles mailing list
> > Bf-cycles at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-cycles
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-cycles mailing list
> Bf-cycles at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-cycles
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