"The Cathedral" another building project

[Sirius]

Cool

I just added the BuiltIn file to the list of pages that MUST be loaded when exporting with the new submenu. So if PyPRP doesn't find it, it should automatically create it.
If the BuiltIn file exists, it should just overwrite it with a new one... but the contents of this file should always be the same anyway.
So theoretically, you can do a "normal" page export just after that, and the BuiltIn will not be modified but Plasma will load the Age fine.

[Sirius]

So... I've been toying with PyPRP this evening, and I added a new export option:
"All as full age, low-memory export (for Age with multiple Pages) (.age)"
This should allow you to export a big Age with several Pages at once, without running out of RAM.
I'm not entirely happy with the way it works, it's more like a "hack" since it's not PyPRP default's behavior.

Still, it looks like it's working, it exports pages 1 by 1, but once a page finished converting, PyPRP will automatically unload it to save RAM.

You might want to try it out, but don't forget to backup prp_export.py and previously exported Ages. You cannot be too careful.
It only worked with a small test scene with 2 objects in 2 PRPs.



On a side-note, Hoikas asked me via PM to submit the "Export PRP with BuiltIn" option to PyPRP's main branch. So it might be in later official versions of PyPRP 1.

[Tsar Hoikas]

On a side-note, Hoikas asked me via PM to submit the "Export PRP with BuiltIn" option to PyPRP's main branch. So it might be in later official versions of PyPRP 1.

Indeed, that submission is on my list of things to test for today. If I can ever get someone to review the change I wrote for PyPRP a few months ago, we might see that new version

</slightlyofftopic>

[dendwaler]

Its a good idea to integrate this new option,

unfortunately there is still a bug in it.
It does export the whole age pretty fast.
For the cathedral it was about 7 minutes, the original version exported it in about 40 minutes.

The export only exports grey values, all color info is lost.

Here is a picture of the result.

[Sirius]

That's the kind of behavior I feared.
Hmm, I should leave the texture PRP loaded... Since PyPRP can't find it, it won't write textures at all. Which might explain why it took only 7 minutes.

...

Okay, this should fix it. But since the texture PRP is not unloaded, all textures will be kept in RAM.
I added another export option, which exports textures per-page.

However, since textures are written to the PRP again, you should expect a looong export time...

[dendwaler]

Here is the same pic exported with the new build.
Supprisingly the exporttime is still 421 seconds!

So it is still fast.
I exported with the 5th option in the list. (low mem - per page textures)

When i use the 4th option i did get a few objects without textures., like in the last export.

In both exports the Texcache did already excist. When i wipe that one the exported times will increase ofcoarse.

[Sirius]

Now that's good new !

I guess the amount of memory Python has to handle slows down the export script... That's good to know, if I find a less hacky way to implement this, I might submit it to PyPRP.


On a related note, I think it could be good to use a real UI for PyPRP's export options. I don't really like this pop-up list with 11 different options and unclear names...
I think a small UI like the one the Collada exporter uses could be cool - with checkboxes to toggle per-page texture export, builtin creation, sum-file update, etc...
I might try to do that later. Just for fun.


By the way, your Age looks quite good, especially those fires (although I guess they are not animated ?)

[dendwaler]

I noticed already a long time ago that export times increases exponential after a certain moment when the age grows.
Its a relief that those long exports are over now, This was one of the biggest problems to vercome when building larger ages.

Often i export 10 or more times only for 1 object.
And when i did a few objects at once and it was going wrong, it was hard to trace down why.
This has cost me 80 % of building time i am afraid.
Now i can make a new page when i arrive that point.
Its dead simple.

.....And yes, the fire is fully animated!

[dendwaler]

Is it possible to make an " only add/update selected objects in selected page" option in the export?

[Sirius]

Now that's a good question !
Since PyPRP can read already exported PRP files, I would say "Yes"...
It would load up the previous file, apply some modifications, and rewrite the whole file.
Which means the file loading/writing would take some time, but you wouldn't have to convert a lot of data from Blender scenes.
Since the info exchange with Blender takes most of the time, it would really go a lot faster.

The tricky part would be to find textures, materials which are (or are not) already in the PRP. Then find object connections (for both AlcScript regions and objects affected by lights, which is a BIG part. Not to mention textures which might be in two PRPs), and make sure every objects are in the PRP (assuming we don't have linked objects in two PRPs).

So, that's possible, but I wouldn't want to be the one applying all the modifications...
I think if we manage to get rid of these memory and slow-down bugs, splitting the age in multiple PRPs will be enough, since you could put your updated objects in a single PRP.