Long exporting

[Aloys]

It looks good, so if Psyco is installed correctly the problem is somewhere else then..
Maybe the problem is in the Age itself.. Have you tried sending your Age to anyone else in the Yinfara team to see if they are getting the same long export times?

[Grogyan]

What kind of computer do you have? (processor speed and memory size)
How many vertexes are there in your Age?
How many objects are there in the Age?

I have 160507 Verts, 631 Objects, My processor: Intel(R), Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1400MHz, 1.40 GHz, 512 MB of RAM
As far as disk space, I've got a capacity of 149 GB, 20.9 GB of free space, and 128 GB of Used space. Not to mention, I've got an ancient video card that doesn't support wavesets

Judging by your system specs, i'd say its because your computer is too old, Pentium 4's are about a decade old, and Blender is designed to work over multiple CPU cores. I'd hate to think what your video card is, but even so you'd be struggling to even model the Age inside Blender, I know I do, with my 1 year old video card and 6 month old CPU

On the Psyco page, they say that you need a huge memory overhead, like a minimum of 2GB for XP systems. so if you have some spare cash, spare slots, and IF you can find compatible memory, get it, assuming you have XP!


Going back to Chacal's suggestion, go back to your studies, and save up your pennies to build a new computer

[Aloys]

I agree his computer is a bit old but even with his configuration export time shouldn't exced a couple hours, and not a whole day.
My computer is also a 3Ghz Pentium 4 (3 years old), with 1GB of RAM running XP, and Ahra Pahts (which is 10 times bigger than Justin's Age) doesn't take more than two hours to export. So with computer specs that are barely half of what I have Justin's computer takes 10 times more time to export and Age that's 10 times smaller. That's not right.
Something is wrong with your software configuration Justin (or your Age) and I'm not sure what..

[Grogyan]

I agree his computer is a bit old but even with his configuration export time shouldn't exced a couple hours, and not a whole day.
My computer is also a 3Ghz Pentium 4 (3 years old), with 1GB of RAM running XP, and Ahra Pahts (which is 10 times bigger than Justin's Age) doesn't take more than two hours to export. So with computer specs that are barely half of what I have Justin's computer takes 10 times more time to export and Age that's 10 times smaller. That's not right.
Something is wrong with your software configuration Justin (or your Age) and I'm not sure what..

Because you have the memory overhead and a fast enough CPU, so when you start exporting and out of memory, the computer has to use virtual memory which is a lot slower, up to 100 times slower I have seen, cause all his memory is used in rendering in the 3D view.
He theoretically can increase this by switching to wire frame mode, but I believe that
a) The motherboard bandwidth is slower than yours Aloys, assuming that its a 333MHz or slower vs yours which may use 667MHz, both are DDR2
b) The CPU is processing the prp's as well as Windows, which we all know is a resource hog.

Would be nice if Blender had the option to process python and/or rendering through a GPPU.


Justin, try switching your 3D view to wire frame mode before exporting, and kill any unnecessary processes that are running in the background, MSN for example, heck kill your internet connection (unplug the LAN cable) and close down your firewall if need be, every little bit helps on an old machine.

[Lontahv]

I don't think it does update the 3d-view (or even the whole Blender window) when a script is taking lots of memory--thus the non-responsive Blender window during export.

[Grogyan]

I don't think it does update the 3d-view (or even the whole Blender window) when a script is taking lots of memory--thus the non-responsive Blender window during export.

I can say that it gives a good performance boost after importing Teledahn, switching to wireframe, which means less memory overhead for real time rendering, which means more memory for the python script.

Can't hurt to try

[Justintime9]

A few weeks ago, I decided that my age is just going to take long to export, and there was nothing I could do to change that. So yesterday, after adding a few more rooms, I started exporting at 10:00 PM, so it would export overnight. I put it in bounding box mode, and closed all other programs. This morning I ran up the stairs to my computer, eager to see it exported... but it wasn't done! It'd been going all night, and it wasn't done! So I went to school, it was a half day, so I ran back in, to see it finished after school. IT STILL WASN'T DONE EXPORTING!!! Now, at 2:58 PM, I've finally decided to give it a rest, and post the blend file up here to see if any of you can figure out why it's taking so darn long! Here's the file: http://www.mediafire.com/?zjuuzzmk2wn

[GPNMilano]

Justin, your lightmaps, when you make them what do you set the size for in blender? Since your blend file is missing the images, I can't get figure out the size of these lightmaps.

The reason I ask is that the default setting is 1024x1024, when you make a new image in the UV editor (which is required for generating lightmaps in blender) and you have a TON of lightmaps in your age. If your lightmaps are all the default size of 1024x1024 than this would explain the long export time, as each lightmap would have to be mipmapped down to its lowest size.

lightmaps, in general, really don't need to be large size textures that blender sets their defaults to in the UV editor. (they are usually around 128x128 in cyan ages.

So, check your lightmap textures, if they're the default settings of 1024x1024 than that would be a good indication of why its taking so long for you to export.

EDIT:

Okay, i found a couple of the lightmaps, they're like 256x256 (They can still be reduced a bit in size) Also, you've got lightmaps on way to many things IMO. A lightmap, is really only required for a floor, and sometimes the walls. Ninety percent of the rest of lighting objects is done with vertex painting the objects. To reduce file size (and export time) I'd suggest to start vertex painting stuff rather than using lightmaps to do the job.

Other than that I can't really test out exporting as their are to many images missing from the blend file.

[Paradox]

This is not a PyPRP issue.

There are thousands on unneeded vertices caused by excessive subdividing of entire meshes. Please read up on how to subdivide a single face rather than bloating the entire mesh with unneeded vertices. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Age even runs in Uru without crashing from the sheer inordinate amount of vertices.

[GPNMilano]

Tis true, vertex count is a bit high (Though Cyan ages have high vertex counts to, Minkata for example has something like over 500,000 when imported). As Paradox said, you could limit the amount of vertexes in certain places, and still convey the depth that you're looking for.

Yep, layers 1 and 4 are your problem vertex count areas. Its the walls that are causing your high vertex count and helping to slow down export.