populator: Queries & comments

Started by corax, May 13, 2009, 04:44:49 AM

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corax

Hi,
   I've a number of requests, questions & comments concerning populators:

1 - Any chance of the populator name being included in the 'populating' notification box? Useful to know where tg has got to if you've got a lot of them and they take a long time to run.

2 - Any chance of saving the distribution lists? I've, currently, 6 populations and over the field of view being used they take 10 - 15 hours each. I'd like to add more! and run them once for the whole model. ;D

3 - Is there any way you could multi-task the 'populating' calculations when you have more than one?

4 - How does a bit-map distribution map map to the area size for a population?

5 - Any (easy) way to find out what the population count is?

6 - Get frequent errors/warning about miscounts on pop lists.

7 - Get file not found errors when I first load a tg model, or clip.

Thanks

cyphyr

1/ Good idea

2/ Saving the population list would be so cool, I've asked about this and its not on the cards, at the moment. 10 - 15 hours each, either your insane, misguided or using a very old computer ;) Remember your population dose not have to go as far as you can see. Two or three populations using lower detail in the distance works better and quicker and there is no point at all in populating the back of a mountain you cant see!

3/ Only realy usefull if your using insane settings (like described above ;) ) Longest populator runs I've ever had is about 15min, say 10 pops of 50,000 to 2mil for example

4/ Copy the area size and coordinates from the populator to the image map node (make sure its in top downy axis)

5/ Not really, just looking at the populator as it reaches 100% is as good as it gets for the time being

6/ Dont worry about it, there are errors but your final render should not show them

7/ Remove any spaces in your file path names, eg "My Documents" is not liked, nor is "my file.tgo" but "my_file.tgo" or "MyFile.tgo" is fine

Hope this helps, just my response, I'm nothing to do with Planetside. Sorry for being cheeky about the 10 -15 hours, I'm sure you have your reasons.

Good luck

Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Oshyan

#2
1: Good idea, will file it for future consideration.

2: This is something we've considered, and it may be possible to add in the future. But, as Richard said, 10-15 hours is insane for population times. I've populated well over 10 million instances, and it didn't take longer than 20-30 minutes on an older dual core CPU. Did you mean 10-15 *minutes*?

3: Also a good idea, or just multithreading the population calculations. Either may be possible for future optimizations.

4: What Richard said.

5: Instead of opening up TG2 with tgd.exe (the default shortcut), go to the install folder and make a shortcut to tgdcli.exe and run that instead. This will open a 2nd window with a commandline readout, which includes some useful log info like population size, total polygons, etc.

6: As Richard said, these warnings can usually be safely ignored. We continue to look into their cause.

7: Again, as Richard said. Improvements in reading paths should be included in future updates.

- Oshyan

neuspadrin

Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
But, as Richard said,
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
4: What Robert said.
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
6: As Robert said
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
7: Again, as Robert said.

to be fair, its late ;) and you seem to have some late night forum going recently ;)

Oshyan

Gah, sorry. Not too late over here. ;) I just have Robert  on the brain (former co-worker).  :P

Fixed!

- Oshyan

neuspadrin

Ah, true, guess ur over on other side of coast huh :P  Yeh I only noticed it because Robert is my official first name that I never use, otherwise I probably wouldn't have caught.

But it is late for me, hah, its my bedybye time. Gnite.

corax

Thanks for the positive comments. I think I need to explain point 2. M/c first; I've a 2X2 core Opteron running at 2.8Ghz with 8GB of RAM. The problem is my over-weening ambition; my test terrain is 512Km on a side, sampling at 10m intervals gives ~2X10e9 tests/population so I don't expect calculating the distribution calculation to be fast. What I would like is to be able to run it once only and not each time I have to reload the job. I have ambitions that head towards 'Eurasia' sized terrains!!! I can do it on a piecemeal basis, still modestly slow as I am used to visability ranging up to 70Km; I live in a none-industrial, non-desert area where 20Km visibility is common and 70Km is not rare.

Thanks again for the comments,

Barrie

Oshyan

Interesting. I would think with those numbers you might be running out of memory already. Until we move to 64 bit, you're going to be limited by the 4GB application ceiling (assuming you're on a 64 bit OS already).

- Oshyan

corax

Getting close! Hits about 3 - 3.5GB. The terrain is an archipeligo so there's a lot of water, the max single pop is around 3.5 million. I'm waiting for the 64 bit, I run XP64 as the o/s. I started doing this kind of thing way back using ground colours and textures for the different populations. But I didn't show my players the maps, just showed them 'photos' of the interesting locations and explained what the ground cover was. I have always loved TG, especially after my first terrain was consistently mistaken for being somewhere local! Beginner's Luck.

Regards,
   Barrie

cyphyr

Quote from: neuspadrin on May 15, 2009, 01:14:58 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
But, as Richard said,
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
4: What Robert said.
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
6: As Robert said
Quote from: Oshyan on May 15, 2009, 12:58:40 AM
7: Again, as Robert said.

to be fair, its late ;) and you seem to have some late night forum going recently ;)

hehe I hadn't noticed that lol. Oh well I think Oshyan may have me cross referenced in his brain, I'm still credited as "Robert Fraiser" in my ground cover image on the Planetside page lol :)
I dont mind really lol :)
richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Oshyan

That's just in the file name though, right? It's slightly more hassle (only slightly, heh) to change that. :P

- Oshyan