building scenes in memory...

General questions about Indigo, the scene format, rendering etc...
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scaron
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building scenes in memory...

Post by scaron » Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:15 pm

hey nick

i am interested in skipping the .xml format and using C/C++ API calls to indigo to create a scene to render in memory, what do you think?

much like PRMan and mentalray you can build the scene in memory using functions like mi_api_camera_begin(); and mi_api_material_begin();

i am unsure of the difficulty of this for you, but i thought i would ask because it would mean your renderer could plugin more tightly to our DCC apps. the export process can be slow but we maybe able to skip that step if we can dynamically create the scene in memory for indigo. this will also make the experience more interactive.

pipe dreams i know, but i am a dreamer :)

steven
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rgigante
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Post by rgigante » Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:36 am

hi Steven,

well could be damn great... no more lost time exporting...

Hope to hear something from nick...

Lets wait, Riccardo.

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scaron
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Post by scaron » Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:31 am

exactly riccardo!

the export times are never fun, even with .mi files with mentalray and .rib files with PRMan. i figure with new XSI v6 rendering framework updates, we should be able to hook into render passes and the render region. but ultimately we would need indigo to have an API. which isn't an easy thing but i wanted to talk about it now and get his view on the subject

lets wait

steven
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OnoSendai
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Post by OnoSendai » Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:38 pm

This is definitely an interesting idea.
As you know, Indigo has a pretty basic GUI anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge stretch to convert it to a plugin.
There's still gonna be a hit for large scenes from the kdtree build time tho.

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scaron
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Post by scaron » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:49 pm

No one really knows where indigo is going to go development wise except you so...

if this is doable kinda something you keep in mind as you develop it. exposing the functions in a C/C++ API to control building the scene. then i could develop it as a plugin for XSI. Which would take advantage of render regions, pass system, and the render tree and its shaderballs.

I think functions you use internally to build a mesh and position it would be a start. I could hook into those and we could start from there maybe build some teapots. build some indigo primitives, maybe even push your scene building ideas some so indigo can scale better to larger scenes.

just some thoughts,lemme know
steven
doer of things somewhat technical

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