Ok, for speed purposes, especially when test rendering, could it be possible to pre-cache the particles?
So you evaluate the scene particles once, or you read in the disk particles once, and just plop that into memory somewhere and just keep applying that “dataset” to the render?
Frustrating when I move a light or change the density, and I have to reload all the particles again. Especially when loading the particles takes 11 minutes and the shadow+render portion takes 2.
And as I would like to use Krakatoa, probably 30% of my scenes would involve totally static particle systems. Likely only the camera would move, possibly the camera+lights. We’d be doing something like loading a CT or MRI dataset to particles and just panning over it.
Ok, for speed purposes, especially when test rendering, could it be
possible to pre-cache the particles? <<
Good suggestion. I’ll ask about feasibility.
Actually, I’m finding it odd that when I do a render from file and set Load Single Frame Only that it keeps reloading the particles for every frame. Seems like the Load Single Frame Only should imply that the data is static, especially when Load Particle Colors is on.
I tried assigning the colors and opacity with Box#3 instead of using the custom material. Loads faster for re-rendering, provided you invest the time in the front end.