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A little foggy on the OpenGL render vs the Invigorator Render
I have a MacPro with soon to be 10GB or RAM at work and has the standard ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB graphics card. I’m trying to make my render output in ProAnimator as a standalone app faster. I confused as to which is better in my situation. Do I use OpenGL render and loose something or just stick with the Invigorator render engine? Is there something I need to configure to get the most out of OpenGL?
In the past I did not have this set up and the OpenGL would not work or crash. It could also be that older versions of ProAnimator did not support my card properly at the time.
I think the ProAnimator documentation maybe a little out dated for it says
“The amount of RAM needed, changes based on the size of your rendered image and the complexity of
your 3D scene, but a good rule of thumb is to leave at least 30 Mb of RAM free, once the ProAnimator and
all other programs have been opened . You can check for this by looking for the “Largest Unused Block” size in the “About This Computer” message window. (First item under the Apple menu.)”This is not the case in Mac OS X Leopard. I just see how much RAM I have, my processor speed, and the startup disk.
Could someone explain to me in a more simplified form? Sorry if I seem a dumb dumb on this issue.
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1 Reply
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Hi Ken.
A faster OpenGL card will likely let you interact with your scenes faster – and show more complex scenes faster.
As for using OpenGL as a final output renderer, you’ll find that it’s fairly effective for scenes with basic materials, textures, and lights. Transparency isn’t yet supported and some of the more complex materials (wireframe) aren’t supported yet.
For those using the new ProAnimator FX (for Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Motion), you’ll see where we’re heading — much faster and more accurate GL rendering — so your card will be more effective with the next round of Zaxwerks apps and plug-ins.
Matt Rhodes
Zaxwerks, Inc.
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