Texture Optimization
The optimization process consist of creating a mipmap version of images that can be used efficiently as a texture during rendering. This process is important as non-optimized textures (without mipmap) can slowdown rendering significantly.
Automatic Optimization
When 3Delight encounters textures that are not optimized during rendering it will attempt to optimize them automatically. These optimized textures are stored at the location specified in the 3delight.config configuration file (by default it is on the local machine but it's possible to direct it to a network location).
Canveat: the optimized texture directory is per-user so file duplication will occur if many users render the same assets.
The texture optimization processes takes care of using the proper color space assigned to the texture. Color space assignment depends on the source of the texture:
| Source | |
|---|---|
| Maya | Renders started directly from Maya, or from NSI files generated by Maya, will use the Color Space that is used in the File shading node of the source texture.
|
| Katana | Floating point textures (including 16 bit halfs) are considered as linear, everything else as sRGB. This is also the case for NSI files generated by Katana. |
| NSI file | NSI files generated by any other means (other than our Maya and Katana 3Delight plug-ins) can also take advantage of automatic texture conversion. To do so, there should be a special attribute accompanying every string value that points to a texture file. Here is a simple NSI example: Create "example" "shader" SetAttribute "example" "shaderfilename" "string" 1 "file" "textureName.meta.colorspace" "string" 1 "linear" "textureName" "string" 1 "sometexture.tif" The |
Manual Optimization
You may consider preparing textures manually using the tdlmake tool for these reasons:
- Save storage space as 3Delight will convert textures and save them into a separate folder.
- The automatic color space conversion for Katana is not satisfactory and a more fine tuned approach is needed.
- You want to pass additional options to tdlmake for a custom preparation (e.g. type of filtering or output data type).
Another consideration is if you don't like the delay that will occur at the start of a render the first time one or more textures are used. And you prefer handle that one time process manually on your own term.
The Network Cache
3Delight has a unique feature that improves performance when rendering over networked environments: the renderer can cache textures that are located on the network to the local drive of the machine doing the rendering. This provides two benefits that can be significant:
- Faster access to textures during rendering, especially if the local drive is an SSD.
- Reduced network traffic, which can become seriously clogged when several computers are accessing textures simultaneously while rendering.
The network cache content is updated automatically: when files are modified on the file server, the local (cached) copies will be automatically updated the first time they are needed for a rendering. If there is no more space in the cache, copied textures are removed to make space for incoming textures by following the Least Recently Used (LRU) principle.
By default, the Network Cache in not active. We recommend you turn it on. You only need to specify its maximum size (we recommend at least 50GB). This is done through the 3delight.config configuration file.
The only inconvenience is an initial delay before you start to see the image on the first render (because the first time the cache needs to be filled). The amount of delay will depend on how many textures are used in that particular image. Note that if you use only one computer, and all the textures are on a local drive of that computer, enabling Use Network Cache won't have any effect.