polygons –> packed disks –> instance SOP –> delay load (render)
I'm instancing 9 different bgeo sequences (100 frames each) stored on Disk over a template point cloud using Instance SOP and using a Delay Load shader for rendering.
Everything works great if I don't use Style Sheets.
Render time per frame ~5 minutes, super fast (and above all, as I would expect, the render time is independent from the geometry since I'm using instances).
As soon as I create a style sheet on the object, suddenly the render time sky rockets to ~30 minutes to 8+ hours, and many frames just error out and never even get to start the render.
So I recreated a simple setup to document this behavior:
- Template points : ~ 400 points (20x20 grid)
- 9 Geometry Sequences (cached on disk):
each one is : ~200 polys at frame 1 constantly growing to ~600.000 polys at frame 100
Then using Instance SOP I instance randomly one of the 9 geometry sequence on to the template grid, (via s@instancepath).
This is what the render looks like (no_style_sheet.png attached)
Then I assigned a simple Style Sheet set on the object. (with_style_sheet.png attached)
STYLE SHEET DISABLED (Green Mantra Shader applied):
Render Time:
Frame 001 : 18“
Frame 025 : 19”
Frame 050 : 19“
Frame 075 : 19”
Frame 100 : 18“
STYLE SHEET ENABLED (see style.png attached)
Render Time:
Frame 001 : 40” (2x slower)
Frame 025 : 1' 15“ (4x slower)
Frame 050 : 2' 20” (4.2x slower)
Frame 075 : 3' 54“ (12x slower)
Frame 100 : 6' 20” (21x slower)
From what I understood from the manual :
..Stylesheets can let you change looks without having to edit the geometry or regenerate the scene description (IFD) file. This may be useful for studios working with huge scenes, where a quick tweak with a stylesheet might be faster than regenerating a huge IFD.
Apart from the render time which becomes unmanageable very soon, the big problem I see is that the setup with Style Sheet is no longer independent from the geometry instances. It almost feels like, suddenly we loose all the benefit of instancing, pretty much like if the geometry is unpacked and then rendered.
I'm quite new to style sheets so I wonder if I missed something along the way in this setup.
I attached the hip file below.
note:
I tried even without Delay Load with the same results.