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Tips for Speeding Up Textures
Textures can be the most powerful effects you create in Bryce. They can also be the most costly. The more complex the texture, the longer it takes to calculate and the longer it takes to apply to an object, which finally increases the rendering time.
When you're creating the texture, you always have to keep in mind that it's part of a material, which is part of an object. All these parts can contribute to the rendering time:
- The material that contains the texture may have several complex attributes of its own, like Transparency and Reflection.
- The size of the object may also contribute to the rendering time.
Consider the effect of applying a complex texture to a complex material onto an infinite plane. The time to calculate this object would be staggering.
A good rule of thumb when working with complex objects and textures is to make the texture element as simple as possible.
These tips are meant only as a precaution to prevent you from inadvertently creating a huge texture. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the more complex features as well, after all they were created for a reason. You should just use them cautiously.
Noise
- Use a simpler noise type. Some noise types (like Vortex) require more time to process than others.
- Restrict the amount of noise you add to each component. In fact, not all the components need to have noise.
- Watch the frequency of the noise. Higher frequency noise requires more time to calculate then lower frequency noise.
- Watch the number of octaves in the noise. Each octave adds another level of complexity.
Phase
- When you're designing the phase, you may want to use simpler noise.
- Cut down on the number of phase types you combine. If each component has a different type of phase, combining them can increase calculation times.
- Watch the amplitude of the noise. Higher amplitude phase takes much longer to calculate.
- Apply Global Phase cautiously. This is the quickest way of increasing the complexity of your texture because global phase introduces more complexity into each component simultaneously.
Filtering
- Filtering introduces complexity or detail into the noise of a component. Make sure that you aren't using a filter unnecessarily. Not all noise needs filters.
Be careful when you apply a Global Filter as this adds even more complexity to the noise.
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