Fast Mip Map
stu sutcliffe
Posts: 274
What the heck is "fast mip map"?
I've been having a play with the beta, thought I would use it more to be ready for the big day soon.....when it arrives properly.
But I had a bit of problem. I made my scene but was finding a slight delay in the layout room, this was beta .53 or something...an old beta.
So I went back to 8.1 and most of my model seemed to be invisible to render. After a while I tracked the problem down to an extra setting in the texture room. Where it usually says "sampling" the box was blank,but in 8.5 it says "fast mip map" so this setting does not exist in 8.1 so it wasjust left it blank until I spotted it and clicked on sampling.The model is visible again. So just wondering ,is fast mip map...er faster, or better in some way, should I use it. I think this only happened because I started the scene in 8.5, I usually start in 8.1 and move the other way.
I've downloaded the latest beta since and at least the "stickiness" seems to not be there now.
........ps. this must have been the most boring post I,ve ever made....sorry!
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Comments
BOOO! Where are the undead cowboys and monster Brides?!
I *think* mip mapping is where a lower res version of an image map is substituted once that texture is no longer close enough to the camera to show the full detail.... I assume "fast" mip mapping is something that happens automagically, since you don't seem to be able to add low-res substitute images by hand, or determine when it will be used.
I believe it is intended to combat the "twinklies" that happen in some animations where textures are far away or too small (landscapes animations generally suffered from the "twinklies" in Carrara's past). Sparrowhawke3D.com has a Mip Mapper plugin for Carrara7.
It's what I call "resolution as needed". Nothing whatsoever to do with Carrara, just a standard programming tool in many/most/all 3D apps.
Y'know how Carrara gives you the option of loading lower resolution versions of your high poly characters (called "LOD"...Levels of Detail...I had to look that up)? And it uses the low res versions for far away views where you don't need the high resolution, then switches to the high res version when needed?
Well, this is the same thing for texture maps. You provide it with a high res image, and it internally converts that to multiple low res versions for use as needed. No need to render a high res image if it's way in the back of the scene.
I *think* the end result is it gives you faster renders at the expense of more memory. Not sure about that though....
Great...think I will just stick to sampling.
Holly ,you just invented my new fave word "automagically" ...that is how I am going to create more monsters ......muhahaha!
One thing you should know, Stu:
Whenever you open an existing Carrara file in 8.5 beta, if it has any (and I mean "ANY") texture maps in your shaders, they are all switched to "Fast Mip Map". So when you save that, you won't see anything if you open it again in 8.1
I therefore save all 8.5 files in a new folder.
Thanks, thats good to know. Though this didnt occur a few weeks ago.I suppose its because I have now got the latest beta.It must not have been implemented in the version I was using last time. I think I am upto date now with the .172 beta. As it looks now that there will be a C8.5 I will actually use it.