Re: network distributed particle simulations?

Date : Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:24:05 -0400
To : XSI(at)Softimage.COM
From : Kris Rivel <kris(at)krisrivel.com>
Subject : Re: network distributed particle simulations?
An hour per frame....wow, you don't mess around do you :-) I didn't think distributing particles was possible. I know that the Next Limit guys are working on this I think but the obvious problem is that you need the previous frame to simulate the next frame, etc.

Kris

Mathieu Leclaire wrote:
OK, I'm still working on my particle simulations here... A particle cloud
with a scripted event that calls a custom command on every frame to
calculate a special collision event, where it passes information from one
cloud to another through a UserDataBlob when certain particles collide.
Anyway, the thing is, for the number of particles that I need, and even
though I believe I've optimized the simulation as best I can, it takes
roughly an hour a frame to calculate my simulations. At 200 frames, well, it
takes more then a week of simulation using one machine. We have a pretty big
render farm here so if I could find a way to use it to split the simulations
over multiple machines, then we can make the simulations in a more
reasonable time frame. So my question is this: how can I distribute my
simulations over a network? What would be the best way to approach the
issue? I need to have xsi evaluate the cloud normally, make the particles
move depending on forces and once the particles are positioned correctly, my
scripted event is called that calls the custom command. How can I separate
the process of that custom command over multiple machines so that one
machine calculates lets say the first 100 particles, and the next one
calculates another group of 100 particles and so on, until all the particles
have been evaluated and all the resulting data can be passed to the
UserDataBlob... I just want to make sure you guys understand that what needs
to be distributed is the evaluation in my custom command that happens
between each frames and that, depending on that result, the particles will
change and affect the following frame. So before the next frame can be
evaluated, the current network process must be done before the next frame
can start. Any suggestions on how to do something like that? Anyone had to
deal with something similar? Any help or suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.


Mathieu Leclaire R&D Programmer Hybride Technologies



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