Distributing particle sims is a lot like distributing renders. It's certainly possible, and there are systems in existence that do it, just not the one we have currently in XSI.
This was one of our topics of discussion in the Dynamics forum on XSIBase, and hopefully Softimage will figure out how to make it part of whatever new particles framework they develop. Imagine if you had an entire farm of procs armed with Ageia acceleration cards, you could pull off some nasty sim work!
-Brad
> -------Original Message-------
> The problem with distributing particle systems is that all of the
> processors need to have access to the same data during the simulation...
> which usually confines these simulations to a single machine.
>
> I hear there is a new machine out there with 8 dual-core AMD processors
> in it... that would probably speed up your sim... it's only like $25K.
> :-)
>
> -Eric
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kris Rivel" <kris(at)krisrivel.com>
> To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 2:24 PM
> 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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> >>
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