I have developed with MPI in a past life. It has a very nice API.
Some good reference books for the curious:
http://tinyurl.com/j53vo
http://tinyurl.com/ke23b
Cheers,
François
> De: "Halfdan Ingvarsson" <hingvars(at)Softimage.COM>
> Date: 2006/04/25 mar. PM 03:10:41 GMT-04:00
> À: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
> Objet: RE: network distributed particle simulations?
>
> There's always Open-MPI, which does exactly (and more) what you're looking for. http://www.open-mpi.org/
>
> It implements the interface defined here: http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/
>
> Like most distributed systems' internals, it's rather quite scary at first, although it is a hell of a lot easier than trying to develop one yourself.
>
> - ½
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
> > [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM]On Behalf
> > Of Mathieu Leclaire
> > Sent: Tuesday, 25 April, 2006 14:54
> > To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> > Subject: RE: network distributed particle simulations?
> >
> >
> > well, like I said, it's not the simulation that needs to be
> > distributed...
> > it's the calculations done in my custom command. I need to ba
> > able in my
> > custom command to call some evaluations on different
> > computers. For example,
> > the custom commands asks computer 1 to evaluate particles 0
> > to 99, computer
> > 2 to evaluated particles 100 to 199... and then wait for the
> > results before
> > writting them to the UserDataBlob and then going to the next
> > frame. So it's
> > not the particle simulation per say but the custom command
> > that the event
> > calls that needs to be distributed through the network.
> >
> >
> > Mathieu
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
> > [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM]On Behalf
> > Of Kris Rivel
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 2:24 PM
> > To: XSI(at)Softimage.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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