RE: 64 vs. 32 bit with map files?

["Halfdan Ingvarsson" <hingvars(at)Softimage.COM>]

Title: Re: 64 vs. 32 bit with map files?

The thing is, map files should be thought of as completely disposable. They're very handy when you have to read the same texture over and over again, especially in the tiled version, but a complete dog as any form of interchange.

 

Ideally they should only be generated at the point of render and then only on the machine that intends to use it. XSI does provide a system for automatically doing that and maybe it should be spelled out more clearly in the manual.

 

 - 1/2

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From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM on behalf of Andy Jones
Sent: Tue 27-Mar-07 18:36
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: 64 vs. 32 bit with map files?

Shouldn't it be possible to encode data about what architecture the file
was mapped with originally, so that an alternate encoding can be
generated if there's a mismatch?  Clearly, workarounds for this
problem.  It's my opinion that these "workarounds" should be
incorporated intrinsically into the way Mental Ray (or, failing that,
XSI) deals with .map files (or some new superior format that replaces
them).  As an example of one such workaround, you could theoretically
write an "architecture switch" node for the rendertree, then put a bunch
of differently encoded .maps behind it.  That'd be a stupid, clunky way
to solve the problem, but it would work, unless I'm missing something. 
Right?

- Andy

Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:

>The goal of .map file to be memory-mapped
>directly without transformation, so they are by their
>very nature architecture-specific.  They're whole
>benefit is that they are directly in the memory
>format.  If they were not, then they would not
>have any benefits over normal file formats.
>
> 
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Alan Jones
>>
>>ouch - architecture specific image format - who was the
>>genius behind that idea?
>>
>>On 3/27/07, Halfdan Ingvarsson <hingvars(at)softimage.com> wrote:
>>   
>>
>>>Yes. Map files are essentially a memory dump of the
>>>     
>>>
>>internal image format that mental ray uses.
>>   
>>
>>>mr will happily load them from other platforms but doesn't
>>>     
>>>
>>make any guarantees about their usefulness in that case.
>>   
>>
>
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