The computer is a Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4 from 2001
. I built a few computers back then but they lasted too long and I need space now, so I thought a mandelbulb project could finally break that box. The PSU power switch works only 50% of the time.
The software is mine, written in 1.6ish Java. I tried and removed a distance estimator as I was getting slightly different results and also ambient occlusion is affected. It's pretty slow as I will port it to C in future. (It's about 1/2 hour to an hour but that's with a pretty small minimum increment.) Slow?..I'm used to 24 hour POVRAY 486SX25 renders anyway. The purpose of these was to figure out bridges for a fly-through, but as normal, I got distracted. I tried some more accurate lighting but that lost detail, so it's just cheap dot product and ambient occlusion for the outside, no occlusion on the inside. I don't mind using old computers as you make different decisions. Maybe it gives a retro or different look. It's quite fun comparing this complicated model that is all CPU with the high poly XYZRGB dragon model memory hog in only 512Meg of memory (in Java). I might port it to Raspberry PI C and justify a cluster. I sold them a while back, but I used to be a fan of SGI boxes, Indy, O2 etc. It's interesting seeing the differences between the MIPS processors.
May 22, 2009, 05:32:53 PM
Beyond The Window: Alien Seas, Alien Skies
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