Mandelbulber 1.00

[Buddhi]

Having figured out how to to share Mandelbulber parm's on this forum, I'm now wondering whats happening when I try to render
such a file using the latest version.
posted by Junkdog: http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=7069
the attached pic shows no rendering refresh, while 20 min. of rendering time has gone by.
a refresh finally happened at 22 min.
I finally could NOT stop the rendering process
1. my computer running Win 7 locked up
2. no mouse input
3. the 4 cores were still processing at 100%
4. could not Start the Task Manager to Kill the process.
5. finally with ctrl/alt/del I was able to regain control.

There are some reasons why this settings file is rendering terribly slow:
1. DE Step Factor is too low for this hybrid fractal. Optimal value for this image which guaranty good quality and high speed is about 10
2. There is enabled coloured Ambient Occlusion effect based on analyzing of many rays and quality of this effects is high. This effects is very slow for rendering. There is checked Shaders/Ambient Occlusion and ambient occlusion quality = 4 (about 100 rays). Faster is Screen Space Ambient Occlusion algorithm on Post Effects tab, but it looks not as pretty like standard Ambient Occlusion.
3. Hybrid formulas are generally slower than other.
4. Resolution is high (3200x2000)

[tomot]

There are some reasons why this settings file is rendering terribly slow:
1. DE Step Factor is too low for this hybrid fractal. Optimal value for this image which guaranty good quality and high speed is about 10
2. There is enabled coloured Ambient Occlusion effect based on analyzing of many rays and quality of this effects is high. This effects is very slow for rendering. There is checked Shaders/Ambient Occlusion and ambient occlusion quality = 4 (about 100 rays). Faster is Screen Space Ambient Occlusion algorithm on Post Effects tab, but it looks not as pretty like standard Ambient Occlusion.
3. Hybrid formulas are generally slower than other.
4. Resolution is high (3200x2000)

This brings to mind my limited involvement with my Ruby scripting experiences, where I spent huge amounts of time adding code devoted to trapping potential errors, from user input.  I'm hoping you will make it less painful for new users in the future to avoid similar pitfalls.

[junkdog]

I'm hoping you will make it less painful for new users in the future to avoid similar pitfalls.

Sometimes it's necessary to exaggerate DE stepping though; especially with FoldingIntPow2 hybrids or strangely folded mandelboxes. Generally speaking, lower DE produces smoother results and reduces noise (yet, other times it also adds noise in the form of miniature shapes - I learnt a couple of days ago).

That said, I did two test renders at a lower resolution with a DE stepping of 1 and 8 respectively. I doubt I could tell them apart. They weren't 1:1 identical, but to the naked eye they were.