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Since i began rendering huge amounts of fractal images and some really big renderings i had some ideas for improvement. Small changes, that could be really useful.

with animation:
To make an animation smoother by calculating twice as much images (reducing the stepsize from image to image) there could be an option to just calculate every new image.
I rendered an animation and then realized, that it's a little too fast. So i re-rendered completely. But actually i had every second image already. There could be an option to re-render only every 2nd.
picture numbering could be this by default:

animation0010.png (for the first picture)
animation0020.png (for the second picture)

to make it smoother later mandelbulb could calculate these:
animation0015.png
animation0025.png
...

later one could use bulkrename or a similar programm to rename the bunch properly for virtualdub.

2nd:

Big Renders

Since a friend helped me to render huge images i had some ideas:
- an option like "render tiles in reversed order" would be very useful.
- the possibility for custom render-order-skrips would be useful.
(a custom increment, start- and end-point of every picture).
-custom tiles-naming scripts.

- creating a log-file for rendering.
 (the log-file could be in the dropbox to coordinate simultanious rendering on more computers.)
 (also: every user creates his own logfile to avoid writing-conflicts and a little distance between rendering jobs would be useful)
 ( if user 1 is rendering tiling number n, then user 2 shouldn't render tiling number n+1. At the time when user 2 checks the log-file and begins rendering tiling number n+1 user 1 could already have completed n and started with n+1. dropbox often needs a little time.)
 
per user logfile could be like this:
 user1.log
 - renderings planned:
 1x1y
 1x3y
 1x5y
 ....
 (don't make the list too long since different pcs render in different speeds).

 user2.log (created automaticly by checking user1.log)
 - renderings planned:
 1x2y
 1x4y
 1x6y
 ....
 
also there should be a main.log that includes the whole list of tilings.
when creating a new tiling the big renderer should first check if no other user has planned to render the specific tiling.
so at the beginning of every rendering mandelbulb3d would check all the user-logs.
adding new users while rendering should be easy when the new user is first checking the the log files and sees which tilings arent planned to render.

I hope my language-skills were enough to explain this here properly

Holy moses, i really did not tested it at all!

Update is uploaded, and sorry mondaymorninglunatic... can write this only on the todo list for now.

Cheers!

no problem. my ideas are only for increasing comfort

Ah... You included two AboxSmoothfold, but it has no sense at all because ABSF2 is identical, only with some bugs included that are removed in what you called "ABSF"... So you should remove it, thanks

This is the point I was trying to make with

...but if there was a way...that would save loads of time 

BTW - even with v 1.7.4.1 - if you merely switch between, say, global light & positional light, you still lose positional light settings and if you switch between positional light & lightmap - you still lose lightmap settings (well, I do anyway).

regards
Kam

Yes, but this is because the space of the light settings is restricted and the positions are stored in the same area as the light angles.
So these paras are resetted when changed, but this should be no big prob, if you want a positional light or a lightmap, why bother about the other settings of a previous not wanted light?  And if your try was not good, just undo light settings until you are in your previous state.
You got 64 light undos 



Use "int ItResultI; //+64" as input for the actual iteration count (bFirstIt is only changed by some formulas, but is only resetted to zero at iteration start, not incremented in iteration loop).

"int  nHybrid[6];  //+76" is the array that holds the iteration counts of all formulas, so you might change them with DWORD PTR [ESI + 72 + EAX * 4] if eax contains the formula nr (1..6) and esi the PVar address and + 72 is in decimal like borlands assembler.
But you might guess what errors could occur if you change unwanted items (if formula nr is not in 1..6) or if counts set to values that results in endless loops, if all are set to zero for example.

And if i really got a general formula combination to work, all the formulas that changes this kind of stuff like formula numbers, will not work anymore.