current situation with Image Magick and CC3+
Ahoy folks. Many moons ago, after posting about some problems with rendering, I was directed to this page of this thread in order to see the instructions for installing the 64-bit version of Image Magick so that CC3+ can use that (instead of the 32-bit version) for better/faster rendering. Recently, a friend has gotten a new PC and is setting up all their CC3 stuff, and this came up - I also built my own new PC back in January, and for the life of me I cannot remember what (if anything!) I did regarding Image Magick at that time after I installed CC3+ and all my annuals.
Obviously it's been many years since the post I linked above - have things changed since then? After a fresh new install of the latest version of CC3+, should we be concerning ourselves with going and manually replacing one version of Image Magick with another? And do we need to modify that .xml file as outlined in that post still as well? If the answer to that is yes, then those instructions might need a refresher - there's reference to what needs to be done with "red text", but there is no red text, only blue (which I assume is because an image which was previously uploaded to that thread is no longer there, or the like, after so many years).
OR... has this all been sorted so that at this point, the CC3+ install already includes what it needs in this regard, negating any need to fiddle with all this?
As an addendum: while searching for info on this a couple days ago, I also stumbled on this thread which I hadn't seen before now. My question here is essentially the same. Is this "trick" outlined by Loopysue still something we should consider using to speed renders? Or have things changed so much in the time since that post (7 years ago) that the trick in question is also now moot?
Comments
I wouldn't know the answer to your first question, but the second one - yes, it's still relevant. The default value is 4 million. Use EXPORTSETMPPP to see the value, then enter 40000000 (40 million), which increases the number of pixels per pass tenfold. It makes everything much faster.
The default was left that low because even these days there are still some old PCs out there that can't handle the larger size.
It is a bit easier than those old instructions. You don't have to edit the XML file anymore, and you can dump the 64-bit binaries into the ImageMagick64 folder (You must create this) instead of replacing the 32-bit one in the ImageMagick folder. Make sure you get a version of ImageMagick that contains the convert.exe executable though, this is going away in newer versions, but CC3+ expects this file and it's command line arguments.
The most important (and easiest) thing of the two is Sue's trick though, as this allows CC3+ to export much larger chunks of the map at a time, both making rendering faster, and reducing the amount of potential effect artifacts that happens due to splitting up the export in sections.
Thanks you both so much for the info! Sounds like the export value change is definitely worth doing (I wish I'd known about this years ago! I never learned about it until now).
It looks like this is something that only needs to be done once, as if changing a setting within CC3+ itself so that ALL exports (on any map I open) will use the 40 million value now that I've made this change (at least, until/unless I were to manually change it back). As opposed to needing to enter this command + number for each map or for each export. I used the command and entered 40 million on one map, then closed it and opened an entirely different map; when I entered the command on the second map, it showed as already being set to 40 million. Do I have that right?
Now, as for ImageMagick... it seems we are already out of luck and downloading a 64-bit version with convert.exe is no longer possible? Based on what you said in your post Monsen - "Make sure you get a version of ImageMagick that contains the convert.exe executable though, this is going away in newer versions, but CC3+ expects this file and it's command line arguments." On this page, there don't seem to BE any that have the convert.exe file. I downloaded several of the portable ones (which is what we need as I understand it, we don't want the ones that use an installer) from the Windows list and none of them had it once extracted. So I guess they have removed that component entirely?
So... how important is this, at this point? Hopefully not very.
It looks like this is something that only needs to be done once, as if changing a setting within CC3+ itself so that ALL exports (on any map I open) will use the 40 million value now that I've made this change (at least, until/unless I were to manually change it back). As opposed to needing to enter this command + number for each map or for each export ... Do I have that right?
Yes, you do have it correct. The only time you might need to do it again is if CC3+ has a serious crash and resets its defaults back to their originals, or if you need to reinstall the program again. Thus it's worth keeping a record of what the command is that lets you reset it just in case (because it may be months to years before you'll need it again, with luck!).
Can't help you with your ImageMagick query though, sorry.