Does saving as a rectangular PNG work better in CC3+?

I use CC3 a lot and I mostly use it to save the maps I make as rectangular PNGs for use in virtual table top software. I understand why CC3 has problems being a 32 bit program, but is CC3+ large address aware natively? Or would I continue to need to kludge a work around to get my big maps to export to PNGs reliably?

Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    Sorry asmonty - I'm not really understanding the question here.

    What's the problem with exporting to png?

    I can export anything up to 10,000 x 10,000 px rectangular pngs no problem.
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    edited June 2017
    CC3+ is large-address aware and will export larger files in many cases than CC3. How much larger, though, is purely a matter of the map, chosen effects, how much artwork needs to be loaded, and how you have the maximum pixels per pass value set.
  • Try saving a map to a rectangular PNG, 16000x9000 px with sheet effects turned on in CC3. Most of the time the program will crash before the save ever completes because it can't access enough system memory. There are a large number of discussion on these forums about it. I was wondering is CC3+ uses Large Address Aware natively to utilize more memory during the conversion process to a PNG or if I would still have to use a 3rd party program to kludge it. I have a super high end computer and exporting a 12000x8000 png with sheet effects turned on takes a very very long time because CC3 will not utilize even a fraction of the ram or processing power of this machine.

    For instance, right now I am saving a 12000 x 8000px png with sheet effects turned on. It has been 42 minutes since it started and it is still running. CC3 is currently using 1.6% of my available ram and 4% of my available CPU. CC3 is having an aneurysm and hanging with a (Not Responding) tag because it can't handle the process.

    If I shut sheet effects off is handles it a lot better and works much faster, the same map would save in 3 or 4 minutes.
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    CC3+ is generally much, much faster for effects than CC3 (it will use multiple cores for processing some effects). CC3+ also handles memory allocation much better in most cases than CC3, especially in the most recent updates.

    The way that CC3 and CC3+ handles effects is to render the context of a sheet to an in-memory image, apply effects to that image, and then composite that image onto the cumulative image so far. The CC3+ infrastructure is much more efficient at processing than the CC3; the CC3+ effects were modified to be more efficient in terms of memory usage and to take advantage of more modern processor architecture features. When effects are turned off, each sheet is immediately rendered to the final image and things go much, much more quickly.

    One consequence of the CC3/CC3+ effects processing pipeline is that images can easily get too large to fit into memory. When exporting large images, those images are broken down into a series of overlapping passes that are rendered individually with each pass rendering a segment of the final image. CC3 has a hard limit of 4 million pixels before the image is broken into multiple passes, while CC3+ allows this parameter to be modified via the main program's configuration file. Increasing the maximum number of pixels allowed in a pass will reduce the total number of passes required, making the overall process much more efficient.
    roflo1
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