[zparrish]

Is it possible to run Benchwell via command line? I just ran a test between Windows 7 and Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 LTS. I noticed an ~4% gain in Benchwell performance using Ubuntu. Now I would like to test Benchwell on a headless Linux install. I "googled" around a bit and didn't find anything specific to this, so I'm not sure if it's even possible.

I finally got the install setup using Xvfb, so if Benchewll isn't an option, I'll have to pick a fairly diverse scene and re-run the test in all 3 environments. Thanks in advance!

-Zack

[JDHill]

I guess the answer is no -- though maxwell has both -benchwell and -nogui flags, running with both, it quits, printing [ERROR]: Benchwell cannot run in -nogui mode.

[zparrish]

Thanks for the info JD! I didn't see the -benchwell flag in the docs. Is there a more comprehensive list of command line flags and parameters available or do the docs just need some updating?

Also, do you know of any places I might find a scene as dynamic as the benchwell scene? Benchwell pushes a wide range of channels with (what appears to be) high quality objects and textures, which would be a more comprehensive test. I could set one up, but it would be nice if there was one pre-built somewhere that I could leverage.

I know you guys can't distribute the benchwell scene source file and assets, so, if I do end up creating a new calibration scene, could you tell me the size (pixel dimensions) of the textures being used, and perhaps how many total textures there are? I could sub in an equivelant number of similar size images for a secondary calibration scene to have a fairly comparable test.

Thanks JD!

[JDHill]

Sorry, but I don't know much about the benchwell scene itself. On the question of maxwell command-line args, I don't think I've ever actually looked at the docs -- I always just run the application with the /? argument, which prints out a list of all the supported arguments, along with basic descriptions of what they do.

[lifeofdave]

Hey zparrish

If you find the bench.dat file (for me it's in C:\Users\Dave\Documents\Maxwell\benchwell), and change it to bench.zip you can extract the mxs and assets and have a play around from command line by rendering it as a normal scene.

[lifeofdave]

Once unzipped you'll also need to rename bench.scn to bench.mxs

[zparrish]

Wow! That's brilliant Dave! I assumed there was more "binary magic" going on to utilize Benchwell since the scene and its assets are proprietary. In fact, I'm really surprised it's this easy! I always wanted to explore the complete raw setup of this scene in Maxwell Studio for educational purposes since it looks fantastic and has been delegated THE benchmark for Maxwell.

Thanks for the info Dave! I would imagine a few people at Next Limit (and Meindbender) may have issue with this incredibly simple explanation for extracting the scene and its assets. Perhaps not, but either way I really appreciate the explanation! I'm always trying to hone my skills based on expert examples and this is an excellent example that covers a ton of sub-disciplines within Maxwell and rendering techniques in general!

Cheers!