[Radiance-general] rvu: too many modifiers in ambient list

[Greg Ward]

Hi Lars,

If you don't use a material or set of materials for an object, then  
including the unused material is a waste of space.  Thus, including a  
whole material library with each object, which uses at most a few of  
these materials, is a huge tax on memory during rendering.  Don't do  
it.  Find another way, even if it's less convenient.

My earlier suggestion was to include the colorpict in each object  
file as needed to move coordinates around with your geometry, and  
alias'ing the material the colorpict is applied to.  That way, you  
duplicate only what is needed for correct rendering, and can still  
use a library.  The alias also takes up space, but not as much as a  
whole library of materials.  It is about the same as putting just the  
materials used in each geometry file.  Giving each alias a unique  
name also avoids the generation of excess id's with the -ae option  
you are currently experiencing.  Each unique modifier name generates  
as many id's as there are appearances in your scene.  (Instancing a  
mesh or octree counts as a single appearance, where xform'ing counts  
for multiple appearances.)

If you can avoid duplicating your entire material library with each  
object, this should solve all your problems.

-Greg