Persistent Session Data

Make it possible to have a persistent render session to avoid re-exporting unchanged meshes, textures etc. to speed up rendering of subsequent frames where only a part of the scene has changed.
This could be used for repeated single-frame renders as well as animation rendering.
The unsolved problem is how to reliably track which scene elements have been changed between renders.

Technical Details

Blender does not delete the LuxCoreRenderEngine instance of a final render if scene.render.use_persistent_data (or "Persistent Images" in the Cycles UI) is enabled.

Maybe we can re-use the luxcore scene in this case and use the viewport update methods to only update changed data.
Needs investigation.

See also https://developer.blender.org/D2613

Want to back this issue? Post a bounty on it! We accept bounties via Bountysource.

Start by investigating the LuxCoreRenderEngine lifetime when scene.render.use_persistent_data is enabled, then compare it with Blender's viewport update methods. Determine how changed scene elements can be tracked between repeated or animated renders, and consider the work complete when unchanged meshes and textures are reused while changed data is updated reliably.