5 000 000 000 000 polygons

[trick]

...it works with Vray proxies, and not just instances right?...

You mean with VRayScatter or GroundWiz ?

VRayScatter only works with one base VRay Proxy. GroundWiz works with any (combination of) object (even RPC's, MR proxies, and other) you throw at it. There are however limitations to the number of objects and that is where VRayScatter is faster and better. GroundWiz has better tools for placing, replacing, spraying, color/texture variation, etc. You can detach and attach instances outside or inside the GroundWiz container which makes it possible to put larger numbers to a VRay Proxy to go around the maximum number of possible instances. To prevent memory issues make sure you don't have a few unique too large proxies (1+ million polygons) that can be seen in a scene when using Light Cache. This will make it neccessary to use dynamic memory which could take a really long time to render.

[simmsimaging]

I did mean Groundwiz
Thanks for the info, sounds like Groundwiz will be the way to go. Scatter looks interesting but not quite what I need, and the lack of English support will be a problem for me: I need a lot of help

Thanks again.
b

[simmsimaging]

Just playing with Groundwiz - still haven't heard back from the Vray Scatter guys.... Anyway, regardless of which you use, does the issue with Light cache Trick mentioned apply to all GI modes? Is there a "better" one to choose for rendering large numbers of instances? I have noticed major lag with LC and things like Vray fur but just didn't use GI in that case. Here I need it more.

I am using the Universal settings, so my first bounce is BF.

Thanks!
b

[Morne]

what happens if you make second bounce also BF?

[simmsimaging]

It renders fairly slowly that way too - I'll have to run a complete test of each to see which is faster. I was hoping there was a known answer to save (another) few hours

Thanks
b

[KVMaster]

Animate it!!

Now the kicker is to try and animate it!!! We have been creating forests like this using various scripts with proxied high poly trees, but the kicker is always trying to create a "clean" animation. Trees and all the poly's just BUZZZZ. Trying all sorts of AA settings but render times are TERRIBLE!! 1-2hrs on a Xeon 5420 2.5GHz dual quad 8GB Ram. This is at low HD 720p (1280x720).

[simmsimaging]

Fortunately for me I only work in stills

I'll let you know what difference I find in times with BF vs LC for the secondary bounces, but I have no idea how scene dependent that would be. My guess is very.

b

[mikeh]

correct me if i'm wrong but forest pro will do everything that groundwiz and vray scatter do and with a lot more control and opportunities.

http://www.itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=news

mh

[trick]

correct me if i'm wrong but forest pro will do everything that groundwiz and vray scatter do and with a lot more control and opportunities...

Forest Pro is a nice tool if you work with texture planes. It does not work directly with VRay Proxies like GroundWiz or VRayScatter. You need to "instanciate" the "forest" generated by Forest Pro to convert forest instances to VRay proxies, which is the same (at least at rendertime) as placing the instanced proxies by hand. On top of that VRayScatter loads the proxy from disc at rendertime and does handle memory requirements and instance loading a lot better and faster.

In general if you have tried all the demos and try to generate a million instances of ten different 1M poly VRay proxied trees, you will know exactly what are the important differences between Forest Pro, GroundWiz and VRayScatter.

[simmsimaging]

GW seems to be working well so far although planting of groups of objects wouldbe very handy. Not sure if the other options would do that or not.

[Karba]

VRayScatter doesn't load proxy from disk at render time.
Some other example of new VRayScatter version.

[simmsimaging]

Does VrayScatter allow you to use groups of objects (sets of vray proxies)? Does it have any method for more precise positioning of instances (like at every vertex, or exactly one per face etc.) or is just *only* random placement?

b

[trick]

VRayScatter doesn't load proxy from disk at render time...

I thought a VRay proxy was a system that only loads the render neccessary meshinformation per bucket into memory on demand, and that this information comes from the .vrmesh on disc ? With GroundWiz you need to load the proxypointer before it is chosen in the plugin. With VRayScatter you only need to select it's location on disk without loading it. That is probably why Groundwiz needs so long to transfer all the pointers from the plugin to the renderer...

But there have been a lot of real questions that still have not been answered ! I have no doubt that VRayScatter can generate millions of polygons and in good hands can help in creating beautiful images. It's more a matter of openess in how this tool can be used and will be supported. I also have no doubt that I will buy this plugin when needed, but with the current protection system and pricing that will probably be later then soon.

[Karba]

Does VrayScatter allow you to use groups of objects (sets of vray proxies)? Does it have any method for more precise positioning of instances (like at every vertex, or exactly one per face etc.) or is just *only* random placement?

b

You can't use group of proxies, but can make single proxy from several objects.

Random only at this moment.

[simmsimaging]

Thanks for the answers.