Render Hidden

[dlparisi]

Anyone know of a tool/plugin/workflow/etc that would allow me to turn off certain objects from the viewport but still have them show up at rendertime? I've got a lot of backround trees/buildings/cars that really slow down the display, even in box mode, but I don't want to keep turning on and off for renders.

[Sascha Selent]

In the "Common"-tab just check "Render hidden geometry". If you have objects that are hidden AND shall not be rendered set to "renderable" > off.

[dlparisi]

Yeah I forgot about that but I also have hidden items in the scene that I don't want rendered. Guess I'll just have to clear things out. Thanks.

[instinct]

I guess that could be rather easily done by sticking them into a selection set and write a pre-render script to undhide it and a postrender script to hide it

Regards,
Thorsten

[MoonDoggie]

Just turn them off "renderable" in object properties?

[dlparisi]

That should do it. Thanks a bunch.

[instinct]

That's exactly the opposite no ?? i thought you wanted them OFF in the viewport and ON in the rendering ?

[dlparisi]

That's exactly the opposite no ?? i thought you wanted them OFF in the viewport and ON in the rendering ?

That'll teach to refresh more often! I had it sitting open and I was responding to your suggestion earlier not to Colin's suggestion.

BTW: the option I just discovered is I "save selected" all of the background objects to a new sceen and then xref'd them back in. Leaving it "enabled" but unchecking "Visible" works even better as I was getting viewport performance hit just from all of the objects being in the scene, even if they were hidden. Using the xref and everythings speedy again.

[Sascha Selent]

Just turn them off "renderable" in object properties?

Yeah, like I said before !?!

In the "Common"-tab just check "Render hidden geometry". If you have objects that are hidden AND shall not be rendered set to "renderable" > off.

...

xref'd them back in. Leaving it "enabled" but unchecking "Visible"

This only works with XRefed scenes. I rather use XRef-objects, so that I can place them wherever I like. And this way you can do the workflow:

In the "Common"-tab just check "Render hidden geometry". If you have objects that are hidden AND shall not be rendered set to "renderable" > off.

[beestee]

You could use layers. You would have seperate options for visibility and renderability per layer for whatever combination you are needing.

EDIT: But you would still have to use the "render hidden geometry" option.

[dlparisi]

This only works with XRefed scenes. I rather use XRef-objects, so that I can place them wherever I like. And this way you can do the workflow:

In the "Common"-tab just check "Render hidden geometry". If you have objects that are hidden AND shall not be rendered set to "renderable" > off.

I don't need to edit them any more so the xref scene is working great for me. What I don't understand is why I was getting a viewport performance hit when I had the objects hidden. The background objects were mostly proxies (on the order of ~4000 trees and bushes). Regardless, setting them up as an invisible xref scene is working just like I want it too.

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions!