Render a sequence of meshes

[Garryclarke]

Hi,


I'm about to be given a sequence of files (.dwg or .obj) of a building collapse. Each frame of the animation is a seperate file. So I need a way of showing the right model on the right frame. so that I can render it as an animation.

Is this something I can do using VRay Proxies?

[^Lele^]

Not that i know of, unless you managed to make it a single object first (with vertex animation).
I should think it would be a handy feature to have one proxy per frame in animation, but i could not find it in either the ply2vrmesh or the vraymeshexport() maxscript command.
I stand to be corrected, though.

[Garryclarke]

Hi Lele,

Unfortunately each mesh has a different vertex count, so that rules that out. The building in eachfile is 1 object as well.

[^Lele^]

The different vertex count shouldn't be a problem unless you wanted 3d moblur.
The assembly, however, is currently beyond my skills.
Maybe xMeshes, if you didn't find what you needed in proxies, would help.
They accept a cache per frame.

[Garryclarke]

Hi Lele,

I've found a solution - I just had to read the documentation

If I turn my sequence of obj files into a sequence of VRmeshes named like this:
building_000.vrmesh
building_001.vrmesh
building_002.vrmesh
etc...

Then create a proxy, load the first building and change the mesh file name in the modifier panel to building_###.vrmesh, make sure that 'Expand # to frame number' is ticked. It will then match the model name to the frame number, so model 'building_005.vrmesh' will be displayed on frame 5 and so on - fantastic!

However it could do with a few extra features to make it perfect.
I'd like to be able to hold the first model until a specified frame, then start the sequence, and when it reaches the end have the last model visible for any following frames, this would be the same as time controls of a bitmap.

But I can get around that by having separate proxies for the beginning and end and hiding them.

[^Lele^]

Eheh, i did suspect it was the case, but didn't manage to get it working.
It's got to be the heat, eheh. XD
Glad it worked out, anyway.