Proxies

[BBullo]

I'm testing proxied Xfrog trees with Vray.
This is my first testing with proxies. My problem is when I import an Xfrog tree into a scene it takes 4min30 sec to render.
When I render the origional tree in the same scene it only take 23 seconds.

Does this sound right? I can see a proxy being a little slower, but 8 times slower seems a bit high. I think I may be doing somthing wrong here.
Can someone who has used them before shed some light on this issue?

[jacksc02]

whats you memory settings set to? dynamic or static?
Also where are you saving the proxy to? local drive??

[BBullo]

My memory settings are set to default. -Static-

The proxies were saved to a local drive. How could this effect the speed? I thought once it was loaded into Max it was done refrencing. I did use DR to render the scene.

[Da_elf]

here is what i found. if your using the xfrog plugin to import the trees vray takes a while to convert the mesh. however if you go into xfrog itself and export to a editable mesh then render that there is no conversion time. also you can have the entire tree as one model with subobject materials then convert that as a vray proxie.

edit

reread your post. i think its got something to do with the opacity maps in proxies. try changing your material to a grey material and render see if it renders faster when all opacity maps are removed.

[dbuchhofer]

Check to make sure you dont have several hundred thousand invalid uvw map warnings...

that has a tendancy to happen depending on which route you use to import your xfrog tree.

[BBullo]

Some test results-


19 Proxied trees

Static memory(default)- 16m 33s

Dynamic memory 400 MB- 29m 31s

Dynamic memory 1200 MB- 29m 17s

Static memory (GREY MATERIAL-NO OPACITY)- 43s


19 "regular mesh" trees

Static memory(default)- 15 min

Opacities are killing me! Is there a way to turn down the sampling on opacities without effecting the entire scene?

[BBullo]

No invalid mapping warnings.

The trees I'm using are the ones offered for free download from Xfrog. They came as a zipped max file. From there I saved them out as a Vrayproxy. Then loaded those into my test scene.

I'm trying to decide between purchasing Xfrog or Treestorm.

I havn't been able to get my hands on a treestorm tree to test out. Does anyone know of a free download area?

[Da_elf]

its an opacity problem with proxies. ive mentioned this is the past but no one seemed to believe me

[vlado]

its an opacity problem with proxies. ive mentioned this is the past but no one seemed to believe me

Hmm, I must have missed that. I'll try to reproduce it here.

Best regards,
Vlado

[BBullo]

Vlado, there wasn't a huge diffrence between regular geometry and Vrayproxy geometry when used with opacities.

19 "regular mesh" trees

Static memory(default)- 15 min

19 Proxied trees

Static memory(default)- 16m 33s

my test did show a big difrence between static and dynamic memory.

[DaForce]

Proxies already are rendered using dynamic geometry.

So turning that feature on i guess would make it render slower unless you matched the settings just right. And i would image with lots of trees your memory limit would need to be set pretty high.

mmm that didnt make much sense. Ah well will leave it for you to decode.. haha

[jacksc02]

nice one daforce! ha haaa

[DaForce]

Geez, your really getting your post count up.

I goes to show that they let "anyone" post "anything" in here doesnt it



damn it, that also didnt make much sense.
Well you know the deal, its up to you to decode it.. haha

[jacksc02]

not fair!

[DaForce]

innocent