Proxy vs. Instance vs. XRef

[Dman3d]

A co-worker asked me last week what the comparison is between
Vray proxy, instancing an object and Xrefs and I could not give him
a clear answer when comparing the proxy vs the other two other than
you can load a crap load of stuff and that the idea is like Xref (sort of).
Any one have a link or a descriptor that would help me out?

[mmikee]

I, to, am interested. I have used both methods, but havent really compared them. Any advantages to using proxies ?

[anders]

proxies has one BIG advantage .. they use no ram whatsoever
we use them for trees, bushes, cars and most other high poly objects..

the problem with max's xref are that they are all "loaded" into the scene the second you click render .. and so you will have to try and fit them all into the ram!

the proxies are not loaded until a bucket hit's them, and then they are unloaded when no longer used!

afaik!

someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

[joconnell]

instancing:

Duplicates of an object that are linked together. It means that if you edit one, the rest of them change so it's handy for repeated objects. Because there's one model being duplciated all over the place, only one full model is stored in the scene and the rest are tiny pointer to that object. You get disk space benefits from these objects but at render time the ram overhead is the same as propcessing non instances

Xrefs:

External secene files that store objects. This means being able to link max files together which allows different people to work on different areas of a scene and constantly have the latest version of a scene (as long as the filenames of scene files stay consistent). No rendering benefits at all since the xrefs must load into ram before a render.

Vray proxies:

External files that are loaded into ram only at render time and only when needed - they give you lots of rendering benefits memory wise which allow you to render scenes that would otherwise be far too big. for smaller scenes they might actually slow things down though.

[studioDIM]

the man is gold.

Lele

[Clifton Santiago]

I've done some hi-poly count render tests with Vray proxies vs. non-proxies. Vray proxies took twice as long to render. I avoid using proxies except when I have memory errors. But since I got my new (dualie dual-core opterons) machine with 4 gb ram and xp 64, I haven't had any memory problems.[/i]

[Dman3d]

Thanks, was unclear on how the proxies were handled and how.

[Morbid Angel]

indeed. In some cases proxies do take long time to render. Probably due to flushing and realocating memory to new partitions. However, without proxies there is no way to render millions of polygons in max. So, proxies are good for extremely large polys, but if possible I would suggest to avoid them too.
Proxies do not motion blur, that is when camera is static and proxy is moving it doesnt motion blur, but when the proxy is static and camera is moving it will motion blur.

[KramSurfer]

Okay that's all clear...

Now how about Instancing Vray Proxies ? ?

I'm guessing it's better to create 10,000 Proxies over instancing one 10,000 times?

Or the other way around?

Thanks

Keith Morrison
focus360

[Morbid Angel]

I believe that instacing a proxy is better, for rendering speed. But, it will be an instance so identical. I know that if you have 10,000 non instanced proxies it will take much longer to render.

[vlado]

It is better to instance the proxies, if they share the same .vrmesh file.

Best regards,
Vlado

[CCS]

To continue this theme...
I have a site that has 40 units in it. What is the best way to handle them? Can I xref, then instance? Or xref in numerous times? Or do I just group, then instance?

[KramSurfer]

With 40 of the same units, your should be fine just grouping and instancing.. if the unit is really heavy... over 100,000 polys or so.. consider colapsing to a single mesh and making a Vray proxy. Then instance that.. Don't forget to save an original version seperate before making your proxy, you know they're going to want to change something..

Keith Morrison
focus360