Export an animated proxy

[devin]

Can anyone walk me through the process of doing this for an animated onyx tree? What I've done so far is just create a tree, select it right click and pick vray mesh export. Then select export animation, give it a frame range, select automatically create proxy and hit Ok. After it get about 2% done I get a maxscript error, and max just stops responding. I've attached the maxscript window that pops up, can someone help with this?

[devin]

No body knows how to do this?

[devin]

I've been able to export one tree, the file size is about 3.1GB and it took 4 hours. So far the second tree won't export and I keep getting the same maxscript screen that pops up with an "unknown system exception" warning. Is there a bug in the proxy exporter?

[jacksc02]

I have made animated proxies from onyx trees and its worked everytime.

I have found that point cache-ing the trees can be a but more efficient

[devin]

I have found that point cache-ing the trees can be a but more efficient

How do you do this?

[jacksc02]

its a modifier that you add to the top of the stack.

[jonahhawk]

Point cache stores the vertex positions at every frame to a file. It is like proxy but for mesh deformation only. It does not store the actual geometry. It is good for reducing the the amount of computation required for deforming geometry. It works especially well with character animation where there are all kinds of deformations and envelopes. Or cloth sims. If you don't want Max to have to calculate the deformation every time you render, then you can store the animation in a point cache file.

[devin]

That's good to know, but I've tried to do this twice and it has crashed max both times.

[RErender]

Are you saving the proxies and pointcaches locally or over a network?

[devin]

Over a network

[jacksc02]

sounds like you might have an issue with the base geometry

[devin]

I've tried merging the file into a new scene, and starting over from scratch all with the same result. I've even tried doing it on a completely different computer and saving out the file locally instead of over the network with no success.

[jacksc02]

it wouldnt matter if you use a different computer, the base mesh itself might have some funky mesh errors.

[devin]

The mesh is being generated from the Onyx tree plugin in 3D studio, if your right then the plugin it's self is messed up in some way.