Many instances or merge?

[Crayox13]

More of a MAX question I guess but....

I'm modeling ruins, I have like dozen stones which are then instanced for walls etc. Now, these will save space - instances, but they make MAX much slower to work with, on the other hand if I merge them into one object - editable mesh by attaching or collapsing, scene is much faster, I guess card cashes the mesh better this way? But then I guess on render time there will be much bigger memory consumption and slower render times.

How would you guys do this?

Also, how do You merge a lot of small objects? Select all and then collapse or attach in editable mesh?

thanks

[Morbid Angel]

what you can do is separate these objects onto layers and make them "display as box" this will speed up viewports, yet keep them rendering correctly. But if you are getting into a place where everything is just too heavy, vray proxy might be a thing to think about. if those have to be instanced, and will never change from one another this will be a good way.

[Crayox13]

I also use a lot of vray instances, but was wondering about this since it's easier when I see the objects - the stones, and I do have change some of them. For most of the time, when I work on the other parts the layer with stones is hidden, but when I have to adjust them it's so slow. Also, if they are all one object I have to move them by going subobject and that again is even slower than moving separate objects.

There are pros and cons for each way, or maybe I'm doing something wrong?