Need ideas for a city

[padre.ayuso]

I'm currently encountering a slight situation. I'm using 3DS Max 2013 and I have a huge scene ahead of me. I have just finished creating a total of 10 buildings in 2 blocks. This is including interiors for each of the businesses for each building in each block. This file is 41 million polys. I have created a total of 28 renderings, as I have done a day view and a night view. I'm now been asked to do the next 2 blocks and after that another 2 blocks. Then I'll be asked to provide an aerial view of all buildings (it will probably be 40 buildings at the end of the day), looking at about 150 million polys. I used XRef Scenes for the first two blocks, it was so painful I'm very very uncomfortable about doing any more XRefs.

Additionally, I was to check into doing Proxy. That means creating a proxy for each building exterior and then a proxy for each building interior. I'm mid trying it out and I think it may be the way to go, but after going through 40 buildings with high detail in all of them, am I going the right route? Does anyone else have any other idea? I'm really really not wanting to use XRefs and the proxies will create a HUGE multi-subobject material that may crash my computers very often. Please advice, how do you guys tackle a project like this one?

[Rens]

Hi, you can save on building the interiors when the buildings aren't too close with this shader:
http://www.rensheeren.com/osl/intmaptemp.zip
http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...terior+mapping

It's not finished yet, but the basic setup should work. You input an 'atlas' image of four walls, a ceiling and a floor. The shader will fake an interior with correct perspective, so you can assign this to a flat surface (plane) just behind the building facade and it'll look like you're looking into rooms.
If it doesn't look right try a reset xform on the plane, it needs local Z to be up. Easiest is to create a box and set the size but don't rotate it, then apply the shader.

If you still need models you could try creating a vrayproxy for each instance group (like tables), then replace all the instances with instanced vrayproxies. Instead of grouping all objects together and creating a huge vrayproxy.

XRefs can be very nice but you need to merge the transforms on importing, or use the checkbox merge transforms in the xref window. If you don't do this your objects might be all over the place next time you open.

[padre.ayuso]

Hi, you can save on building the interiors when the buildings aren't too close with this shader:
http://www.rensheeren.com/osl/intmaptemp.zip
http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...terior+mapping

It's not finished yet, but the basic setup should work. You input an 'atlas' image of four walls, a ceiling and a floor. The shader will fake an interior with correct perspective, so you can assign this to a flat surface (plane) just behind the building facade and it'll look like you're looking into rooms.
If it doesn't look right try a reset xform on the plane, it needs local Z to be up. Easiest is to create a box and set the size but don't rotate it, then apply the shader.

If you still need models you could try creating a vrayproxy for each instance group (like tables), then replace all the instances with instanced vrayproxies. Instead of grouping all objects together and creating a huge vrayproxy.

XRefs can be very nice but you need to merge the transforms on importing, or use the checkbox merge transforms in the xref window. If you don't do this your objects might be all over the place next time you open.

Thanks Rens!

I did hear about these maps you sent me, I'll check them out. I think these store fronts are very peculiar, but again, for a far away view they may do.

I use XRef Scenes not XRef Objects, is XRef Objects better than XRef Scenes? As of 2 hours ago, I was given a hotel and a theater to be added to the block I had just finished, so let's hope I will not reach 50 million polys by the end of this block!

I get your proxy idea too, but managing that may be a bit crazy, since I'm talking about hundreds of objects at the end of this project.

[padre.ayuso]

Through some more research, I have also found this out, which I think it may be useful to others that run into the same problem. I hope this helps me resolve my future project:

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/...ith-big-scenes