Car CAD data to Proxy

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Hi,

I have this really heavy CAD data which alone makes for a 1.5Gb max file, which was ok when I had a scene with just one car, but now I have a scene with 5 cars and the max file is swollen to 7.9Gb and everything is just really slow.
I tried once to export the car to VrayProxy but as I understand I need to merge all the different parts of the car into one mesh. Since the in the CAD data every single piece of the car is its own mesh, the merging just wouldnt end and/or Max would crash.
How would you go on about this problem?
Any help is much appreciated!

[digitalmediatechnik]

You don't need to merge the objects into one mesh but remember that you can only apply a single material to each proxy so need to export separate proxies for each material.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

You don't need to merge the objects into one mesh but remember that you can only apply a single material to each proxy so need to export separate proxies for each material.

thats the big problem. I have thousands of objects for the car (exterior parts, interiour parts, seats, divided into hundreds of objects) and I just cannot organize all these materials into one multi-sub-material myself, not to speak of organizing them accordingly to the proxy. I wouldnt know in which slot which material goes without trying that out; but again with hundred or thousand materials I dont see any possibility. thats why I wanted to merge everything into one object and auto-condense the material.

[digitalmediatechnik]

Do all the objects have normal separate materials assigned or are they all assigned as sub-object materials?

Example: Can you select all the objects with the car paint shader? Or is the car paint shader part of a complex multi sub object material?

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Do all the objects have normal separate materials assigned or are they all assigned as sub-object materials?

Example: Can you select all the objects with the car paint shader? Or is the car paint shader part of a complex multi sub object material?

its all single materials.

I tried exporting to obj with material, reimporting as one mesh and then exporting that to vray proxy, but the obj export only gives me a multi-sub-material with just 6 materials, that are not even the vray materials, but standard materials...

[digitalmediatechnik]

Ok, should be straightforward then.

1. Select all objects with the first material
2. Export to vray proxy (as a single proxy file!)
3. Repeat with all materials
4. Create vray proxy object
5. Apply relevant material
6. Repeat with all materials/proxies

Forget about trying to export materials. Just create the proxies and reapply them.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Ok, should be straightforward then.

1. Select all objects with the first material
2. Export to vray proxy (as a single proxy file!)
3. Repeat with all materials
4. Create vray proxy object
5. Apply relevant material
6. Repeat with all materials/proxies

Forget about trying to export materials. Just create the proxies and reapply them.

Well, that is straightforward and I guess I dont have any choice other than that, but as I said, I have hundreds and hundreds of materials that are already applied to the each car part and I didnt really want to go through all these parts to see if I need them or not or even make individual proxies for those that have the same material. On the other hand I already spent my whole afternoon to find a solution to this problem while I could have spent the same time rebuilding the car with proxies... just thinking about future jobs with cars gives me a headache...

[digitalmediatechnik]

Why on earth do you need hundreds and hundreds of different materials for a car?

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I don't but I got the data like that, Vray materials by the way. So I'm not sure how to go about this other than reapplying the materials all over again to shrink down their number

[digitalmediatechnik]

So you have no way of selecting "all the car paint" for example because each part has a separate material?

I think I remember a script somewhere which would condense materials with the same settings into a single material. I would suggest finding that or something similar should be your first step!

Do all the materials have unique names as well?
Can you give an example of 2 materials which are the same but appear twice or more times in your scene?

[piotrus3333]

wouldn't Xref Scene be easier in this case than proxy?

[Wilyman]

Do you need to have all 5 cars in the scene at once?
Generally with a range shot, I'd XRef them in one at a time and then put the separate renders together in Photoshop.

Cheers,

John

[digitalmediatechnik]

wouldn't Xref Scene be easier in this case than proxy?

If the scene is too heavy now, it will probably still be too heavy with xrefs.

I recently had a scene with a car model which was about 1gb. I needed 200 variations of the car which were different states of a crash sequence. Saving each state as an xref was possible but still ate up loads of memory. No chance of managing 200 xrefs of 1gb each. Vray proxy handled it fine though, and was much quicker and easier.

[digitalmediatechnik]

Do you need to have all 5 cars in the scene at once?
Generally with a range shot, I'd XRef them in one at a time and then put the separate renders together in Photoshop.

Cheers,

John

For a simple static shot this is clearly the way to go.

[Rens]

You could try saving out the car in its own scene and bringing it back in as XRef Objects. Just make sure you set the merge controllers option or merge them right after importing otherwise your car will explode. I've rarely had any problems with XRef when transform controllers are merged.

Then you can set a proxy object as well if you want. You can then instance the XRef car and move it to where you need it and your scene will be only a few MB. : )

-- edit: didn't see the latest posts