Car CAD data to Proxy

[kosso_olli]

Remember that there is also this button for the proxies:

Create Multi/Sub-Object Mtl – This option is available when multiple objects with different materials are exported. When enabled, V-Ray will assign a Multi/Sub-Object material to the created proxy and the sub-materials will be assigned to the appropriate faces automatically.

I have rendered a parking lot full of cars with that, it worked well. But I remember that Max froze on some of the proxy exports, had to try again.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

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

gernerally speaking, you are right. but the camera angle is not decided yet, so I need them once together for the client to decide, then I could separate them, but the problem remains then...

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. : )

I wrote you a PM about this, but decided to post my question here.
I am reading through the documentation about xrefs but cant wrap my head around putting in ONE proxy for all these xref-object
Trying to follow these steps, but I think the interface changed for 3dsmax 2015?
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/suppo...d-Objects.html

thanks fpr all the replies! you guys are so awesome!

[chadstevens]

I have to deal with this problem all the time, the best solution to it is an amalgamation of what everyone else has said already.

1. Import a single car with all it's parts.

2. Condense same materials, into a single material, this is very important as max slows down tremendously when there are thousands of materials. There is a script for this that you can find Here: http://www.scriptspot.com/forums/3ds...tance-material

3. Once materials are condensed, You can select the whole car and click convert to vray proxy. Make sure to have export to single mesh checked as well as create multi/sub object materials.

Vrayproxy export system (Vray 3.5) is the fastest mesh merging function I've ever come across, I have no idea how it does it but it's about 100 times faster than the max default (I have not done actual tests, but max would hang for about 2 days, whereas Vray did it in 5 min).

Once the mesh has been converted into a proxy you can then merge the collapsed mesh back into 3ds max. Make sure to uncheck weld vertices in the Vrayproxy modifier tab and check use explicit normals. This will then bring the entire car back in as a single mesh, but the viewport will be able to display it much faster so you should not have any lag, it should also reduce render time when it's a mesh as opposed to a proxy as the vray proxy takes longer to render than a max mesh.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I have to deal with this problem all the time, the best solution to it is an amalgamation of what everyone else has said already.

1. Import a single car with all it's parts.

2. Condense same materials, into a single material, this is very important as max slows down tremendously when there are thousands of materials. There is a script for this that you can find Here: http://www.scriptspot.com/forums/3ds...tance-material

3. Once materials are condensed, You can select the whole car and click convert to vray proxy. Make sure to have export to single mesh checked as well as create multi/sub object materials.

Vrayproxy export system (Vray 3.5) is the fastest mesh merging function I've ever come across, I have no idea how it does it but it's about 100 times faster than the max default (I have not done actual tests, but max would hang for about 2 days, whereas Vray did it in 5 min).

Once the mesh has been converted into a proxy you can then merge the collapsed mesh back into 3ds max. Make sure to uncheck weld vertices in the Vrayproxy modifier tab and check use explicit normals. This will then bring the entire car back in as a single mesh, but the viewport will be able to display it much faster so you should not have any lag, it should also reduce render time when it's a mesh as opposed to a proxy as the vray proxy takes longer to render than a max mesh.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

Thanks for that advice. Made me try the Vray mesh export function again...
I feel pretty silly. I just realised that if I instantly replace the objects that exported with Vray Mesh Export with the proxy I can get the Multi-Sub-Material that Vray already applied to the proxy. That worked pretty well, but Vray RT wouldnt render the materials anymore, since there are too many in the multi-mtl. Now I would love to merge the materials as you suggested, but the scripts dont really seem to work... which one did you use succesfully?
Edit: Just wanted to say, I have really a lot of materials （276) with different names though. Like "Material #492", "Material #493", so I think merging by name wont even work...

[chadstevens]

If they have a different name are they different materials?

The workflow I suggested is the one I use with PDMS files (oil rigs and such) and all their materials have the same name but they come in as separate materials, so that process only works if thats the case.

Does the car come in with set wire colors, or is it just random?

Unfortunately, there is not much else you can do if they have different names, the only other options would be to collect all the models with the same material applied to it and just apply one of the materials to the selection e.g say all the tires have the same material on it but there are 4 materials with different names, just select one of those materials and apply it to all the tires, it will be quite time consuming, but I don't see a better way around it unless you find someone who can create a script for you that finds matching material properties and condenses them. I don't imagine such a script would be all the difficult to create, but I'm no programmer. Maybe rens can help with this it would certainly be a handy script.

Cheers.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

They are all different names, duplicate materials but different names. Couldnt find a script that did what you are suggesting. Having that would be awesome, but:
Fortunately the car is separated into layers: Wheels, Car, Interiour 1, Interiour 2.
So went into these layers and just applied a generic black material to those objects in those layers that I am sure wont be visible. I was careful about it and thought it wouldnt be a lot but with that I was able to bring the material count down to 166. Problem solved.

So, the solution was:
Roughly apply one black material to invisible parts,
export whole car with Vray Mesh Exporter with the option checked to replace the mesh with the proxy after export.
get the multi-material from that proxy
use proxy in my scene.

thanks everybody for the input. if you have any info on how to plug one proxy for multiple xref objects, I would love to hear that!

[AC5L4T3R]

Check this out https://youtu.be/Y3A2tj6zxCA

For the shot you see at the end around 00:56 there were 50 or so cars, all CAD data and all vray proxies. I went through each one and deleted all of the shit that wasn't needed and created proxies. I didn't have to do anything about the materials because they were already sorted out in VRED. However, when we get the data, there is also 100s of materials, none of which do anything. Usually I apply a grey material and do everything manually.