X-Ref vs Proxy

[glorybound]

I have six houses that I need to copy about 100 times. Is it best to X-Ref the house, which I have never done, or proxy them? Proxy, to me, is easier. Now, I have the six houses in one scene, so I can just select the house, export as the proxy and then copy.

[thanulee]

Proxy so it consumes less resources. Xref is mostly when others work in that scene same time and u dont have to import after every update. Im not sure if xref saves u any resources though, i think not it has another purpose than proxies.

[glorybound]

I am banging my head! Creating a proxy of the whole house loses its texture and if I attach everything first my mapping gets screwed up.

[trick]

I am working some time now with Smartrefs on a huge project. Take a look at it and try it out. I won't work without it anymore, so really worth a look. In your case you make 6 Smartrefs, each with it's own Smartproxy and copy/instance(/even change) these around in your master scene a much as you want.

[glorybound]

I am working some time now with Smartrefs on a huge project. Take a look at it and try it out. I won't work without it anymore, so really worth a look. In your case you make 6 Smartrefs, each with it's own Smartproxy and copy/instance(/even change) these around in your master scene a much as you want.

Awesome! The proxy in viewport is perfect!

[glorybound]

I have my scene with 6 houses. I have each house referenced in using SmartRefs and I have a proxy for each one, to be used in the viewport. All are great, but how do I copy these buildings around my scene? I would like each copy to also be displayed as a proxy in the viewport, but render using the referenced house. I am stuck. Although everything thus far is cool, I really need to copy the houses around, like I would with a normal v-ray proxy.

[trick]

Hi Bobby,

I think you need to contact Felix (Developer) directly for faster results. He is very helpful. I have been working with SmartRefs in combination with Sini Proxies and VRay proxies and use large sceneparts as SmartRefs. Inside these scenes I have been instancing the buildings as Sini Proxies to avoid attaching everything together in one VRay Proxy. I thought that in SmartRefs one can do something similar, but you can only make a proxy for a complete scene. However: when using a proxy for a SmartRef scene, behaviour is strange and unexpected once you start copying/instancing either the SmartRef Proxy or the SmartRef itself inside the master scene. So I am contactting Felix about this myself. For now, in your case, it might be better to use Sini Proxsies. Sorry for the confusion, but in the last months, I have been (and still am) looking for the best solution for these kind of projects myself.

[glorybound]

Yeah, I have found the strange behavior, too. It seems that SmartRefs is good at what it does, but not for what I need.

[guillaumelepage]

Hi, I usually can make it work by using the script "quick attach" on my multi-part object. It merges everything and automatically creates the proper multi-material. Then I export that as a proxy and just reapply that multi-material to it and all the textures are in the right places. I'm not sure the reason it didn't work for your houses but this is what I do!

[glorybound]

Using MAX's proxy system caused my displacement not to work, which was strange. I could attach everything and merge the materials and reapply, but my displacement broke.

[trick]

Yeah, I have found the strange behavior, too. It seems that SmartRefs is good at what it does, but not for what I need.

Just talked to Felix about your specific problem. It's a limitation but there will be a solution soon. Did you take a look at Sini Proxies?

I prefer the Smartrefs solution. Eventually you should be able to make 100's of copies of a house, use proxies to represent them and still assign different materials without the memory overhead of the 100 houses. Often in birds eye views, when there are multicolored roof tiles, you can clearly see the tiling because of these roof tiles, when you have lot's of instances of the houses. There should be a memory friendly solution to solve this problem,without having to use mesh proxies, which you can not edit in the master scene (like VRay or Sini proxies).

[glorybound]

Please, tell me I can join and keep vray displacement. When I join or proxy I lose my displacement, but I am sure I have made proxies of trees with displacement and they stayed.

[glorybound]

Okay, you can't have v-ray displacement and proxies, which stinks. I can't use MAX's displacement, because of my corners, so it seems that X-Ref and Instances is the only solution.

[glorybound]

I am literally back where I started. Since I work alone, not in a team environment, there is little benefit in using X-Ref's. Basically, now I group and instance.

[padre.ayuso]

I am literally back where I started. Since I work alone, not in a team environment, there is little benefit in using X-Ref's. Basically, now I group and instance.

Hey Bobby, maybe you can test vrayscene. It may just handle what you do and it is pretty much the same as X-Ref with the only disadvantage that it does not automatically update when you save a scene, you have to redo the scene.

https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...+%7C+VRayScene

But I have used it to better results, faster and more stable than X-Ref.

Merry X-Mas!