creating complicated patterns with minimal faces?

[rectify]

hi there, i have a prob of creating this particular pattern screen for render without causing my pc to crash. is there a proper way to create?i changes to proxies but still the files became 800mb!while i deleted the screen patterns the file revert to only 50mb.can someone help? cus i tot vray proxies will minimise the faces n file size?

[ruud3dv]

Not sure if you did this already, but make sure the proxy is instanced, not just copied.
And just in case: use only one tile of the pattern as proxy, not the entire screen.

[pnel77]

Create a black/white bitmap of that pattern and apply a vray displacement modifier to your object - play around with the water level...