vray scene from max to Houdini

[Mikhalenko]

Hello.
I have a lot of differenct types of trees in 3ds max, can I export all this trees into vray scene, and somehow scatter in Houdini without unpacking to polygons?

[glacierise]

Have you tried scattering vrscenes using the instance object? I haven't, usually I use copy to points, but that sounds like it might work if you have each tree in a separate vrscene. If you don't, you'll need more complex geometry management, and you'll need to be in SOP/copy to points, but you can't use vrscenes there. You'll have to export alembics, and you'll lose the material assignments.

[Mikhalenko]

Thanks for yoy reply. I also use pocy to pints for Vray Proxy form max, but I was wondering if any posibilities to use vrayscene that contains all needed trees and scatter each tree as separate piece, not whole vrscene

[chakarov]

Hello Mikhalenko , if every trees is a single mesh, than you can enable "Expand Primitives" under Advanced options in Main tab of vrscene SOP, and than use them like packed geos. This won't unpack vrscene to polygons but just to VRaySceneRefs so geometry and materials of trees will be used from 3dsmax.vrscene

check the example

[Mikhalenko]

Hello Mikhalenko , if every trees is a single mesh, than you can enable "Expand Primitives" under Advanced options in Main tab of vrscene SOP, and than use them like packed geos. This won't unpack vrscene to polygons but just to VRaySceneRefs so geometry and materials of trees will be used from 3dsmax.vrscene

check the example

Thanks. It was I looked for And one small question, can I affect on materials of the vrscene using this technique or materials will be taken only from 3ds max and cannot be edited Houdini ?

[chakarov]

Yes, you can edit materials and assign new one via material SOP. If you want just to edit existing materials, like change color or textures
1. import scene materials from Import tab of vrscene SOP.
2. check if material is imported correctly, if your scene in 3dsmax uses texture/plugins not supported in V-Ray standalone then they won't be created in Houdini
3. make your change to material
4. Assign it via Material SOP.

You should use only 3dsmax workflow, like material IDs, map channel ids ... - because they are already baked into vrscene

[Mikhalenko]

Hello Mikhalenko , if every trees is a single mesh, than you can enable "Expand Primitives" under Advanced options in Main tab of vrscene SOP, and than use them like packed geos. This won't unpack vrscene to polygons but just to VRaySceneRefs so geometry and materials of trees will be used from 3dsmax.vrscene

check the example

seems like when I want to scatter 900 000 of trees, using this technique it cannot be done as Houdini is freeze forever, even if I just make flag render on copy to points and display flag set to null Vray can't start render, maybe because in CopyToPoints Packing is turned off , with packing turned on, trees not rendering even if in scene I see them. If I unpack trees to the geometry or load them each as separate proxy and scatter with CopyToPoint with Packing turned on, vray can handle 900 000 of trees

[chakarov]

In provided file the objects are copys not instances, and every copy is defined separately in vrscene, so 900000 copys are way too much for this. Here is another example where VRaySceneRefs ( primitives from vrscene ) are INSTANCED. In this case every primitive ( mesh ) of vrscene is referenced into a separate geo node. In "instaces" node instancepath attribute is set via point wrangle. In V-Ray object properties of "instances" object, "USE Rayserver Instacer" is ON. I've tested it with a milion points/instances and it is working.
Material of one of VRaySceneRefs is overridden .

[Mikhalenko]

In provided file the objects are copys not instances, and every copy is defined separately in vrscene, so 900000 copys are way too much for this. Here is another example where VRaySceneRefs ( primitives from vrscene ) are INSTANCED. In this case every primitive ( mesh ) of vrscene is referenced into a separate geo node. In "instaces" node instancepath attribute is set via point wrangle. In V-Ray object properties of "instances" object, "USE Rayserver Instacer" is ON. I've tested it with a milion points/instances and it is working.
Material of one of VRaySceneRefs is overridden .

Thanks. It's working!

[Mikhalenko]

----------------------

[Mikhalenko]

In provided file the objects are copys not instances, and every copy is defined separately in vrscene, so 900000 copys are way too much for this. Here is another example where VRaySceneRefs ( primitives from vrscene ) are INSTANCED. In this case every primitive ( mesh ) of vrscene is referenced into a separate geo node. In "instaces" node instancepath attribute is set via point wrangle. In V-Ray object properties of "instances" object, "USE Rayserver Instacer" is ON. I've tested it with a milion points/instances and it is working.
Material of one of VRaySceneRefs is overridden .

Also, every tree nned to be as separate geo node? So I can't just set to the nulls inside one geo?

[chakarov]

Yes, instancing of VRSceneRefs seems to work only with geo nodes, not SOPs. But I will add a request to support SOPs as well.

[Mnietek2707]

In provided file the objects are copys not instances, and every copy is defined separately in vrscene, so 900000 copys are way too much for this. Here is another example where VRaySceneRefs ( primitives from vrscene ) are INSTANCED. In this case every primitive ( mesh ) of vrscene is referenced into a separate geo node. In "instaces" node instancepath attribute is set via point wrangle. In V-Ray object properties of "instances" object, "USE Rayserver Instacer" is ON. I've tested it with a milion points/instances and it is working.
Material of one of VRaySceneRefs is overridden .

This is not working in GPU mode - right?

[joconnell]

I've got a project coming up where I have to take a max scene from 2017 into houdini so all of this has been great to follow!

Vrscene is perfect for lights and materials but the import as polygons doing an explode of everything is a little less helpful. Also if I import a vrscene, is there a way to import the materials so I can edit them and then point my vrscene geo towards these new material settings?

Cheers!

[ghiom3d]

I've got a project coming up where I have to take a max scene from 2017 into houdini so all of this has been great to follow!

Vrscene is perfect for lights and materials but the import as polygons doing an explode of everything is a little less helpful. Also if I import a vrscene, is there a way to import the materials so I can edit them and then point my vrscene geo towards these new material settings?

Cheers!

yes in vrayscene node there is an import tab with 2 buttons. if you clic on Unpack to Polygons, it's create all objects with a material node and material applied to them.
Then to change the paths of the maps if needed i use a little python code.

but this way i loose the vray lights !? any way to import vray lights only from Max to Houdini ? chakarov ??