simplify a model?

[Robeast]

I have a model with three buildings. There a thousands of boxes, booleans, sweeps etc to mimic the trim, windows and building. I can't use radiosity b/c my computer runs out of memory.

 

Is there any way to simplify the model?

Can I make a radiosity solution using just the walls and pavement?

Or should I just stick with scanline?

[notamondayfan]

there are loads of ways to simplify the model. idealy u need to model in low poly, and then add detail where u need it. often small detail isnt seen. can u show us some screen shots of your models?

[Robeast]

I'm new to this, so I'm not sure how to use low poly models. Here is one rendering, there is another building behind the camera and the back of each building has similar detail. One of my tasks to to create an animation that "drives" around the complex.

 

Any help or comments would be appreciated.

[garyhasler]

If I were you I would just stick with standard lighting; save so much fussing. Use fakiosity to simulate sky light and fill in shady areas (multiple shadow map lights over the sky). But if you really want radiosity, you'll need to:

- reduce mesh: fewer path vertices and fewer modifier steps etc

- keep your subdivision size big

- exclude as much as possible from contributing to light reflection

- (maybe) enable the 3GB switch

[notamondayfan]

those trees will increase ur render times by loads. maybe try using rpc trees. u got any wire frame views of the models?

[Robeast]

Thanks for the help. I think fakiosity might work best. I'm still playing around with it. I don't have RPC, so I'm stuck with the trees in VIZ for now.

[Conor Clancy]

For trees you could use Forest Pro from Itoo software. It's a pretty good solution if you have some high detail tree texture maps. And it renders fast.

[Brian Smith]

Brian,

Here's part of a post from a few days ago.

If you have Max or VIZ crashes for select files, and you can not figure out why, here are two possible reasons related to memory...

Reason #1 - too many objects. Notice that when you start the rendering process, Max/VIZ has to run through the 'Preparing Objects' phase. The more objects you have, the more memory and time that must be set aside preparing these objects for all the things that go on behide the scenes. All the objects have to be tagged, categorized, assigned qualities and characteristics unique to the individual objects. Bottom line, you can fix the problem by reducing the number of objects. As a rule, I never let a scene get above 1000 objects, though in 95% of my scenes I won't have more than a few hundred. How do you reduce the number? Attach objects (Edit Mesh or Edit Poly) that have the same materials applied, or at the very least Attach with Multi/Subobject materials.

Reason #2 - too many objects not collapsed. Make sure that you collapse all objects to an editable mesh or editable poly whenever possible. If you have to preserve the modifiers in the modifier stack for future revisions, obviously don't do that...but if you know that you won't need to access previously applied modifiers, collapse the object. If you don't you will SERIOUSLY increase the file size and the amount of RAM used. As an example, a scene with a single teapot is only going to be about 150kb in size. But if you apply an edit mesh modifier, move some vertices, apply a turbo smooth, apply another edit mesh and move some faces, apply another modify and another, a lot of information has to be stored to display the teapot in all of these states. Another perfect example is, when you apply Compound Objects. If you apply a Boolean to an object, for example, information for both original obects in their previoius state is still stored along with the information about the Boolean result. But if you collapse the resulting Boolean object, you essentially purge your scene of that unneeded information (which can never again be retrieved). You might notice the effect of this also when you load files. A tiny scene could take forever to open up if it contains numerous objects that were created from the Compound Objects features.

Hope this helps.

 

You should NEVER allow you scene to contain thousands of objects if it can be avoided easily. All you have to do is attach objects to other objects with similiar materials, using the Attach button in the Edit Mesh modifier. Then collapse all the objects (once attached), by right-clicking in the active view and selecting Collapse to: Edit Mesh. If this were my scene, it would contain approximately 25 objects. It makes the renderings faster and the scene easier to manage.

 

As far as scanline...definitely yes. Radiosity...definitely no. Radiosity is the last thing that should be considered here, until the materials and light application reach a level of quality that justify it. To fake it, try putting one light simulating the sun with a Multiplier of 1.0 in one corner of the scene, and 3 fill lights in the other 3 corners with a Multiplier of 0.3. Move the fill lights down to about 20 feet off the ground so the light illuminates the bottom side of your objects better. Also, make sure you put in some parking lines...the road is too empty.