novelh Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 I know it seems like common sense but I need to populate a large area with a particular object and it increases the polygon count significantly (almost 1 mil)! I have attached a screenshot of the object which I created in Autocad and imported into 3DS Max 2008. I have streamlined it as much as I can in Autocad by deleting the faces that are not visible and joining all the solids. My question is two fold. Is there a way that I can streamline the model further? And aside from making a low res version, is it possible for the rendering process to apply less priority to those instances of the object that are off in the distance. I'm having a hard time avoiding crashes at this point. I'm in a bind because my boss is insisting that everything in the scene be high quality so we can take shots from any angle and distance. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Does Max have LOD (Level of Detail) controls? If so, that's one way of doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 That's crazy. It's just a bunch of the same part. Use instances, and model the part in Max, using fewer polys cause no matter what angle you shoot it from there's no need for it to have that many polys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 Wouldn't instance still give me the same amount of poly count? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrawli Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 For something like that i would have a couple of versions of the model. For the objects that are close up and in shot i would have the version that youve got for further away objects i would probably do a really simple model in max and use a opacity map for the slated section, that would reduce the poly count by an awful lot. Also model it in max and dont have chamfers and round edges, its the quickest way to increase your poly count. What are you using to render? if its V-Ray check out v-ray proxies and its problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 I'll try that. I thought about doing the opacity map thing but I guess I'll have to use it in conjunction with LOD because I'm not laying out 400 lounge chairs every time I have to render a different view. I'll remodel and get back to you guys. I'm using Mental Ray and it's killing my memory. Not good at handling large complex files. Thanks for the input. Side note: If I got V-ray would I have to reassign all the Mental Ray Arch&Design materials. I guess I'll have to change the mrSun/mrSky also? How much $$$ is it by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodT Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 have you tried to optimize the model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nazcaLine Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 just use an instance and make all copies you want, no, it won't increase significantly your file size, since there's only one copy information the fle stores, the rest are just positions. OR you could use xref objects, you can bring as much as you want. good luck Eduardo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Your boss is a fool. And you are making your own job difficult. Model it in max. If you are using Vray, proxy it. If not, just instance it. If its viewport problems, display it as a box. Your main issue is the model itself, you can do it with fewer polys. How many are in the scene? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Here...read this thread over at CGTALK...its very informative, I know its about Finalrender, but it actually becomes a competition between FR and MR...alot of stuff I never knew about MR... http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=87&t=508380&page=1&pp=15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 6, 2008 Author Share Posted February 6, 2008 The scene is approaching 6mil polys but by removing the lounge chairs alone i cut that by about 2mil polys. I cant get at render over 1k any more and I haven't even pluged in any trees, people, vehicles, and not to mention particle systems for waterfalls, etc. I don't know what is happening. I am running 32bit, 2gb, Core2 Quad and I get constant crashes or "not enough storage" errors when calculating initial fg (which I can only set to "draft" or its a guaranteed crash). I would post the max file but it's about 80mb. Here is a screenshot of the model in it's early stages. I can probably instance the towers because they are identical if that would help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodT Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 with vray you can convert all the maps with just a couple of clicks, and you could proxy much of your model including all of your chairs.... great model BTW, vismasters has vray for $999 http://commerce.vismasters.com/catalog/viewproduct.aspx?product=1463 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 I've just had a look at your images on this thread and the wobbly column thread you posted a week ago http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/27950-tricky-mapping-condition.html I'm assuming that your boss is a member of the Anserinae sub-family (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anserinae ) and is still insisting that everything be modeled at high-res. Seems to me that you've got a lot of detail in areas that you'll never see. For example, you could straighten the curved back on the deckchairs and save hundreds-of-thousands of polys. Are you going to render close-ups of the entire site? Or an animation from an ant's-eye view? If not, you could remove millions of polys and no-one would know the difference. PS/ Edit: I should elaborate on "detail...you'll never see". Take the window sills for example, you might see them in a shot on the tower closest to the camera but on the rear two towers, will they even be a pixel wide? Why not use a high-res tower for detail shots and swap it out for a low-res for your long/ wide angle shots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 6, 2008 Author Share Posted February 6, 2008 I've just had a look at your images on this thread and the wobbly column thread you posted a week ago http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/27950-tricky-mapping-condition.html I'm assuming that your boss is a member of the Anserinae sub-family (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anserinae ) and is still insisting that everything be modeled at high-res. Seems to me that you've got a lot of detail in areas that you'll never see. For example, you could straighten the curved back on the deckchairs and save hundreds-of-thousands of polys. Are you going to render close-ups of the entire site? Or an animation from an ant's-eye view? If not, you could remove millions of polys and no-one would know the difference. My thoughts exactly but it's difficult to get across. He is reluctant to tell me what area to focus on so I will have to do the whole model in detail but its killing me. I work in an architectural office who send out all of their 3d visualizations. When they found out that I had an interest in 3D they decided to have me do all the 3D work which was originally being sent out. My biggest problem is that I don't have nearly as many resources as a rendering studio nor do I have anyone in the office whom I can ask for advice. The few people I do know in the industry are the same people who's workload I am reducing so I can't call them. Its tough when I have to solve everything under deadline but I guess that is how it's going to be. At least I have you guys. You might find me posting more often around here. I have some knowledge in 3D but I would consider myself a novice. Sorry for babbling on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Cheer up, lad. Sounds like your boss doesn't know what sort of shots he/ client wants either! Would be easier if you could plan your rendering. Why not mention that to him, it'll save you doing unneeded work too. Remember that rendering is a bit of a steep learning curve. You'll have a hard time while your boss is unaware of the limitations, workflow and considerations regarding rendering, but keep him up to date with what you learn and he'll soon understand what's going on. Search these forums for CAD to Max techniques plus read the countless tutorials, links and threads on this forum for 3DS, mentalRay and V-Ray. http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/groups/instructors/3d/nichols_g.html http://commerce.vismasters.com/catalog/viewcategory.aspx?category_path=3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFK_Matrix Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Hi there, Now I am no expert and I do mostly housing and smaller commercial stuff but here are a few of my questions/suggestions, sorry if its stuff you have already done/know. Now have you bought this over from CAD or is it all modelled in Max? Personally I would do all of that in Max as it hasn't got to complicated a geometry and imo would be a cleaner model. Next I would do a sepearte file and model one of those towers in it and use instances for the floors and instanced planes for the glass (are you using boxes for the glass?) This should then cut down some polys. I would then either xref or merge it into the file with the round base structure. If you are modelling the round base structures in max i would maybe lower the number of instances making up the arcs etc. And others have said do Instances of that chair or model in max and don't model what you will never see. And unless your boss is standing constantly over your shoulder then how is he going to know how you have moddelled this? Is he an expert in modelling? I think as long as the finished images/animation is good etc he should be happy with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Personally I would tell my boss if he wants such a huge project to be done, he's going to need to buy me AT LEAST windows X64 and Vray, no offense against MR, but it still has a very difficult time handling such large amounts of poly's, and then maybe a new computer with dual Xeons and 4 gigs of ram...is he crazy or something... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 7, 2008 Author Share Posted February 7, 2008 I don't know enough about modeling in Max to be able to create it in max. I wish I did because it would make my life easier. I just happen to know how to model in Autocad. What are the basics that I should know about architectural modeling in Max? File link a floor plan and trace w/spline then extrude? I'm having a really hard time creating all the landscape surfaces in autocad simply because I can figure it out in Max. How would you do it? I now have to model a rock along the length of the tube ride which is the raised area on the pool deck but I'm going to have to do it max. Any tips? For the tower I created one typical floor as a separate file. I then brought that file as a block into a new cad dwg and copied it to create the 3 towers. At first I tried linking the typical floor plan into max and instancing it but when I reloaded the file the instances did not get updated?! There are three main files; the pool deck, the towers, and the base. This is so I don't have to reload one huge file. Here are some more shots of the progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 7, 2008 Author Share Posted February 7, 2008 Personally I would tell my boss if he wants such a huge project to be done, he's going to need to buy me AT LEAST windows X64 and Vray, no offense against MR, but it still has a very difficult time handling such large amounts of poly's, and then maybe a new computer with dual Xeons and 4 gigs of ram...is he crazy or something... They did actually build a custom computer to meet 3DS Max 2008 specs. It's a Core2Quad with 2GB and an Nvidia 512mb. I've had lots of problems with it not rendering anything over 1200 pixels in Draft lighting. I found that so unusual since the machine seemed very capable. Turns out the Ram is not compatible with the motherboard so we are having it swapped for 4GB of compatible ram. What a nightmare. And yes my boss does stand over my shoulder at times but he is not comp savvy in any way. One mistake I think when building the computer is that we should have ordered a X64 version. I know the computer is X64 but we have XP pro X32 installed along with X32 Max. Do you think Autodesk will accept an exchange for X64 version since it's only been less than 1 month. It's too picky. I read posts of renders going into the billion poly count with no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Well just switching to windows 64bit will increase your ram allocation, you'll get a full 4gigs per program, right now you're only getting 2gigs, even if you install 4 gigs tomorrow, windows xp 32bit won't let you use them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novelh Posted February 7, 2008 Author Share Posted February 7, 2008 Well just switching to windows 64bit will increase your ram allocation, you'll get a full 4gigs per program, right now you're only getting 2gigs, even if you install 4 gigs tomorrow, windows xp 32bit won't let you use them... If I did install X64 windows to take advantage of said performance will I still be able to install my current 32bit Max? Because a Windows upgrade as opposed to a Max upgrade is a big diffrence $$$. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 yes...32bit max works fine as does almost every 32bit program... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 But just to let you know, you can't upgrade to X64, its a different OS based on Server 2003, which means a full install from scratch... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 You can add up to 3.5GB of RAM to a 32-bit XP system, though any single app will only be able to use up to 2GB of that memory. Quoting... "To address more than 2Gb of ram you'll need a 64-bit OS, unless you are running a machine with an OS which has been enabled for 3Gb addressing and the application in question has been compiled with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE bit set. "Under a 64 bit OS, even 32-bit applications have access to the full 4Gb, but no more, so don't build an 8Gb machine, install XP64 and expect your 32-bit apps to address all 8Gb. because they won't. "In summary - if you want to address more than 4Gb of memory to any one application, the OS AND the application must both be 64-bit." Quoting from the MS site..."The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB, unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. The following example shows how to add the /3GB parameter in the Boot.ini file to enable application memory tuning: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="????" /3GB Note: "????" in the previous example can be the programmatic name of Windows XP Professional. Might be easier than reinstalling an OS. That said, if all your projects are going to be of similar size, might be worth going straight to a pure 64-bit system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFK_Matrix Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 If I did install X64 windows to take advantage of said performance will I still be able to install my current 32bit Max? Because a Windows upgrade as opposed to a Max upgrade is a big diffrence $$$. What version of Max do you have? As I know for Max 9 & 2008 you already have both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions as you choose which to install when you are in the setup window. Not sure if Max 8 has this though:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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