multiple buildings in village scene

[kevin miller]

Hello, I am pretty new to max. I am modelling an 18th century village street scene with approximately 8 pretty detailed buildings, streetlamps, and trees for an animation and was wondering the best way to created the scene to minimize the size.

 

1. Would it be best to model each building and lamp as a separate scene and xref the buildings into the animation scene?

or

2. Create the animation scene and create a group of each building after they are modelled? These are the only methods I have heard of to help reduce file size but I may be totally off base.

 

Any thoughts, comments, or ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

K.

[SandmanNinja]

You could render different parts in different passes and combine them in post (Adobe After Effects, for instance).

 

How many polys are in the scene?

 

Are any of the eight buildings identicle? If so, use proxies.

 

I imagine a lot of the lamps are the same - model one and turn the rest into proxies.