Do (large amounts of) vray proxies affect render times if they are not visable?

[williamcai]

By this I dont mean the light cache/ irr map calculation phase, I mean the actual final rendering phase.

 

I have a massive forest scene that I am trying to render and I have used multiscatter to scatter large loads of grass / trees / plantation proxies.

 

I think I might be using more proxies then I need so my question is does it matter when the number is already beyond the camera vision. Does it make a (BIG) difference when I am using 10k proxies vs 20k proxies vs 1000k proxies? What about proxies that are behind the camera?

 

The grass and trees are covering each other so I want to be sure its dense even though they might be overlapping each other and some trees might be blocked off entirely from view already.

Edited July 29, 2013 by williamcai

[cg_Butler]

I would say it does matter, especially if your proxies contain materials that are reflective/refractive. Even if some of the proxies are behind a camera, or blocked by other proxies, the hidden ones may still be calculated for reflection and possibly refraction bounces when rendering, so they will add to the scene render times.

[williamcai]

yes, you are absolutely right. It fully affects the render time even if I boxed the entire camera!!! Basically it was rendering nothing and it you could tell it was still taking the same time as if the box was not there. Why didn't I think of this method before until you replied...

 

thanks, now time to spend time optimizing the scene.... sighs..