Tom Bussey Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 I'm not massively experienced in animation, so I'd like to check my workflow here before I get stuck in. I currently have a MASSIVE Revit model imported into 3DSMax, which I've organised and optimised a fair bit, will do so a bit more before final animation. At the moment there's one camera animated over 6 positions within the scene. I will copy this out to 6 seperate cameras animated over about 9 seconds each. I'd like to keep the model centralized between the scenes. I was considering splitting it up in to a few Xrefs, one for the building, one for furniture, one for landscape etc. I could then subdivide these into different rooms, for the furniture, for example. Is there a reliable mechanism to turn batches of layers and or Xrefs on and off depending on what camera I'm rendering? I believe this used to be done with scene states, but have also read about that being unreliable, was this function redesigned recently? (I'm on 3DSMax 2019) Also of note is that this will be rendered on a 3rd party farm, so I'm not sure if that affects things. I suppose relative file paths are probably wise? TIA for any words of wisdom! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francisco Penaloza Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 In my experience here is where 3D Max falls apart, the unreliability that it has wile using render farms and XREFs, Layers and others function that should be already defined and bulletproof after all these years. I can't remember when used to work, Maybe Max 9 or Max 2012?? I remember having a consistent workflow, but lately is just a nightmare. I also do large project animations, School, Universities, Hospitals and so, we have to divide the buildings, site and surrounded elements into XREF scenes, then create master scenes per animation as need it. 3D Max can't setup scenes with different Screen proportion without a plugin for it, Scene states are a hit a miss. I personally do not use them, we use manual layering on and off or create a scene per shot, or have a plunging to take care of that. Layers also are not 100% reliable, there is a bug with XREF scenes. If the origin scene layer is off, when you turn it on on the master won't render on a render node, This was an issue on 2017 and 2018 I haven't try on 2019. As a recommendation, I would do several test rendering, testing most situations for your upcoming project and see what works better for your render farm. Some companies such Rebus Far will ask you a different file per shot. Last time I have a single master file with all my cameras, but I had to upload that file several times with different camera positions. Sorry for the downer post but, just be careful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Vella Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 (edited) Without plugins scene states is your best bet (not the new state sets), but has some issues that Francisco mentioned. Its pretty rock solid for me in regards to layers (max 2017) but I havent tested with xrefs in quite a few years. RPM plugin is the king for animations, xref control, per camera objects on off, different resolutions in viewport etc. $300 saves you a whole bunch of hassles to be honest. Edited February 4, 2019 by redvella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Bussey Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 Thanks guys. This is what I was worried about. In that case I think I'll just xref the stuff that's always on and create layers for turning on interior fittings for each shot. I may experiment with scene states though. Will call with the farm too as it's all a bit pointless if I then have to divide into desperate scenes anyway. Three plugin sounds good, but I mostly do stills work. This is a one off for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Bussey Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 Anyone used the visibility track to control which objects are renderable in each scene of an animation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 look at selection sets or groups Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Bussey Posted February 7, 2019 Author Share Posted February 7, 2019 look at selection sets or groups What do you mean? I know what both those are obviously, but how would they be utilized in streamlining an animation workflow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 As i understand you want to have certain objects visible for individual cameras, therefore put a group of items into groups for each camera and then makes it easy to turn groups on and off dependant on your camera rendering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Bussey Posted February 7, 2019 Author Share Posted February 7, 2019 I see what you mean. Could work, but I see problems when something needs to be visible for more than one camera, but not all cameras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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