3D visualisations for new builds

[jonm4y]

hey guys,

i have two issues with 3ds max that occur time and time again and i was wondering if someone could help me out?

basically i am a building development visualiser and have been for many years. i usually deal with 3d visualisations for new builds with up to 40-50 houses but every now and again i get asked to produce a 100 house plots. i have a top of the range machine yet my computer really struggles when it comes to processing 100 houses. im always after realism in my work so i dont like to shortcut things like pasting textures of windows and doors instead of modelling them. i like to model everything in detail. is there a way to optimise my models? i would think that 3ds max these days could handle a simple housing development, especially when it gets used for huge movie projects. i use layers, wireframe when rotating my models and i use the 'display as box' option for some of the houses, but it still struggles to rotate and pan the scene!

my second question, also based on house modelling...
say i have a scene with 40 houses, i put each house on its own layer...
how do i set up a 'group layer' where i can group houses 1-10 and show or hide them in one go, without affecting the individual houses layer?

[sendil81]

If all the houses is same model use proxy. It will give the result.

[darawork]

Sounds like a good idea, here is a tutorial on mrProxies: http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/getting-started/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSM...

From the topic: http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-B4E23283-1B97-4676-8650-C6453D9FBC0F

Also contains useful information about 'Particle Trees' (could be handy for landscaping in large housing scenes?).

[JamesClarke3D]

For our large projects we xref pieces of the scenes into different components that makes sense based on the artist working on them. For viewport speeds, personally I don't like the display as box due to lag going in & out of box mode, and have found shaded views (sans-shadows, AO, etc.) to be best (though that may be just a personal workflow holdover from Direct3D vs OpenGL pre-Nitrous era.) But it comes down to, onyl load (xref) or show (hide) what is relevant to be working on currently, for best performance. Only turn everything on when it comes time to submit the render....

For hiding groups of buidlings, any number of tools at your disposal just depends on what fits into your pipeline the best: Layer organization, xref scenes on/off, Selection Sets, Scene States, or, heaven forbid - grouping (ah, bad!). 🙂 Personally I pretty much get away with proper layer management and xrefs for the most part.

[drendir]

How many polygons are you dealing with / house?... for 200.000 polygons you should have a very detailed exterior house in my opinion.