Proxy and xref differences and use for plants

[Anonymous]

Hello all!

A quick question about the differences between xref and proxy objects in 3ds Max 2018. I have done a fair amount of research, and find plenty of detail about mental ray proxy objects, and vray, but not much detailing what the appropriate solution is in 2018 as MR is no longer supported.

I am attempting to use a proxy object, or xref object if appropriate in a scene using the scene management tutorial provided by Autodesk in 2011 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk8oKYEuVFA) for grass. I have the grass assets modeled in a separate file and since MR is no longer supported can not find the appropriate method of saving a proxy/xref file. It would appear that the second part of the tutorial, regarding painting the sourced objects to my ground plane would remain the same if I simply find the correct method of saving and sourcing the files for this version of Max.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Matt

[Anonymous]

I figured a portion of this out, xref scenes are semi ok, but the objects are importing as complete geometry, not proxies. The only info I can find is on vray, or mental ray proxies, which are no longer supported.

The project I'm working on has a large amount of repetitive geometry, as well as a large amount of plant life. A xref that just imports geometry does me no good. and if I approach it from the xref scene standpoint the project will require 20+ files. A prosy into a xref scene seemed like the way to go, until there was no info to be found in the 2018 max. Please advise.

[BenBisares]

The way the proxies worked was dependent on the renderer so you can't use the same procedure for mental ray in Arnold. That being said Arnold does have their own version of proxies called "Procedurals"

Take a look at the link for more info and let me know if that helped

https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/An+Introduction+to+Procedurals

[Anonymous]

Thanks BenBisares, this did help to an extent. I turned to xref scenes/objects, but the objects do not work in a similar way to proxies from what I can tell. With objects Max has been importing the geometry, which, to me is sort of illogical because you could just import the file and clone it in the manner needed vs using xref at all. From the documentation I've read it shouldn't import geometry...

The Arnold solution works, but doesn't explain the xref object issue. Maybe there is a glitch, or I misread the Autodesk description of an xref object/have my xref object setup incorrectly?