Detailed Mesh's in Maya (speed issue)

[Anonymous]

I sculpted a base mesh on level 5 that resulted in upwards of 5 million polys. when i send to maya it transfers over perfectly and it looks great. however maya is beyond slow. On top of that when in wireframe mode my polys are so close together that my mesh appears to be just shaded blue. Is there a step i'm missing with working with mesh, this high in poly count in maya and mudbox?

also i need a direct answer on what speeds up maya's performance. I'm hearing debates about graphics card vs memory. If i'm going to sink money into one. Which would be a better investment?

Thanks all

[s_ehrenhaus]

Huh.. you doing it wrong. Maya is not designed to work with such a high number of polygons in the viewport.
What you would rather do is export a displacement map in mudbox, and your low res model (or maybe sdvl 1 or so) to maya and set up that displacement map. So that the model gets subdivided and highres at rendertime.
Or you can do that with a normal map, thats the easier and faster way to render because the detail is just a fake of light and shadows.

For your other question: A good graphics card will increase your performance in the viewport,
when rendering (i.e. with mental ray) its the processor and ram that will influence the rendertime.
So everything comes into play for general workflow speed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Adeptus,

So just to clarify. Bare with me please i'm claerly a novice

if i were bringing this mesh into maya to be rigged and animated
I would take my mesh at at lower level and send it to maya for rigging and animation. then after everything has set i'd import the mesh at the level i want it rendered at?