handling bigger scenes in 3dsmax
godlike master sticky
Hi guys,
my girlfriend is now working on her bachelor film and we were thinking about how someone would handle big scenes inside max in a non destructive way and i really didn't know how to do it.
In games you normally have the engine where everything comes together, changing one part dosn't destroy anything, but in max i cannot (or don't know how) load an external model (character with rig i.e.) animate that in scene and then change stuff in the original modelfile without having to do some work to load that data again, is there a way to work in max like in an engine, to change assets in external files and having max updating all that stuff inside the masterfile?
i mean there are studios like blur workin on complex projects completely inside max, so there should be ways to handle bigger scenes, there should be tools to enhance a max only pipeline o.o
my girlfriend is now working on her bachelor film and we were thinking about how someone would handle big scenes inside max in a non destructive way and i really didn't know how to do it.
In games you normally have the engine where everything comes together, changing one part dosn't destroy anything, but in max i cannot (or don't know how) load an external model (character with rig i.e.) animate that in scene and then change stuff in the original modelfile without having to do some work to load that data again, is there a way to work in max like in an engine, to change assets in external files and having max updating all that stuff inside the masterfile?
i mean there are studios like blur workin on complex projects completely inside max, so there should be ways to handle bigger scenes, there should be tools to enhance a max only pipeline o.o
Replies
You can use them for a project like this, I think.
I imagine Blur etc. probably have their own custom plugins for asset management and scene referencing.
Pitfall 1) Sometimes they'll stop updating when you update the source model. So its normally best to wait until you're done with an asset before placing it. If you're in and out of the source file making edits, there's a good chance it will freak out. When it does freak out, you'll close the scene and open it they've all turned to little X's and you have to reload them all. Tons of fun...
Pitfall 2) Launching the source of an object from the Xref menu can cause max to crash. When it does, it by passes autosave and just dumps to the desktop, bye bye work! So I suggest just opening the source file normally. Good idea, poisonous feature.
Upside) They do let you set a proxy mesh, so you can xref high poly assets and use a very low poly proxy. You can set it to render the proxy or the original, good for running tests. There are scripts that help you troll through and adjust those settings, if you can't find them, they are easy to write.
If the only thing you want to do is display a proxy mesh you can use the MultiRes, Optimize or ProOptimize modifiers. Then have a script remove or turn off the modifiers just before render time.
You can also set objects to display as bounding boxes only. Kind of like forcing max degradation on certain objects.
If you're scene is turning to a sluggish nightmare when moving around turn on and make full use of Adaptive Degradation (KB shortcut O), see the Viewport Properties > Adaptive Degradation Tab for properties.
It works on a per object level so keeping things separate and not joining them all into one monster mesh is best. It has a few settings that are based on distance, and min viewport FPS. Pretty handy for naving around, but also degrades when you do animation and the FPS drop too low.
Keep your particles displayed as ticks.
It can be really tempting to crank it up and display any geo you have shooting out, but its going to kill the scene, once you have them set, hide em or turn the displayed ticks way down so you get the general idea of timing, but nothing heavy is going on.
Render presets, scene states and region render.
A few quick fast fugly renders could get you the info you need vs one painfully long pretty render.
Batch render can be very helpful in rendering a bunch of shots from different cameras, with different scene states. There are also scripts that improve the functionality of Batch Render. Two I like are:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/batch-camera-render
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/l-pass-manager
If you find yourself constantly switching the viewport background, here's a handy script that lets you build a list of images and apply it quickly.
http://www.pixelpollen.com/scripts.htm#VBS
Walk through mode (Little foot prints in the lower right corner, I bound it to Shift-C)
You can use WASD to nav around, mouse to look around, right click exits.
Toggle step size is [] just like brush size in PhotoShop.
Q to toggle between walk and run.
I remember having trouble with keyboard shortcut override for a while, until I reworked my KB shortcuts... some kind of conflict I think...
TBH, I am going to break with my larger philosophy of pipeline and say any referencing you do in Max on a small animation project on a small team is not going to be worth the trouble of getting it set up and functioning. Maybe for props and models, but for animations, rigs, and the like, it just won't be worth it.
But Vig has good suggestions on how to handle a larger scene (though I suppose 'big' in your OP does not refer so much to scene size).
If you're really looking to make the most out of referenced geo, Maya is the way to go. A lot more stable, and a lot more flexible. I haven't tried out XSI, but really if blur saw a reason to switch it has to be worth checking out.
I also forgot to mention the MattShadow material, its your bread and butter for creating clipping masks and rendering shadows onto things that don't really exist. In that example a simple plane was under the measuring stick with matte shadow applied.
You can also turn on and off shadow casting and receiving in the object properties. Very handy to turn shadow casting off, for things you're using to just capture shadows. So for example you have a 3D person you're putting in a 2D scene and they walk behind something and cast a shadow on it. You'd create a simple clipping mask object, apply matte shadow and turn off shadow casting in the objects properties. That way it won't double up any shadow in the 2D scene but it gathers the shadow from the person.
Use opacity maps cautiously. The more you stack behind and in front of each other, the longer the renders going to take sorting. I could get into why but that's a thread for another day (might have been covered already? Alpha test vs alpha sort?).
Geometry always renders faster then a transparency map. I know its a great low poly trick to use less polys and use a map but it really hurts render times and limits the kinds of lights/shadows you can use (area shadows, or ray tracing). Instead use a projection map with a special light just for that object (include/exclude) or use a shadow stand in (fastest option). Matte shadow again, but with the object set to not receive shadows. OR use geometry.
check out the MR feature video of this page:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=11007364
here is another fine post:
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2008/04/3ds-max-2009-released-mr-proxies-and.html
for a animation project I once wrote some maxscripts that would better handle xRef objects but like others mentioned its pretty much broken and in very odd situations animations lopped, or did not, failed to render ect. - it was a disaster back with Max9.
A note about animations and the like. You can do your animations in a seperate file and then use the point cache modifier to export those animations onto your characters in your scenes if you dont want to have to animate in heavily loaded environments. I do that alot with cloth simulations and stuff.