Maya - handle many subobjects ans one instance

Alphavader

Hey guys,

I have to do a big landscape scene in maya with many
different buildings and objects.
I read that max has an option to handle many highpoly objects
as one "instance". Is this possible in maya too ?`
Maybe in combination with meshlab ?

// - i dont mean grouping or combine objects

Greetz,
Alpha

antweiler

I think its not possible to treat millions of objects as one instance. Id go with grouping and using display layers.
If you have maya 2014 you could check the new scene assemblyif it help in your case. Seems perfect for viewing and working with large datasets. It uses GPU Cache.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkfVxFti-Sw"]Maya 2014 New Features: Scene Assembly Tools - YouTube[/ame]

gray

there are many ways to instance geometry and other elements in maya. you can instance as many objects as you want. and you can instance geometry to particles. just to give you a few ideas. the easiest is to set instance in the duplicate object options

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2013/en_us/index.html?url=files/Edit__Duplicate_Special.htm,topicNumber=d30e71515

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2013/en_us/Commands/show.html?instance.html&cat=General

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2013/en_us/index.html?url=files/Particles_Instance_geometry_to_particles_single_and_animated.htm,topicNumber=d30e390977

Alphavader

Thanks guys,
I dont have maya 2014 yet - "only" the 2013 version.
@ gray - oh nice thats wasnt the exactly thig i was looking for, but its very near to that - thanks you.

I remember a thread, a polycounter started, where he build some highpoly stairs and put these into a max scene. After doing some clicking in the options menue, max handle the whole stairs as one big object - like a big box (from the selection point of view ) - so max doesnt count all the details and polys cause its handled as one box now. This reduces the performance and he could handle a very big scene with many highpoly objects.
So id like to know if this would be possible in maya too or did i just remember it wrong?

gray

Alphavader wrote: »

Thanks guys,
I dont have maya 2014 yet - "only" the 2013 version.
@ gray - oh nice thats wasnt the exactly thig i was looking for, but its very near to that - thanks you.

I remember a thread, a polycounter started, where he build some highpoly stairs and put these into a max scene. After doing some clicking in the options menue, max handle the whole stairs as one big object - like a big box (from the selection point of view ) - so max doesnt count all the details and polys cause its handled as one box now. This reduces the performance and he could handle a very big scene with many highpoly objects.
So id like to know if this would be possible in maya too or did i just remember it wrong?

that is what maya instances do. if you want to move them with one transform then group the instances under a transform node "ctrl+g" if you read the second link it explains that an instance is a just a pointer to the original object with a transform offset. they reduce memory, helps performance etc. the addition of a single control transform is trivial all instances have to have a unique transform to be moved in space.

edit: if you duplicate an object and set it to instance in the duplicate options you are making an instance of the original object. you can set the parent option in the settings.

Alphavader

Thanks dude, ill try this out!