Small Maya question

AtlusZMH

So I am having an issue with Maya's duplicate special function and trying to get it to actually instance my model. I have some decimated stones that i am looking to arrange around to make a house, but whenever i try to just instance them, Maya duplicates them like normal and i end up with a huge ass polycount and a pissed off computer.

Is there something special i need to do besides check the "Instance" box in the options?

Thanks!

nekked

Instances will lower mememory use over regular duplicate geometry, but performance-wise they are still verts/polies etc that need to be drawn and have a cost.

AtlusZMH

Ah, i see.. I was under the impression that they are pretty lightweight on the system memory.. Guess i was mistaken >.<

thanks!

nekked

Yes, instances are pretty lightweight on memory. What I'm saying is there are a lot of places you can get bottlenecked. If you have a 20,000 vert rock that you are instancing 100 times, you probably won't use much memory, but you're drawing 2 million verts and your pc will get slow, because your cpu/gfx card has to draw it.

AtlusZMH

Hmm.. then im not sure why my comp is choking so bad.. I can only get to about 4 or 5 instances before my viewport starts chugging..

ceebee

What kind of graphics card are you using? There's a lot of factors that will affect your FPS in your viewport, not just the memory. Hell, even drivers can be finicky when it comes to viewport FPS.

AtlusZMH

Using a mobile 8600, so its definitely a weak point on the system too.

Hopefully i can finish it all up without crashes >.< just kinda dealing with it for now.

Dis

Now, I could be completely misinformed but checking instance in Duplicate Special in Maya is not like instancing something in a 3D engine. What it does in Maya is making your duplicated objects behave the same way as the original object (move a vert on the first mesh and it will be moved on all the duplicated meshes).
In fact, it probably hogs more memory than just a normal duplicate.


Edit: Guess I was wrong (this is from the manual):

Instance
Create an instance of the geometry being duplicated. When you create an instance, you do not create actual copies of the selected geometry. Instead, Maya redisplays the geometry being instanced.

AtlusZMH

Just to update.. Yeah, the problem i had was my own fault. I expected instancing to barely put any load on my comp so i could have just one high poly mesh instanced around a lot and not worry about slowdown.

I was wrong :P

Learned a lesson though! Woo!