Working with all these polys in max

Silva_Spoon · Sep 2005

Im running into problems with max crashing like 20 times a day with an "Out of memory" error. Im working on this detail mesh (high poly)of a character. I created geometry in max that I then took into zbrush and sculpted. Not the whole mesh at once, and some parts of the body like the boots for instance I never zbrushed at all. Anyway the character is 2,766,936 tri's in all and max has become very unstable. I still have to create the render mesh (low poly) for the character and I dont want to be losing work with all these crashes. I have 2 gigs of ram so I doubt that physical memory is the problem.

I was wondering what some of you creating characters using zbrush and max do as far as workflow goes. And if you have any tips so I dont go and put my fist through the screen.

okkun · Sep 2005

Try masking and exporting sections of the higher res. You'd have to overlap the seams in photoshop. 2 gig's don't get you very far in Max unfortunately.

okkun · Sep 2005

What I just said made no sense after reading your post again :P

Are you trying to bring the high res in for the purpose of creating the render target? Couldn't you step down in divisions in Zbrush for that?

Ruz · Sep 2005

I get those , but perhaps its the large textures that are causing those problems.

Silva_Spoon · Sep 2005

Im almost done creating the detail mesh(high poly) that I will then use as a guide to build my render mesh (low poly). So I will be creating more geometry (while modeling the render mesh to fit the detail mesh) and increasing the scene polycount by another 8000 tri's and I am crashing like crazy with this 2.7 millon poly character. I do have the detail mesh in layers so I can hide parts Im not working on. I know that's one way to help. Any other things I can do to make max more stable with such high scene polycounts?

Oh btw I talked them into giving me another 2 gigs of RAM so lets just hope that solves the problem, however my IT guy doesnt think it will. He says that max can only use 2 gigs of memory anyway. Having two more will only hep with multiple apps.

okkun · Sep 2005

There is a Switch to enable up to 4 Gigs in XP. Not sure if you'll see the full gain in MAX but it helps XP so that might leave some more over for MAX.

MS info on memory switch

Search Windows help "/3GB",
Boot.ini - should be at C:\boot.ini (usually hidden)

Do you actually need to full res detail mesh to create your low poly version? You should be able to go one or two steps back in Zbrush and export a lower resolution version so you can create your 8000 poly mesh. Then while inside Zbrush just export your character at the highest resolution in sections, say arms, legs, torso etc. Bake each of them individually to different normal maps on top of your target mesh and combine them in photoshop. It's a good idea to have some overlap to avoid seams.

MoP · Sep 2005

I'd just export the ZBrush mesh one or two subdivisions lower than highest (as Okkun suggested), since Max is usually fine with 1-2 million poly models (for me, anyway, provided you have the viewport in smooth shaded mode with only wireframes on selected objects).

JordanW · Sep 2005

One workflow you might want to try, on a seperate model, you probably wont be able to go back and do this...but when creating your highpoly mesh instead of bringing the highest level of subd from zbrush bring a low or mid and generate a displacement map for the rest of the detail, then have the displacement map applied at render time when you render your normals. I've never tried this so it may not work at all.

Also i dont remember max having -that- much trouble with a huge polycount, maybe you have some bad ram or some other hardware issue? have you tried opening this file on another computer?

Ryno · Sep 2005

You running in OpenGL or DirectX? Try whichever you haven't used. Avoid Edged Face display mode (wire+shaded), as it's basically twice as taxing on the machine.

Silva_Spoon · Sep 2005

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll definatley be bringing lower subD levels back into max from here on out.

Working with all these polys in max

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