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3D Studio Max Problems - Scene File Optimization Question

Discussion in 'Archive: Scifi 3D Forum' started by DVeditor, Jul 4, 2005.

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  1. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Recently I've been working on a file in Max and can't get my system to keep it open for more than 10 or 15 minutes. The reason I'm having troubles is the scene file is nearly 1 GB in size and draws over 1 GB of my RAM when open and working. When I try to render a single frame at 720 X 480 it crashes about 1/4 of the way through because my computer can't handle it.

    Here are my system specs:
    P4 2.8 HT
    2 GB RAM
    128 MB Video RAM
    3D Studio Max 7

    I've searched for optimization techniques, tried working with layers (doesn't help the size of the file), and except for splitting the scene into smaller .max files and rendering each one as a layer I'm not sure what to do.

    Any ideas? I welcome any suggestions you may have. :)
     
  2. Macro_Roshuma

    Macro_Roshuma Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 27, 2004
    Holy Crap! what all do you have in that file????


    Getting more RAM would help...
     
  3. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Before it started crashing all the time I had something like 1 SSD, at least 12 Star Destroyers (modified Imperators), and just over 40 TIE's. I was planning to at least triple the number of TIE's and add a few other Imperial ships for several of the shots but I think I'll be splitting the files up so I can at least work with them. :D
     
  4. wildcat69410

    wildcat69410 Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jun 23, 2004
    I don't know if this would help the rendering, but to let you animate and use the scene more easily, you could always use Max's Xref function, you know replace your different objects with boxes, animate those, and let max replace those with the high resolution objects for your render?

    I could explain it more, but I just wanted to see if you'd done that first.
     
  5. Darth_Steven

    Darth_Steven Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 14, 2002
    I don't know if Max can do something like Combustion does where you can make a proxy of your rendered images and it doesn't draw as much on your RAM...That might be something worth looking into?

    Later
    Steve
     
  6. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    That's the sort of situation that would benefit from either A) splitting the scene into segments that can be rendered separately and composited later, or B) Find an instancing plugin.. not sure if MAX has one of those or not.
     
  7. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 21, 2001
    I've considered using Xref, however the computer simply can't handle all of the data on the models at once so I'm not sure if it would be able to substitute them later. I've been using dummy objects for the animation and hiding the models themselves until render time - my screen had little green boxes all over it and I wasn't even done adding things to the scene. :D

    Even after grouping objects and hiding them it's still too much at render time. Like I said I wanted to add at least another 100+ TIE fighters and other ships so breaking the scene up and rendering them separately will probably be my only option.

    Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far y'all, if you think of anything else please let me know!
     
  8. majormorgan

    majormorgan Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2004
    I'd lock down the camera move so that you are happy with it and then seperate the file into 3 or 4 passes [seperate files with only the bits you need in them IE camera + 30 ties in one, camera + 12 Star destroyers in another]

    Are the Ties instances of one tie model or is it now 30 models?

    Also something to use might be the level of detail especially if things are in the distance.

    It sounds like the same problem I have with my senate model which is way too complicated.
     
  9. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Yeah I think I have the camera moves set so I'm going to try separating the file into smaller ones by category.

    The TIE's were itsy-bitsy versions a single mesh then grouped together and hidden to help bring the preview speed up.

    I'm going to give the separation a shot once I can halt the other renders I have going. ;)

    Thanks again for the replies!



    EDIT: Syntax error
     
  10. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    Does MAX have any instancing plugins?
     
  11. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    If you mean Xref, then yes. The helpfile explains Xref like this:

    An XRef in 3ds max is an externally referenced file. A scene can contain XRefs to other objects or other scenes.
    XRefs allow multiple animators and modelers to work on one scene at the same time without interfering with each other's work.



    Is that what you meant?
     
  12. majormorgan

    majormorgan Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2004
    when you duplicate an object already in your file in max it says do you want a copy or an instance.

    But it didn't always work for me...
     
  13. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    No, that's just proxy stuff.. placeholder objects.

    Instancing is where it creates a "clone" of your object, but not until render time. Before then, it's just a Null. But instances don't actually load another copy of the object.. in LW, for example, they're volumetric clones. For example, I could load up Fractal's ISD, add a particle emitter with ten thousand particles, add HD_Instance to them, and, when it renders, there would be ten thousand copies of that model (at a half-million polys each). BUT.. they're not really there.. so there's NO hit to memory. And no extra hit to render time except what the volumetrics (smoke, etc) would normally do.

    Instancing is specifically used to create copies of objects at render time. Last time I used it was to create two clashing armies of thousands of battle droids and clone troopers. The scene itself only had five of each, which was multiplied when I rendered it.

    You can probably Google it to find out more. But it's basically a way of creating scenes with many objects, billions of polygons, without actually having the objects there to clog up your system.
     
  14. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Ah, I see what you mean. I'll check into that.


    EDIT: After searching for quite a while I have yet to find anything like HD_Instance. I'll keep looking (obviously) but if anyone comes across something please let me know.
     
  15. Darksteps

    Darksteps Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    May 15, 2001
    yeah it has it... it's called instance when you clone it... you can copy it, instance it, or reference it when you clone it...

    the instances draw less memory, altho they do still draw some...

    Darksteps...
     
  16. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    Darksteps posted on 7/4/05 8:11pm
    yeah it has it... it's called instance when you clone it... you can copy it, instance it, or reference it when you clone it...

    [b]the instances draw less memory, altho they do still draw some...[/b]

    Darksteps...
    [hr][/blockquote]
    Then they're not instances. Instances draw zero memory because they're not actually there at all.
     
  17. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Well I just separated the file into several smaller ones - here are the changes so far:

    BEFORE
    IMP_Scene - 924 MB

    AFTER
    SSD - 50 MB
    ISD1 - 397 MB
    ISD2 - 397 MB
    TIES - 77 MB

    Hopefully I'll have some animations to show you all within the next few months. :) I'm still on the lookout for Max equivalent of HD_Instance - if anyone has helpful information or ideas feel free to post them here or drop me a PM.

    Thanks!
     
  18. JeneralJarJar

    JeneralJarJar Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    May 1, 2003
    I had a problem similar to this once, with a 700MB file. I only have 256 ram, but what I ended up doing was increasing Windows XP's virtual memory.

    Control Panel> system properties> advanced tab> performance settings> advanced> then change the size of the page file. I think Microsoft says it should be no more than two-thirds of you current physical memory, but you can change it to anything you want (the bigger the better).

    Remember - it's using up hard drive space. I ended up setting mine on a different partition than the operating system. Obviously, if you're having problems, change it back. But it might be worth a try :)
     
  19. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Thank you for the suggestion. Actually I looked into that when I first started having problems but altered it a bit yesterday afternoon. I have mine set to a maximum of 4 GB - Windows apparently won't allow me to set it for more than that.

    Now that I've split the files though it seems to be handling things much better. At least it's using less than 1 GB of memory now! :D

    Thanks again to those who've offered advice!
     
  20. darthviper107

    darthviper107 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 26, 2003
    Hmm, I was working with xref last night--Learned a lot about it--So...


    Xref has two modes--one mode is the Xref Scene that just imports a scene-it shows up normally but it can't be modified or animated in your new Xref scene--if you save that file and then open up the scene it Xref'd then you can modify it and it will be modified in the Xref scene also. But this doesn't help you much.

    Xref Object imports a single object from another file that can be animated and can't be modified just like the Xref scene--but this also allows Proxies. You can substitute a lower-poly object for a higher poly object as an xref--but it will render out the high poly version--But--you can't group together the high poly object--The Xref object proxy can only reference to a single object in another scene--Kind of a problem--so yeah that won't help much unless you want to do a bunch of editing to the models to attach parts and all that--way too much work--

    Instancing in 3ds Max is just where you copy an object or material--but, if you change something on the new clone or on the original object, it changes what it was cloned from or it's clone also--By default, 3ds Max 5 doesn't do that, but 3ds max does.


    So, what I would recommend is to try to use a lower-poly Tie fighter and render them separately, which you are already doing--but I just wanted to add some info. ;)
     
  21. borjis fett

    borjis fett Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 25, 1999

    I remember running into the same kind of issues, but it was just
    slow as molasses as opposed to crashing.

    But this is exactly why XREF's and other tricks are used.

    Nobody (even the pro's) renders shots this way anyway.
    much too chaotic to be able to manage even if your system
    can handle. Not practical at all really for exactly the issues
    that you have experienced and more.


    But to answer Jedi2016, yes max does instanced geometry.

    look in your help file or manual under particles, instanced geometry.

    If your familiar with Marco Spitoni's CG Short: "The Hunt" all of the
    vegetation was instanced geometry.
     
  22. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Thanks for the extra ideas guys - so far I've managed to keep things pretty stable overall but will definitely keep all of this in mind. :)
     
  23. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    borjis fett posted on 7/6/05 11:21am

    If your familiar with Marco Spitoni's CG Short: "The Hunt" all of the
    vegetation was instanced geometry.
    [hr][/blockquote]
    I was under the impression that the vegetation was created in Vue D'Esprit, not MAX.
     
  24. DVeditor

    DVeditor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2001
    Some of it was - a lot of the trees and vegetation were created with Afterburn.
     
  25. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    Afterburn? I thought that was... oh, never mind.. lol. I don't use MAX anyway, so there's not much point in getting nitpicky about it.. hehe. :)
     
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