Octane Proxy And Displacement

[stir]

Hey
I am just looking for some information about octane proxy and how they work.

The way i understand it is that you export out a object to a proxy file. so at render time the render engine looks for that file and findes the object there.
If you have multiple instances/copies of the proxy object in your scene, it will still only use that one file and in other words only calculate the mesh once? right?

The question is then.
If i where to add a material with a displacement map. Will that make each object uniq? rendering the idea of proxy usesless?

Or is it like a layer system.
First calculates the proxy mesh, then does a second pass and go ovear each and one of them and does the displacement.

or

Does it calculate the first proxy object WITH it's displacement then reuses that for the rest of the proxies also?


The reason i am asking about this is at the project we are working on we have a bunch of toycars and they have a displacement map. It is the same car, instanced all over the place.
So i am just fiddeling with the idea of maybe bake inn the displacement to the mesh, It will give me a really really really dens mesh, but then proxy it hopefully to save calculation time and RAM in the final render.

Ofcource it's no reason for that if the proxy and render engine handles proxy with displacement in a smart mather


Hope you guys understand what i am asking.
Thanks for your time.

Cheers
-Mats

[paride4331]

Hi stir,
Your question I think has not an absolute answer.
Octane proxy does not work as vray proxy (eg), you can either apply different materials and textures in the same octane proxy and instantiate it.
If you apply different materials or textures they occupy vram, but the proxy Octane will be the same.
About the time, I might say this: Octane is a great eater of polygons.
Therefore transform the geometry of an object with a physical displacement, instead of a octane displacement map could be a way;
however, it depends on the type and quality of the displacement you need.
A voxeling displacement produces better results of a displacement mapping.
In short, I do not think there is an absolute rule.
It depends on the specific situation.
Regards
Paride

[stir]

Hey and thanks for the reply.

I am now looking at effective ways to bake down the displacement map inn to the mesh.

So far i got 2 methods

1. Get the object inn to Zbrush apply the displacement map and export out a new OBJ and bring that inn to max, then make a Octane proxy out of it.

2. Give the object sufficent subdivitions but keep it "at render time" then apply a displacement modifier on top with the displacement map. From there export out with Xmesh from Thinkbox software.

Do Octane proxy have the ability to bakedown the rendertime mesh?
I like the Second method the best, dont need a second software or exporting out a second obj.
But i would prefer if Octane could have the ability to bakedown the render time mesh like Xmesh does.

If i were to do method 2, but export using Octane proxy instead of Xmesh i would get whats visible in the scene. And not what would have been rendered.
And it's to heavy for 3ds max to view the fully subdivided mesh in viewport, because of that i use the subdivide "at render time" in opensubdiv.

Anyways, if anyone have some tips about his i would appreciate it


Cheers
-Mats