Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: Louis on May 25, 2020, 08:50:33 AM

Title: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Louis on May 25, 2020, 08:50:33 AM
Hello, I hope you are well!

This is my first time using the Forest Pack. I'm a Maya user so I only know a little bit about 3DS Max and I hope you can help me.

I'm planning to bring the scene to Maya with Vray proxy (mesh export) so that way it will reduce lag and assign materials in Maya. But I'm always stuck every time I click instantiate to create for Vray proxy by waiting for to get it done in a long time or sometime crash. Is there a way to get through the finish line or am I doing the wrong way?
Ryzen 1800x
GTX 1060 6GB
16 GB RAM
Max 2018

Thank you!
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Rokas on May 25, 2020, 09:17:36 AM
Hi

I hardly understand what are You trying to do and the scale of it. As I have no experience with Maya I can't give concrete advises towards it.
General tip: start small scale experiments (not too polygon-dense assets and not too many of them) when transferring Your items using ForestTools (https://docs.itoosoft.com/forestpack/forest-tools). You will understand how it works.

I wish I could help more.
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Louis on May 25, 2020, 06:12:16 PM
Thanks for getting back to me!
No worries but I appreciate all your time and help. I'll try to keep it as related to the Forest Pack as possible.

I have no issues using ForesetTools for small scenes and it's pretty fast for small counts like 1-200 or more. But for a big scene about maybe 3000 or more (grass) takes a while or never completes to finish.

Is there a way to use Vray mesh Export to create a file (or any renderer like ASS from Arnold) instead click "instantiate" to skip creating mesh (while Forest Pack is active)? Maybe you can add this feature where we get options to choose either we want this convert to mesh or use Vray mesh Export to create a proxy file without waiting for it to create a mesh (similar datasmith file workflow for ue4 to skip "instantiate"). Is that possible?

Thanks
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Rokas on May 26, 2020, 08:38:00 AM
I just did a quick test (Vray proxy mesh export) and forest tools produced ~18000 items without any hassle in few seconds:

(https://i.imgur.com/4ND5J4F.png)

If You could attach or send (https://forum.itoosoft.com/faq/how-to-send-a-file-to-itoo-software/) us Your scene we could check why it is an issue in Your case.
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Louis on May 26, 2020, 06:29:05 PM
I'm not sure how did you do that and that's pretty fast!

For Vray proxy mesh export that you just did as shown in the picture. Did you convert to "Vray mesh export" by right click after you click "instantiate"? Because what I got is a computer frozen except for small stuff.

I just realized that I have no problem converting to mesh after I click instantiate, it is movable about 15-20 fps with that number of polygons. But after I clicked convert vray mesh export it froze my computer. 

I attached my files in it. I pretended this model as grass. I did another test for the grass sample from the library and still receive the same problem. The second attachment is the image file of what it looks like from start to finish as the final scene.  

Update: I tried again until I got it finished finally. It works but does it usually take that long compared to yours and number of polygons? Not sure why it froze last time after I went through a couple of tries. Also I think uncheck "Automatically create proxies" will reduce time when exporting. The next problem I have is in Maya when I hit to render it gave me crashes or froze my whole computer. Is there anything I can do about it? I think that applies to any application.
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Rokas on May 27, 2020, 07:28:28 AM
Hi  again
Hello, I hope you are well!
...But I'm always stuck every time I click instantiate to ...
so it seems You are stuck exporting geometry and not instanciating it with forest tools as it seems to be finished correctly.

You should only use vray mesh export for Your initial grass geometry (1 peace). And then scatter that vrayproxy with forestPack.

In Your case it would be best to skip exporting vraymesh part.
Use Forest Tools to instantiate, select all the instances and export that to FBX (with "Preserve Instances" selected)

(https://i.imgur.com/RKq77YG.gif)
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Louis on May 28, 2020, 12:43:17 AM
I followed every step you said and it works pretty well. But it only works for small scenes in maya because it can load fast. For a big scene like the one I sent you takes a while to load and sometimes crash which is not good. If you compare opening the file between FBX and vrmesh export, vrmesh export opens the file very quickly but for FBX takes a very long time to open and sometimes froze my computer which I have to force shutdown. I think vrmesh export is the best option for this situation.

I've been thinking that I think it is best to separate the proxy in a group for each file to open to export fast. Please check out the image in the attachment for more understanding and a clear picture. Can Forest Pack identify color as a group and then hit "Instantiate" to create groups for each color ID? With that I can export for each of them or maybe a script can do it for you by automatically creating a vrmesh export file for each group (I don't know how to make a script). I believe this situation is the best way for a massive scene.
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Rokas on May 28, 2020, 08:31:40 AM
Once instantiated You can select by name and create the groups You want to "V-Ray Mesh Export".
(https://i.imgur.com/XXBbLNV.png)
Title: Re: Too slow and crash when "instantiate" to create mesh for heavy scene test
Post by: Louis on May 29, 2020, 11:59:46 PM
Sorry for the delay, I had to try out different methods including proxy for arnold.

Yeah that works too (hopefully it won't crash on me when selected)!

I tested on Arnold for proxy with latest version I just updated and it's very fast opening and rendering with no issue (sometimes it crashes and I think it's Autodesk's fault).

In your previous method (export FBX with preserve instance option checked with Vray proxy), it is very slow opening the fbx file in Maya and 100% it will crash even if it is 8mb. But when I open it up in Blender just for curiosity and oh man...it opens very fast and not sure how Vray rendering works in Blender because it always crashes on Maya. I'm not a Blender user but I feel like Autodesk is the one that messes up everything, the more problems I know the more I know it's from Autodesk.

When I compare the speed of proxy export between Arnold and Vray after "Instantiate", Vray takes a long time and it's pretty worrying that it could crash anytime and will never finish the line. For Arnold, it's pretty fast to create a file and I think it is because the original obj is a proxy and it allows you to export all proxy objects but Vray doesn't allow you to do that. So I guess Arnold is the winner here. But it's not enough to give me everything what I want. The best way is to use Max as final render with new shader but I'm very curious when someone wants you to bring a scene to Maya with materials and everything in it. How are you going to survive through crashes, slow and frozen? Any advice for this situation would definitely makes my life easier!

I personally think it would be better for Itoo to have standalone like SpeedTree and that's just my opinion of course, because I believe it is a very unique tool and shouldn't be fallen in the wrong hands (Autodesk...lol).