[jespi]

Hi Jeremy,

Changing back to 2.5.1.9 solved the problem. Now C4D exports a million instances in less than 10 seconds,great!.

My problem now is with material preview, I can only use the default material preview, if I change to stage 1 or whatever I get the attached error. I've tried repairing permissions with disk utilities with no success. Do you have any idea of where could be the problem?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26415033/Screen ... 7%20AM.png

Thanks in advanced,

josé

[JDHill]

Yes, this is mainly what I was referring to with file compatibility -- the 2.5.1.9 plugin can only read MXM files written by a Maxwell SDK from 2.5.x., and apparently some of your MXS preview scenes were written with a newer version. There is no fix for that, other than using MXS previews that were written with a compatible version.

[jespi]

Thanks again JD. I'll use the default preview for now.

[walterfog]

an information please... i'd like to upgrade my actuale 2.5.1 plug version to the latest version...
i read this post but i don't understand a thing... the instances does work with the latest version of plugin yes or not?
Please give me an answer.... thanks a lot

walter

PS: it's better to make realistic grass using the instances or try to using the new fur system?!?!?!

[JDHill]

Instances work fine, but since they now support motion blur, they take longer to export than before. I am working on optimizing that. On the question of using instances for grass, as I wrote above, it is great to use instances for this purpose, but you should not try to instance a single blade of grass -- in other words, rather than 10,000 instances of a single blade, use 100 instances of a 100-blade polygon, or 10 instances of a 1000-blade polygon.

[walterfog]

thanks a lot....

and another question.. if I have to istance a plant or a tree, composed of different kind of materials?
could I have a single group of the different part of the tree, and instances all the group in a single way? or i have to instances all the single part od the tree?

[JDHill]

It depends on how the tree is built. It could be built as a single polygon with many selections and texture tags, or it could be built as a hierarchy of thousands of separate objects. You can instance either type using a single plugin Instance Object (or Cinema Render Instance), but in the second case, that will generate an instance in the MXS for each piece of the tree, since in the MXS, an instance is an instance of a single mesh. Therefore, there is no concrete rule of thumb for what constitutes the best approach; it depends upon the geometry. In some cases, it would be most efficient to connect, say, all of the leaves into a single polygon, while in others, it may be better to separate them into several groups.

[walterfog]

thanks so much!!!

[JDHill]

Tim & José, please try the 2.6.11 version I just posted; it optimizes the export of instances in circumstances where object motion blur does not need to be recorded. The scene you sent me,Tim, now exports in 17 seconds, here on my machine.

[jespi]

Awesome Jeremy!! I've tested the new plugin with my scene and it's working perfect.

Have a nice day,

josé