Instances????

Choppski

If a prop comes with instances or instances group--what is that exactly. I have two new (to me) props by stonemason and they have these. I also notice that when I do a test render, buildings show up in the background that are not there in the viewport. Is that what instances are?

Stonemason

instances are just copys of models,in theory it means your pc is effectively only rendering one object, regardless of how many instances there are of it.so if you had one blade of grass instanced 10000 times your pc would only regard it as one model,it means I can throw more detail into a set without the worry of users being able to render it or not.

I include a visibilty script (in the utilities folder) so you can see where they all are.by default they are set to not visible so your viewport doesn't slow down too much,you should set your camera up first then run the script to make sure nothing is blocking the view,then hide them again and hit render

Choppski

Stonemason said:

instances are just copys of models,in theory it means your pc is effectively only rendering one object, regardless of how many instances there are of it.so if you had one blade of grass instanced 10000 times your pc would only regard it has one model,it means I can throw more detail into a set without the worry of users being able to render it or not.

I include a visibilty script (in the utilities folder) so you can see where they all are.by default they are set to not visible so your viewport doesn't slow down too much,you should set your camera up first then run the script to make sure nothing is blocking the view,then hide them again and hit render

Thank you for answering. I bought the streets of venice and the western streets. I have the utility folder in the western product for both 3dl and iray, but only for iray with the venice--I will check and see if something didn't install correctly. In any case, this does explain why stuff was showing up when I did a preview render that I could not see in the viewport. At one point I thought a sky dome I had added was somehow reflecting the buildings. Thanks again--for the products and for explaining.

Stonemason

both the 3delight and iray versions are the same script,I only included two so you had quick acess to them depending on what folder you we're using,

Choppski

I found it, thanks. It works fine. It's fun, actually, to do a preview and have new stuff appear LOL