Large numbers of duplicated objects

# 1 09-07-2003 , 11:11 PM

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hi guys I am creating an animation with lots of spiders in it running around over some terrain. I've run into a problem when it comes to duplicating the objects.

At the moment I have it setup so that i have three models each with their own animation /ik/geometry etc. And all grouped together:

e.g. spiderGroup1, spiderGroup2, spiderGroup3.

Now what I want to do is select a random one of those and duplicate it so that I have another one (which then gets it's keyframe xyz translations and rotations loaded in via MEL). The models and animation are quite simple and only last for 200 frames at the moment.

The problem I get is that after about 40 duplications maya starts to fall over and die eventually crashing into a pile of 0's and 1's and begging for mercy user added image

Is there a simpler way of doing this? maybe instancing? maybe referencing? or even dummy objects that are replaced at rendertime with the correct ones? or even using readArchive() from PRman to load up the animation at rendertime?

Please any help with this would be fantastic

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Alan

Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

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# 2 10-07-2003 , 03:45 AM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Minnesota, USA

Posts: 3,709

Looks like you may have answered that yourself user added image

Try Instancing your geometry to particles, and when you do so, there are simple ways to just watch cubes and/or lowres version(s) of your objects/characters then switch over to your full characters at render time.

Then try the Renderman thing user added image

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 3 10-07-2003 , 01:20 PM

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i got it done! user added image

Just in case people hit this prob here's what I did:

Create a group with my skinned chacacter bones and all. Then instance the geometry only. Move the geometry outside of the group and then parent it to a locator. You can then key the locator to move around the scene whilst having your animation from the original character (e.g a walk cycle) still playing user added image

Fantastic

Alan

Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

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# 4 10-07-2003 , 01:52 PM

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that is a cool trick - did you try to test it with a few thousand instances ??

good luck for the project - time is running out slowly :p

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# 5 10-07-2003 , 02:12 PM

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ok i've done 200 and I'm gearing up for a big one (coupla thousand) but i need to make some changes first and then see if my c++ can handle it! user added image

Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

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