What’s happening ladies and gentlemen,
this is Minh from Architecture Inspirations
Today I’m going to show you some how to use proxy
in Vray 3.6 for Sketchup.
Let’s get started
So what is V-ray Proxy?
Vray Proxy allows geometry to be imported
from an external mesh at render time only.
This means that the actual geometry
is not present in the Sketchup scene
and does not take any resources
but when you render it,
Vray will import the geometry from the exported mesh,
and it will render exactly the same way
as the original model
This makes it possible to render large scenes
with many many triangles
more than Sketchup itself can handle.
Let’s start by creating a proxy.
Here you can see a 3D model of the Range
that I used in my Contemporary Kitchen model.
Because of the high detail in this object,
the size of it alone is more than 80 Megabytes.
So it’s a good idea to create a proxy of this model
before importing it into my Kitchen Scene.
Before I create a proxy of this object,
I always make sure to save this Sketchup file
in case anything goes wrong.
Then to create a proxy,
I first select the group or component
that I want to make proxy.
Next, I will press the Export Proxy button
located on the Vray Objects Toolbar,
then this window will pop up.
Here you can choose the File Path
by clicking on this button.
It’s a good idea to export the proxy in the same folder
or sub folder as the main Sketchup file.
Next is Preview Type.
By default, it will set to Refined clustering
which will generate a more precise preview mesh
but it will be slightly slower than the other types.
Next is Vertex Clustering,
this method is faster than the previous one
and generates preview mesh that is not as accurate
but is fairly precise.
The last one is Face Skipping,
which is the fastest preview method,
but it does not give a precise mesh at all.
For this model, I will keep set it as the default -
Refined Clustering Preview Type.
The next option is “Faces in Preview”
which specifies how many faces
are going to be shown in the preview mesh
Here is an example of a proxy with 10,000 faces
versus one with 1,000 faces
I’m going to leave it at the default value of 10,000
Next is the overwrite existing file option,
When this is enabled,
V-Ray will automatically overwrite
any existing vrmesh files.
Last is the replace object with proxy option.
If you turn this off,
then only the vrmesh will be created.
But if this option is on,
will automatically replace the current object with a proxy.
As you can see,
the default settings for these options
are usually good enough for me.
Now, before I hit the Export button,
I’m going to open up the asset editor
and go to the material tab.
You can see here that
this model has 4 different materials.
Just pay attention to the materials list
when I hit the export button.
Right away, you can see two things happened
One is that the original model
has been replaced with a proxy.
And the other thing is the a new material
has been added to our materials list.
This is called a Multi Material,
which is a material that combines all of the materials
used in the original model of the proxy,
which were these 4 materials here.
and any part of the original model
that didn’t have a material will be set to “none”.
Also, if you click on the proxy,
it will switch to the Geometry Tab,
where you can see the new proxy object on the list.
On the right side, you will see more options
such as where the vrmesh is located.
And which Preview Type you want to use.
Proxy Preview is the default preview type,
which is what we’re seeing here.
Next is Whole Mesh, which will display the original mesh
but can sometimes crash your scene,
I don't recommend using this one.
Then there is the bounding box type,
this is the very useful
since it makes it very easy to position the object
by selecting the midpoints and corners.
Next is Point(Origin),
which previews the mesh as a bounding box outline
with its own point of origin and axes indicator.
Custom Preview allows for changing the proxy file
without affecting/updating the preview geometry.
I will set it as the default Proxy Preview for now.
Finally the animation option
allows Vray to render animated proxy
as shown in this video here.
Now I’m going to test render it
using the Interactive Render button.
Looking pretty good!
If you have Vray 3.6
then you can use this Viewport Render button as well.
Pretty cool huh?
So that’s how you export a proxy,
but how do you import this proxy to another model?
Before I show you that,
I’m going to find the Multi Material,
and I will rename it like so,
then I’m going to right click
and save it in my Materials Folder.
Now I’m going to open up another Sketchup scene
and import my proxy.
There are three methods of importing a proxy
to a new Sketchup scene.
1. Import Proxy Mesh
To import the proxy mesh,
just go up here and click the Import Proxy button.
Then find and load the vrmesh that we exported earlier.
Let’s test render to see how it looks.
As you can see, the mesh didn’t come with any materials
and it's why this one is my least favorite method
to import a proxy.
You can take a look at the material editor
and see that all of these materials
have been randomly created as solid colors.
Also, this is what the old proxy-Material look like,
while the new one looks like this.
So to fix this, click on this button
and import the vray material
that we exported from the original proxy file
And there it is!
The original Vray material has been imported.
What we need to do now
is to use this original proxy material
as a replacement for our new proxy material.
To do that,
right click the original proxy-material
and choose Use as Replacement,
then go up to the new proxy-material,
right click, and choose Replace.
In version 3.4, you need to use Copy and Paste instead
Now restart the Interactive render
and there we go, it’s fixed now!
And since we have replaced
these new materials with the original,
we don’t need these anymore,
so we can just delete them.
Another method you can use
is to manually change the input
of this new proxy material
to the match the materials of the original proxy
in the correct order.
2. The Copy and Paste method
Right after you create a proxy from the original model,
you can simply select the proxy
and press Ctrl+C to copy
then go over to your new Sketchup scene,
and Press Ctrl+P to Paste.
Now test render it,
And there you go, simple huh.
Finally my favorite method of importing a Proxy
is the Import Proxy Sketchup file
First I will need to Save the original proxy
by right clicking the component,
and save it as a new file like so.
Now I can open up that folder
with the proxy Sketchup model I just saved,
and I can import it by dragging the file in like so.
Or I can go to file - import, and select that file
Let’s start the render to see how it looks,
there you go, either way works!
Also, this method is really cool
because it makes it very easy to update your proxy.
For example, if I were to go in and make some changes
to the original model like so.
Then export this model as a proxy,
I can save it as the original one,
but in this case I will save it as a new mesh.
Now I can right click it save it as a Sketchup file.
Then on my Sketchup scene,
right click the component and click Reload,
then load the Sketchup file of the updated Proxy,
Now let's render it
There you go!
And if I don’t like the change,
I can always load the old file like so.
There we go, that’s how easy it is
to Update a Proxy with this method
If you want to only replace a material,
you can do it in the material editor,
don’t have to go to the original file to update.
Let’s say I want to use this
green Plastic Material for my model.
I can drag it in here to add it to my materials list,
then I will select the Proxy Material.
and click on the material that I want to replace,
which is the Aluminum in this case,
then I can select the new plastic material I just added.
Now let’s re render it,
and there you go!
If you want to update a material,
you can just do it as usual.
Go to the material that you want to update,
and make the changes,
then re-render.
Easy peasy.
And there you go guys,
that’s how to use proxy in Vray 3.6 for Sketchup
Now you can use this workflow
to reduce the size of your model.
Just use it on the objects that take a lot of space,
for example this model I used it on the
Mini Fridge and the Range.
Or you can even use it for
everything in the scene if you like!
This was part of the March Package
that I recently released on my Patreon.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank all of those
who supported me by signing up.
You guys are freaking awesome!
This package has been sent out,
and won’t be available on Patreon anymore
but it’s on gumroad now for those who want to get it.
And that’s all for today guys,
leave a like if you enjoyed the video,
comment below if you have any suggestions,
stay inspired guys,
and I will see you,
next time.