Toolkit 2 - Maya: Stand Ins

  When creating complex scenes with multiple high polygon models, the large amount of detail can slow down the view port and eat up memory. To avoid this, using standing will allow a faster pace of working, whilst keeping resources free. This is where Arnold Stand ins help, also known as Proxy's.

Robot Stand-in

 

  To create the proxies we need to select the group node in the outliner, then under the Arnold menu, select the export stand in to create a ASS file. ASS files keep any rules bound to a model, and you can apply a sequence it if has any animation. sequences will be imported as a sequence of models per each frame.

Stand-in Menu

 Once the object is exported, it can be re-imported via the same menu (Arnold, create stand-in). These will appear a as a bounding box, but nothing inside. When looking though the Arnold render view, the robot is fully visible with textures, colours, etc.

Stand In Bounding Box

Multiple Proxies

Final Render of Proxies

 The main problem with the stand in bounding box is that you cant see the object, making placing it difficult. Going into the stand ins attributes, you can change the view port draw mode so to see the model in a shaded form. 

Shaded Proxy

  Once completed, its best top turn them back to bounding box so to keep the stress on the view port low.