Hi!

I'm trying to figure out how to render out a big scatter of instances (.ass) more efficiently. Lets say I've got a huge forest with 100 different assets instanced many times each. How can I get the distant assets to render faster without creating LOD assets.

Just in the scatter, are there overrides I can use to reduce render time on the far assets while keeping near assets untouched? I'm guessing I can't change the subdivision level but, there must be something else I can affect... ?

-Olivier

Wrt geometry not really, since that’s the catch with instancing. Shading is usually a little more flexible, so maybe you could use simpler materials on distant instances. In general though the approach I’ve seen is to scatter in the asset without making lod choices. Once the camera is known in a particular shot take another pass at reassigning lod-based prototypes (which can be an automated step, usually).

That’s obviously a bunch of work so the other thing is to be sure it’s worth the effort. Oftentimes it isn’t, because ray intersection times may not be a significant expense in the first place (compared to materials, lights, volumes etc)