I’m putting a file together and trying out a few different ways of keeping the file smaller. File sizes seem to sky-rocket exponentially after doing something - something which I’m not entirely sure what it even is quite yet (but have a few guesses). It might be something to do with groups (I’m using lots of groups). Textures are an obvious culprit and the files seem to be holding onto some data even after I wipe out large textures. Relying on groups seems to be the biggest factor and I’m trying to use blocks instead of grouping objects.
I’ve heard from a reliable source that nesting blocks is a no-no - I heard Rhino doesn’t like it for whatever reason. I will usually nest blocks one level deep - meaning a block within a block, and objects other than block references would be two levels deep - hopefully that’s not confusing. Nesting further is helpful at times but not necessary, especially if simply grouping the blocks turns out to be an acceptable solution.
I’m also realizing that for what I do I can often scale blocks to achieve the shapes I need - to that effect I’m wondering if that will help with file size where the objects need only store their transforms rather than all the other unique data associated with independent objects.
Hi @keithscadservices
I don’t know if the current version has this problem but in older versions blocks were said to take up more memory. Don’t know if that’s still the case for V8 if that’s what you’re using.
RM
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I’m hoping that’s not the case but I might be about to find that out. I really hope it’s not the case with nested blocks as well.
Hi Keith,
I don’t know about blocks currently, it seems you’re on the right track. I think textures are a huge culprit and meshes. Most likely you know but joining meshes even separate ones into one mesh is less memory intensive. Too bad if you have a disjunct mesh with textures it wipes them out. I use purge and clear undo to get things less memory intensive.
RM
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So far it appears blocks (in Rhino 8) are helping dramatically with file size. My previous attempt at building a scene with tons of repeating small objects was about 3x the size of the current file. See my post in the gallery for reference (small stuff): Don't sweat the small stuff! Uploading some assets to F4R soon
Hi Keith,
That’s great to hear for many years I’ve been avoiding using blocks due to a few bugs mainly the material bug where blocks would display with wrong material mapping and the over taxing of memory.
Really like your collection of objects, very nice of you to offer them to the Rhino community and in 3dm format.
RM
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Good to know! Thank-you!! That would unravel a big part of my planned workflow.
In this case I’m lucky as most these blocks don’t require texture mapping. I’ll be doing a lot more testing however as this is only a single file and therefore just a single data point of course.
Hi @keithscadservices
I’m hoping this bug was squashed but I don’t see anyone from McNeel saying it was.
RM