it could be easy to create a low poly object parented to the high poly one and just do as you say. the problem is with the particle system.
The low poly object equivalent need to be at the exact same place of the high poly one. otherwise it will not work. Every other softwares use proxies for that but blender doesn’t have that. i just made a proposal about that.
It’s a pitty Blender doesn’t have a proxy function in that sense…
But what you describe is basically possible using linked collections as in my script. They can also be use in a particle system and the positions of both objects is the same (I think even with multiple hp and lp pairs) The problem is the missing colored display of the point clouds as you already know…
In general, I think there shouldn’t be a need to create any additional low poly objects from the highpoly ones at all, as these are just better or worse workarounds…
So let’s cross all our fingers and hope that @carbon2 can crack this
There seems to be a little cross over in the discussion above, between 2 concepts here - 1. proxy objects (like vray proxy) which are low poly versions where a different mesh is loaded at render time and 2. display options on meshes that are instanced or part of a PS.
For scatter, I understand that the normal thing would be for the addon to create a display version of the mesh that is loaded up or part of the scene.
Meshes can be referenced into blender via link, but this means all meshes are loaded in memory while the file is open. Vray proxies, for example, load only on render and are part of the render engine code, where the special proxy object tells the renderer to load a different mesh. Proxies can usually be displayed in a decimated form or in full detail.
I’d say the ability to decimate a mesh that is loaded in memory for display only would be the priority and I’d imagine that the idea of a mesh that only loads on render would need some adjustment in cycles / evee / whatever other engine requires it. A display option for any mesh would be most uninversally useful.
Just my thoughts, but most importantly - WOW 0 this looks amazing.
this is one of those random topics that pop out of nowhere in the blender scene and provide so much magical stuff. Keep it coming guys, this is as good as mine when it comes out on the market
Anyone here wnow where i can get realistic CC0 vegetation models? i’d like to share’s some training scenes for everyone to learn the addon. but finding good looking free assets are quite dificult… @liell assets generated with speedtrees are free to share ?