Alain <kua### [at] videotronca> wrote:

> >
> This may help:
> Start with a reflective box for the buildings.

That is a brilliant and simple solution to my problem, for this height_field
version of the scene; as Bill says, it eliminates the need to use an
image_pattern/holdout matte altogether, with LOTS of image_map memory saved.
THANKS. I probably wouldn't have thought of it.

Strangely, it gave me another different (or maybe additional!) kind of idea: For
each of the 50 types of building faces, make ONE very large tiled height_field
slightly larger than any conceivable building I might make (made from the single
much-smaller original HF tile, that one being pre-#declared as usual.)
PRE-#declare this larger one too, *with* all of the images/reflections already
on it (or no reflections at all, like your idea.) That should require only a
relatively smallamount of memory, I think. Then use clipping planes in the later
#while loop to simply slice away parts of the 'iterated' HF, to get the building
dimensions I want for each different-height/different width building face. And
then add your reflective box underneath.

Of course, I'll end up using thousands and thousands of clipping planes for the
entire 'city'. I don't really know how that by itself might affect the
scene's memory use. Those planes are just simple(?) mathematical entities, so
maybe not much at all.

I have one small but important question about clipped_by planes: Regarding later
MEDIA use (if I decide to add it to the scene), do those planes have an
inside/outside nature like a regular 'plane' object? In other words, do they
affect the appearance/non appearance of media? I've never had to think about
this before!

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