Was researching a little about Vray Proxies a while back and found some tips regarding its use. Decided to document them here before I forget them all.
- Before creating the proxies, make sure your geometry is final and also set up all the shaders needed.
- Make a duplicate of your geometry as backup.
- Combine all the geometry into 1 mesh. Delete history and freeze transformation.
- Select your object, go to the menu Create|VRay|Create Proxy. Set up the path, filename, faces in preview, and make sure “Automatically create proxies” option is checked.
- Your object is now a vray proxy, and it has a “vraymeshmtl” node to which all its materials are connected to.
- Select the proxy node in your outliner, export selected as a .ma/.mb file.
- When you need to use the proxy, import the .ma/.mb file into your scene. (This is to ensure that your proxy doesn’t loses its vraymeshmtl node and thus it’s materials)
- Duplicate your proxy as instancers if you need multiple copies (do not import it again as that means maya will have to load and read the proxy vrmesh file for all copies instead of just 1)