Atoms proxy

You can create an Atoms Proxy via the Atoms Menu: Atoms > Rendering > Create AtomsProxy Node.

The Atoms proxy node is a lightweight representation of your cache.
You can assign an atoms cache, a variation file, a cloth cache and groom cache to it. 

The AtomsProxy node is connected to the time node by default .

If you only care about showing some agents you can specify their ids in the "Agent Ids" field, where 0 is the first index available:

• 0-6: will show all agents with id between 0 and 6.
• 0, 2, 4: will show the agents with id 0, 2 and 4
• !(0-6): will hide the agents with id between 0 and 6.

Atoms Proxy attributes:

• Variation Path: a variation file which will override the variations loaded in the scene.

• Groom Cache: groom cache path.
• Cloth Cache: cloth cache path.
• Draw: the draw mode
• Agent Ids: field for filtering out agents
• Draw Agent Cache Ids (Maya): Draw the agent ids in the viewport.
• Mesh Filter: Filter variation meshes. Wildacards with ? (one or more matches), * (zero or more matches) or \! (no matches). 
• Agent Type (Override): Specify an override for the agent types of this atoms proxy agents. You can override one character using a string in the following format: agentId@AgentTypeName (i.e. 1@atomsRobot)
• Agent Variation (Override): Specify an override for the variations of this atoms proxy agents. You can override one character using a string in the following format: agentId@VariationName (i.e. 1@Robot1)
• Agent Lod (Override): Specify an override for the lod of this atoms proxy agents. You can override one character using a string in the following format: agentId@LodName (i.e. 1@loda)
• Disable Variation Materials: You can specify a list of materials that will not be used by the atoms procedural. Wildacards with ? (one or more matches), * (zero or more matches) or \! (no matches).
• Scene Materials: Materials from the scene that will replace the variation materials. (Arnold only - please enable the "Export All Shading Groups option" under the "System" tab in the render settings)
• Material Overrides: you can use this attribute to connect a material to a mesh overriding the data stored inside the variation table. The syntax is meshName:materialName.
• Disable Default Material: disables the default green material. The Atoms procedural uses this material when it doesn't find the right material inside the variation table.
• Displacement Post Prefix: If you are using an Arnold material inside the katana scene and you want to assign also a displacement material, the latter must have the same name of the surface material followed by this postfix.

Where in Maya you can use more than one item for most of the above parameters, in Houdini you can specify more than one value using a comma separate string.

Benefits of using Atoms Proxies

1. Atoms Proxies are much faster than having a "cacheReader" module on an Agent Group node.
2. Atoms Proxies will still display the correct frame even when users scrub on the timeline, unlike atoms groups.
3. Atoms Proxies are used for giving a visual reference to artists, for lighting and for rendering. 
4. You can render with motion blur only when using an Atoms Proxy.
5. Atoms Proxies do not use an Atoms Crowd license, but an Atoms Procedural license.