Odd problem with xref

[Lehm]

I've been playing with Forest Pack Lite for a bit now.  I just ran into an odd problem.  I've got a scene with a Forest Pack object where if a certain scene is xrefed into it the trees will disappear.  In the first screen you can see the empty splines surrounding the building.  Turn the building xref off and the trees come back.

[iToo]

What does the XRef scene contain ? Is there any object related with Forest (light, spline, camera...) ?

I suggest you delete objects from the XRef to isolate the culprit. Once you have a stripped scene with the items that are creating the problem, please send it to us to support@itoosoft.com, so we can check it.

[Lehm]

Okay this problem really baffles me now.  First off I discovered that the ForestPack object isn't completely not working.  Its just working incorrectly. I reduced the density of the distribution map, and discovered the trees are being placed.  They're just in a straight line for some reason (see attach).  In addition there are two xref's in the scene.  If I remove either one it starts working properly.  But if both are enabled it screws up again.  Then just to see what would happen I when into one of the xrefs and removed the doors...it starts working.  So I thought maybe I had my culprit.  So I save out a new copy and delete everything but the doors...that works too.  I can't seem to narrow it down to any one object...removing anything further from the scene and it ends up working.  So I prepared an archive of what you see in the attachment.  Its 100mb, if you want it I can upload it to my ftp.

Jeff

[iToo]

Ok, please send us the ftp login info to support@itoosoft.com. We will find the problem much faster having the scene.

PD: Please, specify also what Max and Forest version do you use.

[Lehm]

Link sent.

Its a Design 2010 file using FP 3.4.1

[iToo]

We must open a support request to Autodesk regarding this issue. Meanwhile, as temporary workaround, please delete the Forest object and recreate it, that must solve the problem.

[Lehm]

Did you ever get a response on this issue?

[iToo]

Yes, but the case is open yet. They asked me details about how your scene was created, to reproduce the problem. Unfortunately, i have not that information.

Max assigns an unique ID to each object, but it seems that certain conditions this ID is duplicated. It that happens with the Forest object, the plugin has an erratic behaviour. By now, the only workaround is recreate the Forest object.

Did it happened other times, or has it been an occasional issue ?

[iToo]

An update about this issue:

This problem seems caused by a bug in Max that creates objects with duplicated handles (a unique ID assigned to each object in the scene), when using XRef scenes. This generates an erratic behaviour in Forest. Unfortunately we had no luck with Autodesk so they can reproduce and fix it.

The workaround for Forest is simple: create a copy of the Forest object (Ctrl-V), delete the old one and save the scene.

In the latest beta of Forest Pro (3.5.1b) we have introduced a warning message, which alerts if there are duplicated handles. This way you can find the problematic object and apply the workaround.

We are working on an alternative workaround to solve this issue automatically, but it's not easy because the handles are essential for the plugin's work.

We apologize by the inconveniences.

[iToo]

This issue is fixed on Forest Pro 3.5.2 beta. The next Forest Lite release will include the patch as well.