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Author Topic: daylight systems, vray, forest pack -- and -- shadows..  (Read 7997 times)

Suresh

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daylight systems, vray, forest pack -- and -- shadows..
« on: June 17, 2010, 11:24:14 PM »
Hi,

Im trying to create an outdoor scene (at large scale) and do a sunlight test (i.e. watch the sun animate from 8am to 8pm)...

I'm using a daylight system with a vraysun.

Forest Pack is doing the landscape work for me and all seems to be working quite well EXCEPT that I'm not getting the quality of shadows that I would expect...

1) any suggestions (i can't seem to use x-shadorws with vraysun)
2) in an unrelated question - I have no idea what the thin line in the grass is!
3) my trees are all angled in a slightly unrealistic way because I have them aligned to the normals of the landscape below. If I switch it off, the trees promptly disappear - any ideas how I can keep them planted but not angled?
4) Also - any general suggestions for you to push the realism would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Here's a pic:


iToo

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Re: daylight systems, vray, forest pack -- and -- shadows..
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2010, 11:50:46 AM »
Hi,

Quote
1) any suggestions (i can't seem to use x-shadorws with vraysun)

XShadow works only with scanline, but really you don't need it for VRay.

The best option is to use vraysun with vrayshadow. You must assign the light in Forest (Shadows->Raytrace->Light). Also be sure that your materials are of "Forest Material 3" type:

http://itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=forest_refshadow
http://itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=forest_mat

Quote
2) in an unrelated question - I have no idea what the thin line in the grass is!

I'm not sure what is the problem without checking the scene. Does it change disabling shadow casting in the grass object ?

Quote
3) my trees are all angled in a slightly unrealistic way because I have them aligned to the normals of the landscape below. If I switch it off, the trees promptly disappear - any ideas how I can keep them planted but not angled?

Probably the surface has normals wrong aligned. Apply a "Normal" modifier to it and click the "Update" button in the surface rollout of Forest.

Quote
4) Also - any general suggestions for you to push the realism would be much appreciated. Thanks!

If you like, send us a stripped scene and we'll adjust it. You also can find some useful information here:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=448.0
http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=192.0

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Suresh

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Re: daylight systems, vray, forest pack -- and -- shadows..
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2010, 08:02:13 PM »
super comments...thank you...I'll play with them over the weekend...but can't help but ask one or two more!

I also own vue xstream (and am largely abandoning it as a result of your software)...BUT...in this project, I happen to need a lot of Bamboo Trees...and vue does a nice job of creating a bamboo grove .. what would be the right approach to get it into Forest Pack- my choices are:

1) export a large poly mesh of bamboos (1,000,000 poly's) to max as a .3ds and use them independently?
OR

2) somehow convert the large poly thing to a billboard (how to do that?)
OR

3) skip this approach entirely and use some other library that has a variety of bamboo textures and add them to the forest pack library (any suggestions?)
OR

4) something completely different?

I don;t want to use the vue xstream integration as its too buggy and bogs down the max environment too much.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2010, 08:20:14 PM by Suresh »

iToo

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Re: daylight systems, vray, forest pack -- and -- shadows..
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2010, 09:13:22 PM »
If you already have some bamboo trees created in Vue, the best option would be to use them as Custom Meshes in Forest. Not the full groove, but only 4 or 5 tree samples (to add some diversity), and scatter them using the plugin.

The good thing is that using VRay, almost there are not limits in the number of polys or objects that you can render with Forest. If you need a guide to use the plugin with Custom Meshes, please see our Urban Park tutorial.

To use billboards, you must render a tree sample to get the texture and the alpha channel, and create a material that use it as a mask. Once the material is created, you can include it to the Library browser (this step is optional). There is a customizing library tutorial available in our wesbite as well.

Also you can find some bamboo meshes in the net:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-bamboo-plants-3d-model/418794

« Last Edit: June 18, 2010, 09:15:19 PM by Itoo »
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software