Itoo Software Forum

Author Topic: ForestPack should not override materials by default  (Read 2123 times)

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
ForestPack should not override materials by default
« on: December 03, 2015, 03:06:25 AM »
Hi,

I would like to ask you to reconsider ForestPack overriding materials on all scattered instances by default. It's really frustrating to deal with something as unpredictable as this in a production environment.

Basically, every time I add some custom mesh to geometry list, instead of using material on source gometry, ForestPack will make duplicate of the material, and put it inside of the material override slot in geometry rollout . So there is this very annoying step of having to clear this slot every time any instance is added, to make ForestPack respect material on source geometry. Such behavior definitely should not happen by default.

Having the option to override materials on ForestPack instances is sure welcome, but no override should ever happen by default, let alone creating duplicate materials behind users' back.

90% of troubleshooting cases i had with ForestPack always came down to this. I spent sometimes even hours just tweaking something realizing it had no effect only when I found out i forgot to click clear button on one damn geometry object in one of my ForestPack objects in the scene. This creates huge room for error as well as makes scene management messy by introducing new materials with gibberish naming.

So again, I would like to ask you to reconsider this default, or if there is at least any way to do it on my end. ForestPack is really only plugin I ever used which makes me pull my hair out of frustration on daily basis.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 03:09:23 AM by Rawalanche »

iToo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4388
    • iToo Software
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2015, 09:10:49 AM »
Hi, thanks for your suggestion. I've added it to the wishlist and i'll discuss it with out team.

Materials are copied by default because it's convenient when using models imported from the Library. If not, it would be difficult for less advanced users to locate and edit the source object in the templates layer. 
So we use this procedure for all objects. Although as you pointed out, it's not necessary for object assigned manually.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2015, 11:33:46 AM »
I am glad to hear this.

Thank you!

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2016, 12:51:37 PM »
Hi,

since ForestPack 5 is now out, I would like to ask if this problem has been finally addressed. I can't not yet check myself, because servers are overloaded, so download takes a while. I really do hope it's finally fixed, as it has caused me lots of headaches despite being aware of it. It's so obscure thing it is very easy to forget about it. Just a week ago, I again wasted several hours of my time tweaking and troubleshooting foliage materials just to realize I swapped material on source scattered meshes, but material override on forest object did not change >:(
« Last Edit: April 11, 2016, 12:53:36 PM by Rawalanche »

iToo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4388
    • iToo Software
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2016, 12:59:42 PM »
Hi, we added an option to control this behaviour:

- Added "copyMaterialFromObjects" parameter to forestpack.ini. Set it to zero to avoid that material is copied to Geometry->Material when picking Custom Objects.

forestpack.ini can be found at C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\<max version>\ENU\en-US\plugcfg folder.

I hope that helps.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2016, 02:10:58 PM »
Hi, we added an option to control this behaviour:

- Added "copyMaterialFromObjects" parameter to forestpack.ini. Set it to zero to avoid that material is copied to Geometry->Material when picking Custom Objects.

forestpack.ini can be found at C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\<max version>\ENU\en-US\plugcfg folder.

I hope that helps.

Awesome, thanks a lot!

DeadClown

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 1
    • racoon-artworks
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2016, 04:13:28 PM »
Got the same experience here. Wasted hours of debugging over the years due to this. I usually run a "clear material array" script all couple of minutes to be sure but this is better ;) Now I just have to enforce this in the whole company somehow.

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2016, 06:41:42 PM »
There's bunch more ini strings in that ini file. Is there any help page where they are explained by any chance? :)

iToo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4388
    • iToo Software
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2016, 10:53:15 AM »
No, i'm afraid there is not documentation about it.

Anyway most of them were introduced (many releases ago) to solve very specific issues, which are not applicable on new releases.
Others are values which can be modified from the interface (as 'noPopups' = General->Disable Pop-ups).
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Rawalanche

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • My portfolio
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2017, 05:49:01 PM »
Hi,

I would like to report severe bug here, with copyMaterialFromObjects variable. I've again wasted a lot of my time tweaking non-existent changes, because update of forestpack has reverted this value back to 1. The value should remain unchanged through forestpack version updates.

Furthermore, it would be probably appropriate to make 0 default, to save all of the forestpack users from frustrating moments, not just a few of us who know about this hidden variable.

iToo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4388
    • iToo Software
Re: ForestPack should not override materials by default
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2017, 09:08:38 AM »
I would like to report severe bug here, with copyMaterialFromObjects variable. I've again wasted a lot of my time tweaking non-existent changes, because update of forestpack has reverted this value back to 1. The value should remain unchanged through forestpack version updates.

Hi, that's strange. I cannot reproduce that issue here (i tried it upgrading from FP 5.1 to 5.2). This value is not modified by updates or even uninstalling Forest.

Quote
Furthermore, it would be probably appropriate to make 0 default, to save all of the forestpack users from frustrating moments, not just a few of us who know about this hidden variable.

As described in my previous post, we prefer to keep it as now, because we think it's more convenient for most of users. Also, changing a feature's behaviour may be confuse for users are used it in previous versions.

Thanks,
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software