Paving falloff scale & position

[GT4505]

We're trying to figure out how to make a pavement like the roche-campus: https://landezine-award.com/roche-campus-kaiseraugst/

We have a circle area excluded which allows to change the size of the empty zone, while getting the scale effect with scale fall-off option.
But there are two things we still would like to do:
- is it possible to move the objects also away from that zone, so they look a bit pushed open like the reference?
- the scaling also affects the height, but for tiles it would work best if it scales only in x/y not z, is that possible too?

If you could give some advice or an example file for a best workflow that would be great, (also keeping in mind that grass would be placed in the empty zones)

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Vincent

[Rokas]

Hi. Thanks for the challenge. We got to work, and Paul came up with the best solution first.


This method uses combination of techniques.

First we use Forest Pack with exclude areas, but additionally add two effects- One for scale, and one for repulsion:

These are controllable with curve, and numeric entries. This might be enough for what You wanted.


But Paul went one step forward. Here is technique, how to achieve more organic shape, as in Your reference:


There are few modifiers on top of forest object that does the job.

And for the grass You create new grass object and add tiles object as exclude area. You will have to play to get acceptable parameters, but ForestPack does the job pretty well.


Attached scene for Your reference.
Hope this helps. If You got any questions- ask.

[GT4505]

Hi Rokas,

That's awesome! Very nice to see you guys made a challenge out of it.
Thanks for looking into this so quickly and sharing the file, it works perfectly!

[GT4505]

Hi There,

We were trying to recreate this principle in another form for another project, but there appears to be a problem when switching the display render mode from "automatic" to "meshes".
The tiles are very simple & similar, just two boxes in two formats.
In the viewport it seems to work, but when rendering the forestpack it disappears.
We would like to use meshes to exclude grass from another FP, but we can't get it to work today.
Also leaving the "automatic" option in combination with a modifier on top makes it disappear while rendering.
 
What are we missing here?
Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Vincent

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi Vincent,

Please feel free to send us your scene (ideally simplified and containing just this problematic object(s)) to helpdesk@itoosoft.com to check it here.

Best regards,

[GT4505]

Dear Michal,

Thanks, attached you can find two options we made.
In this file the mesh doesn't work as modifier and also not with the display render mode as meshes.
In the viewport it seems ok, but when rendering with corona it dissapears.

We use Max 2022
Forestpack version 7.1.1
Corona 7 hotfix 1

Best regards,
Vincent

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for the provided scene. Once I've removed Edit Mesh modifiers applied to these Forest objects, it seems to render just fine here (unless I'm overlooking something).

Best regards,

[GT4505]

Hi Michal,

Thanks for looking into it.
Yes exactly, but as a result we can't use it to exclude it from another forestpack grass object, because it needs to be a mesh right?
Also when changing the display render mode from "automatic" to "meshes" it disappears.

Best regards,
Vincent

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi Vincent,

There‘s no need for any „mesh conversion“ to be able to exclude scattered items using another Forest object.

Best regards,