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Author Topic: Surface area or Spline?  (Read 2361 times)

dylan86.exe

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Surface area or Spline?
« on: May 16, 2017, 02:59:17 AM »
Hello,

Could someone clarify what I should be doing. How do I get paths to follow the ground geometry when using splines? At the moment, they just stay flat and don't follow hills or dips..

« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 07:25:13 AM by dylan86.exe »

Michal Karmazín

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2017, 11:38:51 AM »
Hi,

Adding that surface to the Forest object under the Surface tab > Add surface will do the trick. For these purposes the Areas - Surface Area should be turned OFF. As described in our on-line reference guide:

"Surfaces are often used to define the scattered item's position on the Z axis in conjunction with splines and paint areas to define the region on the X and Y axes. Occasionally you may find that the full terrain is filled with items,even though there are spline areas in the Items List. If this is the case the usual problem is because the Area is on, when using surfaces with other Include areas it is important to turn the Surface off."


Hope that helps.

Best regards,

dylan86.exe

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2017, 01:21:28 AM »
Hi,

Adding that surface to the Forest object under the Surface tab > Add surface will do the trick. For these purposes the Areas - Surface Area should be turned OFF. As described in our on-line reference guide:

"Surfaces are often used to define the scattered item's position on the Z axis in conjunction with splines and paint areas to define the region on the X and Y axes. Occasionally you may find that the full terrain is filled with items,even though there are spline areas in the Items List. If this is the case the usual problem is because the Area is on, when using surfaces with other Include areas it is important to turn the Surface off."


Hope that helps.

Best regards,

So to clarify, I should use a spline, draw my path then add the surface area of the geometry and turn it off? So it has something to get co-ordinates from.

Also, while I remember to ask - when I'm using a preset library of grass (that consists of three clumps alsready), can I add other types of grass to that library? Because when I hit the library button and load in say a small daisy type plant or something, it removes the original library and just loads in the Daisy instead of adding to it..
« Last Edit: May 17, 2017, 02:55:23 AM by dylan86.exe »

Michal Karmazín

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2017, 09:50:48 AM »
Hi,
Quote
"I should use a spline, draw my path then add the surface area of the geometry and turn it off?"
Exactly, this way, such surface will be used just for getting the correct position for items in the Spline Area.
Quote
"... when I hit the library button and load in say a small daisy type plant or something, it removes the original library and just loads in the Daisy instead of adding to it."
Importing any library will replace the current Forest object settings by stored ones (as besides of used geometry presets store all other Forest's data to reconstruct the distribution in the same way as saved).

You should create another Forest object and adjust these to complement each other or to add just wanted geometry to the existing object use the Geometry > Add New Item / Add Multiple Custom Objects option. All objects imported from libraries you can find all these under "forest_templates" layer. By default all objects inside of this layer are hidden and frozen. The object name will be _forest_library_*******. Any of these objects can be manipulated like any other 3ds Max's object - moved to other layer, copied etc.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,

dylan86.exe

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2017, 01:40:22 AM »
Thank you Michal!  :)

Lupaz

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2018, 11:21:55 PM »
Hello,

How come in the tutorial https://www.itoosoft.com/tutorials/create-nature-scenes-in-no-time?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=Nature_Scenes_tut

he doesn't turn surface area off when using include over a surface? Please see minute 18.

Is it because it was already off from previous FP objects?

Rokas

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2018, 08:27:35 AM »
If You create FP object as icon mode, then adding a surface wont enable it in areas rollout.

So Yes in this video it was not needed to disable Surface Area as it was not enabled in the beginning.
Rokas

Lupaz

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Re: Surface area or Spline?
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2018, 03:14:53 PM »
Thanks.
Wouldn't it make sense that Surface Area was turned off automatically as soon as you add an include spline.
Are there cases where you might want to have elements on the entire surface AND an include closed spline within it?

The only reason I can think of that being useful is if you could affect the elements within that closed spline independently. But as far as I know, you cannot.
For example, reducing the size of those elements within the closed spline.

Thanks.