Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: DS4646 on October 10, 2014, 05:45:30 AM

Title: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 10, 2014, 05:45:30 AM

Hi I have a relative simple scatter I am trying to achieve using the a curve as a falloff and exclude area.
For the life of me I cannot get make the falloff work.
I select the curve I want as an excluded area, since I don't want the grass inside the building.
but it just doesn't work when I try and add the falloff.

Heres screen grab showing what I am trying to accomplish.
I've look at the youtube tutorial but I think my scene is different since it needs to exclude instead of include.

cheers


Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: iToo on October 10, 2014, 09:03:58 AM
Please, would you post a screenshot of your Falloff settings ?. Or much better if you upload a test scene.
Thanks,
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 10, 2014, 09:54:42 AM

Hi Carlo,

I'm trying to save selected to only give you the items needed.
However when I try and find the scattered items that came in from one of the presets I cannot find them.

"_fp_common_grass_clump_02"
Where are these hidden in the scene ?

cheers
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 10, 2014, 10:25:28 AM
Okay I found the files, A hidden layer thats frozen !!
So heres the scene file, its 3dsmax 2015 and corona.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=3D945F6AAE0C3FFF!44854&authkey=!AJ2pjKUzQqbypF0&ithint=file%2c7z
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: iToo on October 10, 2014, 11:10:34 AM
Thanks for the scene.
Include and Exclude areas use their own Falloffs distances. Just set a value greater than zero in Falloff->Exclude, as shown in the image.
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 10, 2014, 12:05:38 PM
Thanks I'll try that.

Also is there a way to colour the different scattered objects ? so I can see whats going on ?
At the moment is looks like the smaller objects are scatter all over the surface where I just want them close to the edge.

This is what I am trying to do.
http://www.itoosoft.com/tutorials/tutorial_grass_edges.php
cheers
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: Paul Roberts on October 10, 2014, 03:31:57 PM
Hi,
to help distinguish the scattered objects in the viewport you can turn on Use Color ID from the Display rollout and then assign some distinctive colours to each patch of grass in the Geometry Rollout

(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/b078e4e7fff34a1ebff31c6cc32ae2a1.jpg)(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/83990d1b923a434c83f76eb8f548e107.jpg)

To see the effects you may need to turn on Geometry > Consolidate Materials too if you are displaying proxies instead of the points cloud mode.

Clean edges on inner borders - easy method

The easiest way to use an exclude area inside the main scatter and retain clean edges is to attach the boundary and exclude areas into one spline object and then use the technique demonstrated in the tutorial video you linked to in your last post.

(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/3f2ea64e3885464e8c9d8adbc76462ba.jpg)

Scene File can be downloaded here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/218877678/iToo/TERRAIN%20Attached%20Splines.zip)

Clean edges on inner borders - advanced method

If however you need to keep the exclude area separate from the include area it is a little different from the tutorial and takes a bit more effort to set up. In this case you must create two sets of include and exclude areas. The first set (Green) will add the Large clumps of grass and then subtract the space for the building. The second set (Orange) adds the small clumps and then the exclude area, this time with Invert Curve selected, will restrict the small clumps to appear only around the perimeter of the exclude spline. Here's how this looks in the Areas rollout:

(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/95e743e2dfa34486b0e2affebedbfea0.jpg)

Scene File can be downloaded here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/218877678/iToo/TERRAIN.zip)

I hope that helps, please let me know if you have further questions about these techniques.

Many thanks,

Paul
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 11, 2014, 02:24:37 AM
Thanks,

I'm trying to cover the entire area, not just the boundary as per the example file.
I keep running into an error  "increase XY Density units "
and can not not fill the entire area if I increase the density units.

As you can see the latest render has missing grass patches.

cheers
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: DS4646 on October 11, 2014, 10:16:37 AM

I can fill the gaps but only if I use limit to visibility.
Is it okay to use this for animation ?

cheers
Title: Re: Exclude using Falloff ?
Post by: iToo on October 11, 2014, 10:55:41 AM
The problem in this case is the size your terrain. To cover it completely with grass would be necessary a huge number of items, exceeding the limits of Forest and the render engine.

"Limit to visibility" is a good way to lower the number of items, and it's okay to use for animation. Just before sending the full animation to the queue, do several tests at different camera positions, to be sure everything is correct.
If necessary, increase Expand and Back Offset values, to avoid popping items from the edge of view, as described in the documentation (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FORESTPACK/Camera).