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Author Topic: Use forest to make a crowd....  (Read 6459 times)

DIMITRIS

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Use forest to make a crowd....
« on: November 17, 2009, 06:03:14 PM »
I use forestpack all the time and I think it's great... Although I don't use many of the features because I render with Maxwell and not mental ray....

But what I am trying to do this time I think it is a wishlist item... I want to make a crowd of people... With trees, it is easy, you can make an interesting forest with 4-5 kind of trees... But what about people? If I need 100 people, I need 100 materials...

Any ideas? is it something you're working on? I think it would  be great to have the ability to randomly assign mats to the planes... maybe tell forest the folder with the materials... or a txt file... or... of course this is not the complete solution because there is no way to know and to control exactly how many planes will appear... so how can we be sure that each plane has a different material... well, when you deal with crowds and not just a group of people nobody will notice if 2-3 people look the same... right?
I will sign it only if it is a piece of art!

iToo

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Re: Use forest to make a crowd....
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2009, 09:22:28 PM »

This problem can be solved easily with 3d people models, and using Forest Material to randomize the dress colors. We have used this procedure to randomize the cars in this scene:



The technical details are described here:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=319.msg1068#msg1068

Using this technique, is possible to create a lot of different people using a reduced collection of 3d models.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

DIMITRIS

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Re: Use forest to make a crowd....
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2009, 05:03:02 PM »
Thank you for your answer but this can't work because

1. I use Maxwell so Forest material doesn't work... Only Maxwell material

2. Even If I find a way to make it work, what I want is to use mats that I already have and they are JPGs (diffuse+ alpha)

3. There are going to be really different images, for example an old lady, a young couple, a guy reading the newspaper, a black guy, a lady with a suitcase etc... Totally different to each other...

Generally the tint ovveride is a great tool but as I wrote before... I can't use all ForestPack features because of Maxwell...
I will sign it only if it is a piece of art!

iToo

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Re: Use forest to make a crowd....
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2009, 02:28:48 PM »

I've attached two scripts that could be useful for you.

BoxesFromTextures.ms:  collects all textures and opacity maps from a folder, and creates boxes in the scene with Standard Materials using these maps. It uses the Forest maps scheme (<map>.jpg for texture, <map>_o.gif for opacity), but you can modify it.

Once you have a box with each material, use in Forest "Add Multiple Custom Objects" button to add them to the Geometry List. Now, you can use the second script:

SetForestProperties.ms:  modifies properties of the selected Forest object. This sample sets geometry to "Template", width to 10, height to 20.

You must modify the scripts to use your own textures and Forest properties, but using them you can automatize the creation process.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Erik Clemens

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Re: Use forest to make a crowd....
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2009, 05:49:51 PM »
Hi Carlos,

Some very nice scripts...simple but efficient. Was just browsing your forum and can use them instantly for something. Thanks !!

DIMITRIS

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Re: Use forest to make a crowd....
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2009, 06:42:40 PM »
Just saw the scripts... thanks a lot....

I will sign it only if it is a piece of art!