Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 01:01:34 PM

Title: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 01:01:34 PM

hi
maybe my question is not new...
I have couple surfaces, one on the top of the other, overlapping.
How to get forest growing on the top one and only then on the bottom one.
Thanks

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 01:03:31 PM

PS - surface area is turned off in my case
I'm using spline borders

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: Paul Roberts on February 20, 2014, 02:42:41 PM

Hi,

Please see the scene attached for a possible solution. In this case I've unwrapped both surfaces so that they do not share a UVW space and then animated a gradient ramp's offset so that it sweeps a white ramp across one surface then the other. This map is then put in the transform>scale map slot but would work equally well in the new Forest Back beta's Frame From Map option if you have pre-animated growth. Hopefully I've understood correctly what you are trying to achieve.

Many thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 02:52:35 PM

hi
this is not exactly what I'm trying to achieve...
pls see the simple scene attached - I'm trying to get forest object growing on the top plane

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: Paul Roberts on February 20, 2014, 03:28:16 PM

Hi,

Sorry I misunderstood. One solution would be to turn surfaces back on and then use an outlined spline to Exclude the trees you do not want. This does not have the limitation of only planting objects on the highest polygons.

(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/84e95609cb6e48cc90e5489ebfb21930.jpg)

Thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 03:35:41 PM

hm...
got it
is there any other solution? as I have not only single spline area...
that could be a problem attaching all splines into single object (and some of them not flat as were extracted from the surface edges)

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 20, 2014, 03:41:12 PM

actually this is not the first time I'm trying to use this method, but last time I gave up as surface and spline areas were huge

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: Paul Roberts on February 20, 2014, 08:55:49 PM

Hi,

I'm afraid that probably is the only way to do it. Include splines generate a single object on the highest surface. The easiest way would probably be to create multiple Forest objects, though this a bit less elegant.

Thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 21, 2014, 08:27:15 AM

yes, I see
maybe there could be a way to set surface priority - something like changing order through the list up/down (similar to area feature)
thx

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 24, 2014, 02:03:50 PM

guys
any solution or future option?
thx

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: iToo on February 24, 2014, 05:39:43 PM

In the latest beta items are placed in the highest surface, what should be logical choice. I'm afraid that adding a surface priority doesn't solve this specific case, because it's necessary to generate multiple items by spline (one by surface).

Title: Re: forest on different surface levels
Post by: in3des on February 25, 2014, 08:09:07 AM

thank you
"highest surface" is quite enough!  :)