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Author Topic: Can I use the Railclone Pro with point cloud display mode in Forest Pro Pack ?  (Read 1892 times)

cc8boy

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I have an important question about using Railclone Pro and Forest Pro Pack.
I was making a road with Railclone Pro. There were many leaves on the road. The leaves were scattered by Forest Pro Pack. In my scene, The Railclone objects were used as the surface objects in Forest objects frequently.
Can I keep the Railclone objects in point cloud display mode before the final render without any problem ?
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Michal Karmazín

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Hi,

When a RailClone object is used as the Surface Area in any Forest object, the Display - Viewport Display mode should be set to Mesh and under Display - Render the option Use Geometry Shader should be disabled (or Use Instancing Engine in case, you are using the beta version).

Forest Pack needs to read the mesh data information before rendering phase to evaluate the distribution. You can see on attached screenshots how the Viewport Display settings affects the Forest Pack distribution (Mesh, Boxes, Points-Cloud).

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cc8boy

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Much thanks for the answer. I am sorry, I have not much time to test render.
Do you mean if I turn the display mode of the Railclone objects which are used as surface area of the forest object to Point Cloud mode , the Forest on the Railclone object won't appear in the final render?
I don't care the forest will show up in viewport or not. But I must make sure the forest will appear in the final render without flickering.
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Michal Karmazín

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Hi,

You're welcome. Yes, you're right, having the RailClone object in Points-Cloud mode will affect the distribution of the Forest object (no item will be placed) and this Forest object will not render.

To render all objects properly in this scene set-up (RailClone object(s) being used as the Surface Area in any Forest object(s)), please use settings mentioned before (Mesh with Use Geometry Shader / Use Instancing Engine disabled).

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TL1895

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IMO, it would be good if FPP would automate that setting if it detects you've chosen an RC object as surface.  Is that possible or easy to do, lol?
Ty

edit:  Or even just a warning dialog, similar to the one that pops up regarding Forest hiding items from viewport, or the camera->limit visibility one...
« Last Edit: December 27, 2014, 04:28:49 PM by TL1895 »

iToo

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IMO, it would be good if FPP would automate that setting if it detects you've chosen an RC object as surface.  Is that possible or easy to do, lol?

I'm afraid it's not so easy. Forest requires a valid mesh as surface, because it needs to compute many values as hitting points, normal vectors, etc.

But in most of cases RailClone doesn't generate a complete mesh, but a collection of render instances (similar to proxies). These elements have not a "real" geometry which Forest may query.
Futhermore, in V-Ray the segments that are not instances (bended pieces, sliced, etc.) are built at render time and only if needed, when the raytracer hits their bucket.

For these reasons it would be very complex to use RailClone as surface without forcing it to build a mesh, as described in previous posts.
Carlos Quintero
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TL1895

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Hi Carlos,  Thanks for your detailed answer :)
Best regards