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Author Topic: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR  (Read 5979 times)

BE4139

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iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« on: April 12, 2017, 02:59:37 PM »
Hey guys,
everytime I start VRAY IPR (Interactive) Mode my Forest objects disappear. They do render but are no longer visible in my viewport, so I can't move them around. Is this normal behavior? Or have I missed some settings?

System: iToo Forest 5.3 + Vray 3.50.04 + 3ds max 2017

Regards
Olaf
Olaf
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iToo

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2017, 04:34:10 PM »
Hi, yes this is the normal behaviour actually.

V-Ray IPR uses a mixed mode between viewport and render, which is not supported by Forest. Our plugin generates a different set of items for each mode, and only one of them can exist at time.
Unfortunately there is not a simple solution to fix that, but is in the wishlist for next versions.

By the way, same problem happens with Corona Interactive.
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BE4139

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2017, 04:59:02 PM »
OK. Thanks for your answer.
Olaf
dimension3plus.de

TQ2827

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2017, 08:35:47 PM »
Any update on this? Can you at least replace the forest pro objects in viewport with pyramids or boxes? Not knowing the name of many different forest objects makes it difficult to select and update interactively. Thanks

iToo

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2017, 05:42:14 PM »
We have plans to solve this limitation in Forest 6, which is actually in development.
I tried a quick fix for the current Forest, but it caused undesired side effects, and was discarded.

The problem is not to display point-cloud or boxes, but that the scattered items are completely different. You may have 20k items on viewport and 1 million on render, so we must generate and keep a different set of items for each mode.
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

TQ2827

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2017, 07:44:10 PM »
Thanks for working on this. If anything, could you please keep the viewport display on even if it doesn't represent the total geometry? Just so we can easily select and generally set up camera angles while rendering interactivity? Thanks again for your support!

DRuivo

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2018, 12:58:03 PM »
Hi Carlos, not sure about the status of this issue, but it would be awesome to be able to hand tweak the forestpack items while in IPR Rendering - is this ever going to come to life?
I'd really appreciate it, we're about to hire 2 landscape artists and we'd definitely get more licenses if this would be possible.

Thanks for the feedback, looking forward to hear from you,
DR

FC1888

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2018, 12:59:20 AM »
Just a few things I thought I would say...

1) Anyone noticed that depending on the complexity of the scene. Forest Pack objects can vanish, when doing a normal render, not just using IPR.

2) When using IPR, do you realise that al those point cloud FP objects, represent the full blown meshes, which are then only fully realised at render time. This explains, at least to me, why they would be vanishing, on hitting render and more so when using IPR, it's basically a memory thing. As iToo mentions... In the viewport, you have a certain number of items being displayed and in most cases, this is nowhere near the amount, that will be rendered, so that would mean, holding two versions of the Forest Objects in memory. The viewport version and the one being rendered. My guess is you would need a huge amount of memory, far above what the majority of average users have, in order to hold both, without causing problems.

3) As I understand it and correct me if I am wrong, Forest Pack was designed to help users scatter millions of objects around their scenes, but by representing them as point clouds / primitives, viewport interactions is kept at a usable speed. The ability however to render those objects in FULL, does mean you need to have a decent amount of memory on board. Al this stuff about being able to generate millions of trees, covering the ground in grass and wild flowers, rocks, etc.. and being able to render those scenes, is not strictly true. In the end it all depends on how complex your scene is and the amount of resources you have to render the scene, once it is ready.... someone with 16GB may have Max crash on a fairly simple scene, due to the face that while they are working on it, it may well handle the countless FP objects, but when it finally comes to rendering, they may not have enough memory to do so. Even with the 32Gb I have myself, I have had some scenes, which just would not render and have had to rework them in order to save memory.

Now add the ability, to not just render millions of items, but to also be able to interact with them, while you are rendering the scene, perhaps you will understand what it is you are asking and why, while it sounds like a very useful feature, I have a feeling it would just cause more problems than it would solve.

Sure if iToo can find a way to make it possible, I would be all for it. Only today I wanted to do a custom edit for a FP scatter, while using IPR, but as the popup dialog, it is not (YET) possible

I am not saying it cannot be made possible, I just think that it's going to be a tricky one and I don't know why, but as I said earlier, I see it causing more problems than it solves.. This is just me thinking out loud and I could be totally wrong. We can only wait and see.

iToo

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2018, 10:35:00 AM »
Just a few things I thought I would say...
[...]
Now add the ability, to not just render millions of items, but to also be able to interact with them, while you are rendering the scene, perhaps you will understand what it is you are asking and why, while it sounds like a very useful feature, I have a feeling it would just cause more problems than it would solve.

Hi, all your assumptions are correct.

In FP6 we introduced a "double" distribution mode, which generates separated items for viewport and render. But there are some limitations, not only with the number of items.

I'm afraid some features will remain disabled (as the Library Browser or edit items). Both V-Ray and Forest includes many tweaks to make possible the interactive rendering, but Max was not designed for it.
The more tweaks we include, the system become more unstable. It's not a question of dedicate more time to it, but to find the equilibrium between functionality and stability.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

amitgedia

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Re: iToo Forest disappears when starting VRAY IPR
« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2018, 12:49:35 PM »
Hi,
I didnt wanted to start a new thread but want to add in this one itself that today when i was doing IPR and tried to hide the FPP objects via Forest lister 3dsmax crashes
i m using 3dsmax 2017 vray next 4.02.04 and FPP 6.1.1
any ideas about it
(my scene is a bit heavy about 1.3GB so can that be a problem)
Thanks
Amit