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Author Topic: Many compliments!...and questions...  (Read 9854 times)

BT4215

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Many compliments!...and questions...
« on: May 08, 2010, 11:13:35 AM »
Yesterday I purchased your plugin and I can say it's a fantastic software!
I did few test.

Few questions:
I'm an Autograss user too but it's too slow for large 3d grass covered areas.
I would like to know if exist a tutorial to simulate grass fields like those generated with Autograss.

To cover a rectangular hightfield area with a circle spline i noticed that if the circle is bigger than the projected surface the trees has not a cutoff with the surface, the area is projected to level 0 and continues horizontally.

Does your plugin affect vray materials to create slight color variations?

Does wind work on vray proxies?

Is it possible to import vray animated proxies?

Could you add a paint feature?

Best regards
Gabriele

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2010, 12:09:34 PM »
Hi, welcome to the forum and thanks for purchasing !

Replying to your questions:

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I'm an Autograss user too but it's too slow for large 3d grass covered areas.
I would like to know if exist a tutorial to simulate grass fields like those generated with Autograss.

This post can be useful for you. It includes some tricks to create grass, besides a sample scene using VRay:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=275.msg919#msg919

We also have a windy grass tutorial in the Tutorials section at our website, but it's more aimed to the Scanline renderer.

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To cover a rectangular hightfield area with a circle spline i noticed that if the circle is bigger than the projected surface the trees has not a cutoff with the surface, the area is projected to level 0 and continues horizontally.

In the current version the scattering area is delimited by the spline, not by the surface. We are working to add new area options for the next release, fixing this issue.

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Does your plugin affect vray materials to create slight color variations?

Yes, you must use our "Forest Material 3" plugin, using VRayMtl as base:

http://www.itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=forest_mat

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Does wind work on vray proxies?

No, wind is not supported.

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Is it possible to import vray animated proxies?

Yes, Forest can use any object of the scene as source, including animated meshes or proxies. In fact, it's more efficient to use directly an animated object (as example, an Onyx tree) that exporting the animation to an external proxy file.

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Could you add a paint feature?

We are evaluating different options to paint trees on the scene (specially with the new features introduced in Max 2011). Meanwhile, remember that you can use other objects as reference to create items in Forest (see Tree Editor->Creation tools). This gives you advanced possibilities to create customized distributions.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BT4215

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2010, 04:42:10 PM »
excellent! beautiful tutorial!

is it possible to have a better interface to switch on and off FP layers?
For exambple I added 60 different types of flowers in a scene, there is no radio button to check on-off  but only "deactivate", there is no multiple selection from the list.
I would like to see a column that shows the ID assigned and an automatic selecting mode without enter the tree edit mode, I select the layer and all the trees of that layer are selected, now I have to select the geometry, check the id and then press "select"

You assing a different color for each geometry layer, but selecting the FP object you cant't check how the trees are populated, the FP object has a unique color, another method could be to assign different proxy geometry for each layer.

Like Vue8 would be nice to save ecosystems, a set of 3d max meshes and settings, for example would be nice to select 3ds max geometries not only in the scene but from the disk. Now I have to merge 60 different type of plants into the scene and use the forest pack plugin.
Using exernal file would be possible to save ecosystems with grass, trees, flowers, stones, etc., tons of objects with one single click.

Best regards

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2010, 05:30:52 PM »

Thanks for your suggestions for the interface. We'll see if we can improve it for next versions.

Quote
You assing a different color for each geometry layer, but selecting the FP object you cant't check how the trees are populated, the FP object has a unique color, another method could be to assign different proxy geometry for each layer.

What mode have you selected in Display->Viewport->Other ?
Selecting Pyramid/Boxes mode the plugin must show the items using their color IDs.

In the new plugin that we are developing (RailClone), we have improved the Library Browser with some interesting features. As example, it supports 3D objects embedded in the parent plugin, so you don't need to import the geometries in the scene. Our idea is to include these features in Forest as well.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BT4215

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2010, 03:42:41 PM »
another feature I would like to see in FPP is an automatic selection of nested splines.
For example if I want to fill a 2D text with flowers (or a shape with holes) I have to convert it in spline before, detach the internal parts then select the external spline to apply the plugin and finally the inside spline.

Best regards.

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2010, 04:10:14 PM »

This feature is already included in the current version that we are developing. As soon as we complete other features that we like to add, we'll release it as a new beta version.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BT4215

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2010, 03:11:19 PM »
fantastic!...many thanks!

the falloff will check inside and outside splines?

in the next release it wil be possible to scatter 2 o more trees (or shrubs) with a falloff or mix with heightfield terrain?...or distribute with a gradient map.

Example:
I have a modeled terrain, in the valley (0 to 10mt) i want a scatter of grass, from 10 to 100 meters a mix of 3 species of trees with a falloff, first specie very dense, the other two sparse.
The rule should be to scatter a mix of different trees using horizontal and vertical falloff or map, or fixed rules with values.

Best regards

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2010, 07:01:52 PM »

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the falloff will check inside and outside splines?

Yes. The inside areas of a include spline are considered as exclude splines, so you can use the exclude fallof parameter to adjust it.

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in the next release it wil be possible to scatter 2 o more trees (or shrubs) with a falloff or mix with heightfield terrain?...or distribute with a gradient map.

We'll look at it, i think it can be done.

Alternatively, using a height level map, you can overlap some Forest objects in the same surface, and use the map to define their density. Or perhaps a colored map would to work as well:

http://www.itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=forest_refdistmap2

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BT4215

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #8 on: May 19, 2010, 10:23:58 AM »
HELP!!!!!!

finally after many test I'm using FPP in a production but unfortunately I have a lot of vray proxies trees made of blocks!...

FFP doesn't instances blocks but only the first object picked...I'm desperate...:(

Best regards.

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2010, 12:41:35 PM »

Do you mean trees created as a group of proxies ?

Sorry, but that won't work. Forest can use meshes or proxies but only single objects, not groups or other hierarchies.

You must collapse the tree mesh in a single object. It's not needed to create a external proxy object, you can assign the mesh directly from the scene without any performance loss at render.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

BT4215

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2010, 07:19:57 PM »
yes,...ok.

is it impossible to implement this feature?

iToo

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Re: Many compliments!...and questions...
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2010, 07:24:27 PM »
Sorry, but this feature implies too many changes in the plugin's core.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software