Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: BT4215 on July 23, 2012, 10:50:51 AM

Title: questions and ideas
Post by: BT4215 on July 23, 2012, 10:50:51 AM
Hi,

I would like to know why is not possible to change forest clipping planes when I set the Tree edit mode.
Then...
doesn't exist a near clipping plane but the far only.
Exists the density curve but I prefer a near clipping plane that hide the trees that I don't want to see near the camera.

States:
every time I have to adjust parameters for every camera. I want that every camera hold its own Forest Pack parameters, for example fall-off, fov, density, etc.
I understand the presets but they are different things.

Billboard shadows:
I use massively billboard people.
Forest Pack rocks when using this feature but lacks the most important feature: shadows facing the sun (light)

When I have a bunch of billboards them face the camera, but if the sun has parallel rays with the billboard we will get zero shadows.
Forest pack should use the same bill board figure and orient it facing the selected sun (light). This billboard should not be visible to the camera but emits shadows. The billboard item should not receive its shadows.

Groups-Assembly support:
I already request this feature one-two years ago
If I build a lamp (street lamp for example) and this light needs to be orient differently I have to use the Max Spacing tool because it supports groups.
I don't understand why I can't use Forest Pack Pro to distribute my lamps along a road.
I donno if Rail-Clone tool supports groups.

Regards
Title: Re: questions and ideas
Post by: iToo on July 23, 2012, 04:53:59 PM
Hi,

Quote
I would like to know why is not possible to change forest clipping planes when I set the Tree edit mode.
The camera clipping works in Custom Edit mode, but it is temporary disabled when editing trees, to allow modifying the hidden items. If not, the user could not see all the existing trees, which is not intuitive.

Quote
doesn't exist a near clipping plane but the far only.
Exists the density curve but I prefer a near clipping plane that hide the trees that I don't want to see near the camera.
Far clipping plane usually is used to limit the density on large areas. Near clipping plane has not sense in this case, this is the reason we don't included it.

Quote
every time I have to adjust parameters for every camera. I want that every camera hold its own Forest Pack parameters, for example fall-off, fov, density, etc.
Unfortunately would be very difficult to store local parameters for each one of the cameras. For this purpose, we added "Use Environment Range". It lets to use the camera's environment range as falloff values.

I think also is possible to use the new state sets of Max 2013 to get the behaviour that you need, although i have not checked it.

Quote
When I have a bunch of billboards them face the camera, but if the sun has parallel rays with the billboard we will get zero shadows.
Forest pack should use the same bill board figure and orient it facing the selected sun (light).
This functionality already exists in Forest. You must assign the main light to Shadows->Raytrace->Light, and use Forest Material in the billboards.

The following tutorial describes the different shadow modes available in Forest: http://www.itoosoft.com/forestpack/tutorials/tutorial_shadows.php (http://www.itoosoft.com/forestpack/tutorials/tutorial_shadows.php)

Quote
I don't understand why I can't use Forest Pack Pro to distribute my lamps along a road.
I donno if Rail-Clone tool supports groups.
Basically because a group would contain non-geometric objects (as lights), and unfortunately Max doesn't allow to instanciate them in the same way that geometry.

Title: Re: questions and ideas
Post by: BT4215 on July 30, 2012, 03:28:39 PM
oops! i din't know about the fake shadows tool!

very interesting.

About near camera clipping I think that this feature would be useful because sometime the client of mine says me: I want people from here to here and I can't do that because every time I have to change the spline contour.

I will try with states.

Any plan to add crowd feature to Forest Pack?
I would like to create loop-able animated people that walk on streets but they have to not cross to each other.
I saw a demo of a new Autodesk plugin but I think that this feature can be added to Forest Pack.
I donno if the Autodesk plugin will work with stairs, ramps and curved paths.

Regards
Title: Re: questions and ideas
Post by: iToo on July 30, 2012, 04:05:24 PM
You would simulate a near clipping plane using an exclude spline, linked with the camera.

We have no plans to include crowd features. It's a very sepecialized feature, and there are specific Max tools for that, as project Gepetto.