Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: MU3245 on January 28, 2017, 05:39:37 PM

Title: Questions form new user
Post by: MU3245 on January 28, 2017, 05:39:37 PM
I've watched a number of the tutorials and read form the user docs. Still questioning how I'm using FP and so seeking advice from more experienced users.

I have attached a screen shot. Using 3DS Max 2016 with Vray.

I have a terrain that is the"base surface" for pretty much everything. It started as a survey file of elevated topo lines. I did normalize spline on it and then created compound object/terrain. Cut holes out for house and drive with pro boolean.

I created a (FP preset) forest meadow grass across the terrain/surface. I selected step stones, drive, terrace as exclude objects. I used exclude paint brush and painted out exclude areas for forest lawn and forest mulch. I created forest lawn and used the terrain as the surface and chose the previously created forest meadow as an exclude forest object. Also selected step stones, drive, terrace as exclude objects. I then created a forest mulch and used the terrain as the surface and chose the previously created forest meadow and forest lawn as an exclude forest objects. Again selected step stones, drive, terrace as exclude objects.

You can see the forest mulch highlighted in yellow in the attached screen shot. It has little bits of mulch scattered across the terrain outside of where I want it to be contained in the few flower beds. If I highlighted the forest lawn you would see the same thing. I tried the boundary options of point, size and edge. edge gives best result. The problem seems to be that the forest meadow has very small voids in it that the mulch and lawn fill.

My questions - Is my work flow/strategy in setting up these forest areas a good choice? Do I need to make the forest meadow more dense so it leaves absolutely no terrain uncovered to avoid this?

Also attached is are screen shots of almost completed project. Question - Is it typical to assign some sort of texture or etc to the surface for the forest meadow? The surface shows thru a bit esp at edges of drive and other boundary edges. Again, it seems I need to make the forest meadow sort of unusually dense to fill this minor little voids.

sorry for the long post. i hope it's understandable. Thanks in advance for any help or guidance
Title: Re: Questions form new user
Post by: Michal KarmazĂ­n on January 30, 2017, 10:06:26 AM
Hi,

To avoid the appearance of these unwanted items, where the Forest object used as excluding area isn't covering the Area completely you can raise the scale under Areas - Properties - Scale (attaching screen-shots showing how this affects the final distribution).

Usually, a slightly different work-flow is recommendable - turn off the Surface Area and add Spline Area(s) / Paint Area(s) in the Include mode, but both approaches are possible.

The Edge Boundary Checking mode would be recommendable - removing elements within one item that are "based out of area used for distribution" - having any "overhanging faces" under one element, these will be fully removed or not, depending if the element is based inside/outside of the distribution area.

If any gaps appear, a recommendable way to fix these areas would be to adjust Distribution Map settings - Density or Offset X / Y values. That should fix it (as shown on attached screen-shots).

Hope that helps.

Best regadrs,
Title: Re: Questions form new user
Post by: MU3245 on January 30, 2017, 04:39:56 PM
Michal,

That is all very helpful. Thank you!