Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: iCreateLtd on January 26, 2017, 10:17:14 AM

Title: Scene Size
Post by: iCreateLtd on January 26, 2017, 10:17:14 AM
Hi. 

Merge, not Xref is selected by default. 

I have a scene that's got a lot of FP in.  The scene is now just over 2gb's. 

Is using Xref's recommended if the user thinks a lot of FP is going to be needed? 

What are the downsides to using Xrefs, not merge?

Is there a way to switch a current FP in the scene so that it uses Xrefs and removes the merged assets?

Now a couple of things I've been meaning to ask for ages:

I have a FP with some trees in.  I then need to make a separate FP but want to use one or more trees that have already been brought/merged in.  Does FP look at the scene and reuse the tree that's already brought in or does it bring in a new one?  If it brings in a new one, is there a way to avoid it doing this?

In the the Scene Explorer, there are  quite a few items with names like '_forest_library_745ZBJY'.  If one of these is a tree, and this is a tree I want to use in another FP (but don't want to bring in again), is there a way I can add this item to my geometry list?

If I'm on the right track with this being how FP works, is there a way to determine what tree model _forest_library_745ZBJY belongs to?

Many thanks,

Sean
Title: Re: Scene Size
Post by: Michal KarmazĂ­n on January 26, 2017, 04:43:58 PM
Hi Sean,

Quote
"What are the downsides to using Xrefs, not merge?"

There are no many downsides, but for example as mentioned in this "Set to X-ref to library - presets problem (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=2963.msg11369#msg11369)" post regarding bundled presets: "... we decided to disable XRef for all presets. But there is a good reason for that: in this way we can modify these presets on Forest updates (i.e. optimize them, update materials, etc), while keeping the compatibility with existing scenes. If not, a same scene would look different depending of the Forest version used. Anyway you can enable the XRef option easily, editing the index.xml (in the library folder) and setting xref="1" in the first line (it is set to 0 by default). Instead modifying the default libraries, i suggest you create a copy in the User's Libraries branch and edit it. If not, all changes will be overwritten by the Forest updates."
Quote
"Is there a way to switch a current FP in the scene so that it uses Xrefs and removes the merged assets?"
As mentioned in following "Switch out mesh plants in scene to ForestPack proxy objects (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=4087.msg15922#msg15922)" post, there's a handy tool, which helps you with this task - Convert Selected Objects to XRefs ... tool (under References - XRef Objects).
Quote
"... is there a way to determine what tree model forest_library_745ZBJY belongs to?"
Well, as mentioned in the "Feature Suggestion: Keep object name for the imported mesh (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=4211.0)" thread (in case of XRef objects, you'll see the "linked source object" easily, in case of merging it, it's not so easy):

"... objects are renamed in this way to avoid duplicated names. We cannot guarantee that objects are unique, specially for third party libraries."

Best regards,