Zen garden issues from Ask iToo! | Forest Pack and RailClone Q&A | 24 August, 22

[chrisc0le]

Hi All

I'm following Pauls zen garden tutorial. The parametric approach suits my project as the geometry may change.
The problem is, Paul never discusses how he got gravel on the surface. It looks like it might be a texture with displacement itself. But i'm unable to replicate.
I've also tried using forest pack & while I can get the raked lines in the centre to work, the edge or boulder splines refuse to play ball.

Does the garden object require specific uvs or can a simple uv map be added? Will forest pack work with vraydistancetex? (if not this is a non starter).
If he used a displaced texture how was this set up?

In the screenshot you can see the gravel is folowing the displacement in the centre, but when it hits the outer displacement it breaks.
Also the distancetexmap is not showing the white areas on the slate preview (as Pauls did). Could this be the issue?

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi Chris,

Paul is on holiday at the moment, but I believe this is done purely with material. However, if you decide to use ForestPack to scatter items on the displaced surface, it’s possible. Just keep in mind that you should use the 'Follow Displaced Surface' bundled effect for this purpose. I hope this helps.

Best regards,

[chrisc0le]

Hi Michal

There must be a limitation in the FX expressions. The mix map & or the vraydistancetex is not compatible with it then.
The gradient ramp works fine. But once you try to add in the distance tex layer it falls apart when using FP to scatter gravel.

Using materials I'm really struggling to get the gravel to look good. It seems only a bump map is possible, applying a second vraydisplacementmod (for the gravel) breaks the displacement of the raked lines (undearneath it in the mod stack)

[Michal Karmazín]

Please double-check the position of the Forest object - it should be centered at the origin of 3ds max's world coordinates. I hope that helps.

Best regards,

[chrisc0le]

Yep, makes zero difference. The vraydistancetex is not supported by the looks of things.

Using only the vraydistancetex in the vraydisplacementmod adds the raked bumps on the surface, but when using that map in the FP 'Follow Displace Surface (Vray)' it does nothing. The gravel remains flat & passes underneath the surface bumps. Looks like a plain old bitmap is required or mixing the gravel material displace with the raked displacement & using as a simple material are the only options.

[Michal Karmazín]

In such a case, feel free to send us your scene, and we'll take a look at it. Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

[chrisc0le]

Just sent it.