Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: cc8boy on January 06, 2016, 07:56:39 PM

Title: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: cc8boy on January 06, 2016, 07:56:39 PM
hello iToosoft,
 :'(

If some area of the surface become darker and the dencity of the trees of this area will be lower. And if some area of the surface become brighter and the dencity of the trees of this area  will be higher.
I hope I can animate the dencity of the trees in some area by animating greyscale of the texture map of the surface. How can I manage to do this ?

In other words, I want the dencity of some trees in some area of the surface to be animatable during the animation. I hope I can control the dencity (such as in % format) in some aera (not the whole surface ) dynamiclly by texturemap or something else.

Best wishes and happy new year.
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: Michal Karmazín on January 07, 2016, 10:52:59 AM
Hi,

Both of mentioned ways (or even its combination) are possible.

1) You can animate individually any Areas - Distribution Map - Scale (Threshold) value(s). Attaching screenshot showing this work-flow applied to two Spline Areas.

2) Kind of that effect can be archived also by animating Distribution Map(s) / combining multiple maps (like any procedural map & Noise under a Mix / Composite map) as described in this "Density by texture (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=2525.msg9569#msg9569)" post.

Hope you'll find it useful. Happy New Year to you too.

Best regards,
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: cc8boy on January 07, 2016, 11:51:15 AM
In my project , I want to control the dencity accurately by a grayscale texture badly. Because my customer give me the raw material is a grayscale map.

I do not very understand this trick "For this purposes you can adjust your map to match the desired effect. Attaching screenshots showing two Gradient Ramp maps with different Noise values combined inside of a Composite map (or Mix map). This way you can tweak your Distribution Map final look."

Because I do not use a Gradient Ramp or noise map. It is just a ready-made grayscale bitmap(JPG file).  My goal is very simple. I hope I should get 50% of the max dencity accurately in where is 50% Grey .
I hope I should get 75% of the max dencity accurately in where is 75% Grey .

Any simple method to achieve this without using spline ? Would you please make a very simple sample scene with only a checker map on a plane with 50% or 75% grey to control the dencity or forest ? Much thanks.

(MAX2012 FP4.41 VR2.4)
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: Michal Karmazín on January 07, 2016, 01:29:01 PM
Hi,

I'm afraid that any of actual Forest Pack features doesn't work automatically in this way. We've added it to the wish list and we'll evaluate it for future release(s).

Actually, for the Distribution Map the Threshold value (by default set to 50) is used to evaluate if the item will be placed or not.

There is a workaround by using multiple Areas (covering the same space - in this case whole Surface Area) with different Scale & Threshold values applied over the same Override Distribution Map (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FORESTPACK/Areas#Areas-CommonProperties) (can be a Bitmap as in this case). To avoid overlapping items the Collisions (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FORESTPACK/Distribution+Map+-+Diversity#DistributionMap-Diversity-Collisions) feature is enabled.

Please find attached sample scene showing this work-flow. Hope you'll find it useful.

Best regards,
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: cc8boy on January 07, 2016, 07:30:25 PM
I'm very glad you reply me quickly. But this maybe a very complex method in my animation (the level of grayscale in many areas will be changing during animation) , because there would be lots of areas that I had to keyframe. If my customer want to change the map(the global grayscale map), the quantity of work will be a nightmare.
My original idea is I hope I can control the dencity of the trees on the whole surface just by animating one grayscale bitmap (Such as one sequence of files exported by After effects. )

AND I came up with a idea. It might be a good workaround. But I do not know if this can be done in 3DSMAX.
1. In photoshop, if I turn my grayscale map into "dot chart" bitmap I would use this "dot chart" picture as distribution map in forest pro.(Please see my attachments.)
2. But how can I turn my grayscale map into "dot chart" bitmap in material editor  dynamiclly during animation in 3DSMAX 2012 ?

Can you give me some suggestion ?
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: Michal Karmazín on January 08, 2016, 10:45:58 AM
Hi,

Not sure which approach will work best with your grey-scale bitmap, but in case of sample "iToo_distribution_map" bitmap a Composite map using a Cellular map in a Hard Mix blending mode seems to do the trick. It gives you several options under its Cell Characteristics & Thresholds to adjust the final look.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Title: Re: to control the dencity of the trees by one greyscale map in SURFACE ?
Post by: cc8boy on January 08, 2016, 09:27:54 PM
Thank you very much. This maybe what I want for now. I will try this trick. I hope the dencity will be controlled by the grayscale level directly (Multiscatter can do this directly) in the future release.  Thank you very much again.