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Author Topic: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?  (Read 3994 times)

cc8boy

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Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« on: July 04, 2014, 08:45:57 AM »
I tried use Xmesh loader object as forest custom object. How to randomize the start frames of the animation of the xmesh objects?
When I use point cloud display mode in Xmesh loader objects all the forest custom objects disappeared. Any walkaround? Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader? ???
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Michal Karmazín

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2014, 10:07:33 AM »
Hi,

Actually we don't have access to XMesh MX software, but we contacted with Thinkbox Software regarding possible support in Forest Pack. We'll keep you posted. Thanks for your comprehension.

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Michal Karmazín

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2014, 01:54:31 PM »
Hi,

From Thinkbox software they kindly provide us a license of XMesh MX software, so we were able to do some testing with it.

The randomization of animation frames is working without any troubles. You have various options how to archive it under Animation tab in Forest Pack. Please check simple Random Samples setting on attached screenshot (this way you can set Time Offset and total Count of samples). More about Animation tab settings you can find here.

Regarding the viewport issue: First I should mention, that XMeshLoader viewport settings doesn't affect the render process of Forest object and for all viewport modes it's rendering as supposed. Also use of Mesh or Faces display modes inside of XMeshLoader works fine together with Forest Pack and we can recommend it. You can for example simplify the object by lowering Percent values for Faces mode in XMeshLoader in combination of Point-cloud mode in Forest Pack. Attaching screenshots with Mesh display modes and of the above mentioned combination (Faces + Point-cloud).

In case of using Verts display mode you should use Proxy viewport mode in Forest Pack as actually Forest Pack is not displaying vertexes. We´ll see what we can do this case.

Hope this helps you.

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cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2014, 12:15:02 PM »
Which version of xmesh do you use ? I got nothing appear in the forest when I use an animated growth tree which created by speedtree and cached by xmesh V1.0.1.46339(changing topology during animation).
But I can normally get the forest when I use a simple animated box (not changing topology during animation) which cached by xmesh V1.0.1.46339. I can't upload the scene here because of the huge file size.
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Michal Karmazín

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2014, 01:21:39 PM »
Hi,

We did some testing with version 1.3.0.55681. Please find attached a simple example of cached growing vegetation. It works fine with viewport set to use meshes - please double check used settings for XMeshLoader / Forest Pack. Hope it helps you.

Kind regards,
« Last Edit: August 11, 2014, 01:23:40 PM by Michal Karmazín »

cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2014, 06:21:52 PM »
Have you tried some "heavy" Animated Growth model such as a big tree with lots of polygons in Xmesh? I find I use a simple Xmesh animated growth trees (less than 10000 polygons) in Forest pro pack. It's normal in display and render.
But when I load the 300 frames xmesh with heavy polygon count (over 1000000), the trees never appear in forest pro pack in the viewport(all display mode). I try to render the forest objects. There’re some trees in the forest objects in the render. But I find the position of each tree changes in some frames !
By the way , can you try Xmesh v1.1.3, please? I only have this latest version.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2014, 06:26:00 PM by cc8boy »
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cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2014, 06:40:59 PM »
I tried to take a snapshot of my xmesh which had over 1000000 polygon. Load the snapshot mesh into the forest pro object. The tree appeared! But I tried to load the xmesh again, the tree disappeard. The Forest animation mode is “Follow Geometry”.
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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2014, 01:49:04 PM »
Hi,

We did some additional tests with animated high polycount geometry (2M) and it works fine, but we have found an unwanted behaviour for the case when the first frame of the animation doesn't contain any geometry. This way Forest can't generate properly the information needed for viewport modes.

We used the 1.3.0 version as this one Thinkbox Software kindly provided us, but I should mention, that's not specific problem for XMesh as it can be reproduced with any animation that starts from "empty" frame.

As workaround for preview purposes please try to adjust the Limit to Custom Range for your XMeshLoader object. Attaching screenshot with 2M growing vegetation, with the animation range edited which fixed the viewport modes issue.

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cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2014, 10:08:23 PM »
Thank for your reply. I tried to keep the first frame of Xmesh not “empty”. It may fix the empty forest problem. But I must do more test to make sure this is causing the problem.
But I got another problem now.
I tried to preview the growing forest in point cloud mode. The point cloud was too sparse even I turned the Global density and Local Density to 100%.
I also tried to preview the forest in Proxy Box mode. The Boxes in the forest is too tiny.
I tried to preview the forest in mesh mode too. But that was too lag and some strange problem happened. The MAX crashed frequently in mesh mode.
How can I preview the scene with growing forest now?

now in MAX2012 64bit / forest pro pack 4.2.4 / vray 2.4.0 / win7 64bit
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Michal Karmazín

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2014, 11:31:31 AM »
Hi,

For preview purposes we recommend you to adjust the Limit to Custom Range for your XMeshLoader object (from 300 to 300). Using just the last frame will solve the issue.

Hope this helps you.

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cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2014, 04:50:46 PM »
I'm going to make an animation about diffuse growth of the trees (Some grow first, some grow later, some grow one after another). If all the trees are same size (such as from 300 to 300). I can't preview the animation at all. I want to preview the growth animation of the trees in boundingbox mode. That's ok for me. Any workaround?
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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2014, 05:11:50 PM »
Hi,

To preview the animation please use the Points-Cloud mode. If needed limits can be pushed over 100% - (for example Global Density 1000% - Local Density 100%). Just please note, that first frame of the animation needs to contain geometry - in your case it should work fine when Limit to Custom Range for your XMeshLoader is set to 5 - 300.

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cc8boy

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2014, 07:41:13 PM »
It works. I'll try more.
Many thanks for your answers.

Xmesh is very good in MAX. I think it's even better than Vrayproxy. I hope the Forest Pro Pack will improve the support for Xmesh.
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iToo

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2014, 08:41:37 AM »
Unfortunately there is not much we can do. We think the problem is that Forest requests to XMesh animation samples at frames different of the current time. Probably because the compression techniques used by XMesh, this behaviour is not supported and it generates geometry glitches (bad scaled faces and so).

Anyway, we'll contact with ThinkBox about this issue.
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

MN3180

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Re: Will Forest pro pack support Xmesh loader?
« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2014, 12:17:53 PM »
Hi,

Just to add to this discussion, I have just been experiencing odd behaviour with an animated crowd or Xmesh people. They would randomly massively scale. I am now switching to Vray proxy but it would be nice to see Xmesh supported.

Dan