Itoo Software Forum
Other boards => General - Off Topic => Topic started by: ldotchops on February 14, 2022, 11:57:24 AM
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Hi,
I am interested in buying forest pack if it can do this specific thing. I notice it has some good animation tools where you can offset the animation. but i don't know if it can offset texture animation too? for example, i have a blend texture that reveals a light material underneath, will it also offfset the gradient that reveals it?
Thanks
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Hi,
Thanks for the question. I'm afraid at present that Forest Pack's animation offset tools affect only the geometry. Animated maps remain synced to the timeline. There might be other ways to do it though, for example, by animating the UVWs of an object to move the gradient. The attached file shows this process (and should work with Forest Pack Lite)
(https://i.imgur.com/1XRVojy.png)
I hope that helps,
Paul
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Thank you for this. So would it be possible to drive the timing of forest pack with a second gradient? Perhaps radially outwards and have the blend animation start from that gradient?
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I was testing this but when using the from map option on a friends computer, it seems to offset them in the viewport but not in the render. is forest pack fully compatable with redshift?
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Hi,
Apologies, I didn't realise you are using Redshift. I'm afraid these features aren't supported for that renderer at present. Redshift is one of several renderers over which we don't have direct control of Forest Pack support. Instead, we provide an API that the renderer developers can use to add support for our plugins. You can see a list of the features supported by each renderer in our documentation. https://docs.itoosoft.com/forestpack/requirements
Best,
Paul
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the randomize and animate seem to be the only feature not supported by vray GPU lol. that's a shame.
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I'm afraid that's the case. Unlike V-Ray CPU, V-Ray GPU doesn't have an SDK so we are dependent on Chaos adding support for Forest rather than the other way around. At this point, animation support hasn't been added.
Cheers,
Paul
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Is there some way of using forest pack to scatter the objects and then convert them into instances that retain the animation? or do you know of any workaround that can produce animation?
Thanks!
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or does arnald gpu have support for the effect i am looking for?
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Arnold GPU does indeed support Forest Pack's animation modes, Though you may find other limitations such as limited support for Max's native maps.
Another option ... really all that's happening internally is that Forest Pack is creating several versions of the object with different starting points and scattering those. You could recreate that manually for any renderer. For example, if you were to stick with Redshift, you could save out your animation to a proxy and then duplicate that proxy several times but for each one set a different start frame and then scatter those. That should give you a similar effect as using Forest's animation features.
I once wrote a proxy cloner Maxscript to automate creating those proxies. It was designed to work with V-Ray, but I've attached it in case you fancied adapting it for another renderer.
Best,
Paul
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thank you for this. one final question, if i use all of Arnalds native maps is forest pack fully copatable with it's GPU version. i don't see the section for Arnald GPU on the supported features page.
Cheers!
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Hi Paul,
I an testing with forest pack lite in max 2022. i am having real trouble understanding thee animation tools. i am following this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNpAYywwL1k
Is the from map option getting the map position from the distibution object? because in your example you have it on a rectangle with no UV coordinates. I need this animation sweep out radially very slowly, which starts up the animation and the gradient animation and then continues the animation. is somthing like this possible? if you can show me this i will buy it immedietly. i'm sorry i just find these gradient controls confusing.
I had an idea to use the Vray distance texture as a blend mode instead of the gradient on each object. but the ditance tex only works on the distribution object, not the scattered objects. is there a way it can recognise the scttered objects too?
Thanks
L
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Although it is possible to use maps without a surface using alternate mapping modes like Planar from world/object XYZ, it's far more predictable to use a surface instead. The lite version doesn't support surfaces, but in the Pro version this would be my approach.
V-Ray distance texture should be fine but you may find you need to centre the FP object to the world origin for it to work correctly. This won't affect the actual position of the scatters because they'll always follow the areas.
Cheers,
Paul