Hi,
great question,
I tried using tutorial workflow on 60m by 60m plane and I got performance issue too. Could not render.
You are right, clipping borders is not possible with ForestPack,.
Keep in mind that
clipping borders with RailClone breaks segments instances- if You have only one object and create RailClone surface, clipped segments (RED) will need to allocate its own RAM portion.
Illustration:
It`s no big deal if we have box geometry but if segment is 25MB peace of foliage clipping it adds up in RAM quickly and slows down rendering a lot.
I could not create scene with segments slicing option enabled- my PC could not handle this object.
There is alternative method to clip geometry- both ForestPack and RailClone. It is render-time booleans.
This method is memory efficient- segments are kept as instances.
Demo concept scene can be found
hereWhat I ended up doing is creating 5 same size segments with grass variation and concrete tile:
For easy all segment equal padding values I added distanced grass blaces:
And used RailClone style from Your mentioned tutorial.
Result:
P.S.
General tip:
Don`t convert geometry to proxy, but xref it.
Doing so You get benefits of exporting Megabytes of data out of Your scene, but retain ability to use features as ForestPack "Edge mode" boundary checking, "ForestPack Color" and "RailClone Color" maps for color variation.