Itoo Software Forum
RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: iToo on November 20, 2013, 10:36:07 AM
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In order to explain the main features of RailClone in a simple and accessible way, we are releasing a series of short Tips & Tricks tutorials. In the first episode “Creating a Wooden Floor”, we show you how to create 3 different models of wooden floor.
These tutorials are made by request, so if you have an issue you want to be featured, please post here your ideas. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes.
Thanks,
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Thanks for last tutorials, it is very useful!
Some suggestions from me:
first is tutorial how to make bookcase like shown here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soFa0VYAEO8 or like this, mixing horizontal and vertical books
(http://i.imgur.com/1g0IlLQ.jpg)
Second is little bit similar but difference is random count of objects in depth and these "goods" are sorted by groups, something like this
(http://i.imgur.com/wGMwKQC.jpg)
Regards,
Sergey
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Great idea Carlos and much appricated for us time poor artists.
Couple of suggestions
-Roof tiles
-Frameless curtain walls with spider joints
-Windows and doors
-Louves
-Wall tiles - similar to foor boards I guess but can you make them in a vertical plane
I also second the idea of scattering books and general objects on shelves.
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Great idea Carlos and much appricated for us time poor artists.
Couple of suggestions
-Roof tiles
-Frameless curtain walls with spider joints
-Windows and doors
-Louves
-Wall tiles - similar to foor boards I guess but can you make them in a vertical plane
I also second the idea of scattering books and general objects on shelves.
I would like to second all of KS1708's list 8)
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Great so far.
Railclone should be perfect for creating ceiling tiles. Ive attempted to do my own, but struggled with getting the spacing correct.
See attached photo. I wasnt able to have rc put a ceiling light every 3 or 4 tiles in each direction. I could only get 'bands' of lights.
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Nice one, would be very useful!
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Great so far.
Railclone should be perfect for creating ceiling tiles. Ive attempted to do my own, but struggled with getting the spacing correct.
See attached photo. I wasnt able to have rc put a ceiling light every 3 or 4 tiles in each direction. I could only get 'bands' of lights.
This is a render ?? of so - you fooled me - it looks like a real photo (please twell me this is not a CG !)
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Great so far.
Railclone should be perfect for creating ceiling tiles. Ive attempted to do my own, but struggled with getting the spacing correct.
See attached photo. I wasnt able to have rc put a ceiling light every 3 or 4 tiles in each direction. I could only get 'bands' of lights.
This is a render ?? of so - you fooled me - it looks like a real photo (please twell me this is not a CG !)
looks like a photo and OP said so, too. "See attached photo."
+1 for ACT like Armstrong and similar dropped ceilings as libraries 8)...
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hah yes its a photo for reference. Not the render!
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Thanks for all the suggestions - added to our wishlist. Keep them coming :)
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Fantastic! Thanks Paul
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Thanks for all the suggestions - added to our wishlist. Keep them coming :)
Here is one I use on at least 50% of jobs...(attached)
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Thanks! The Ceiling tutorial is already recorded but it was based on an Armstrong tegular ceiling. It may not have been that exact one but it should certainly help you to recreate it :)
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Thanks! The Ceiling tutorial is already recorded but it was based on an Armstrong tegular ceiling. It may not have been that exact one but it should certainly help you to recreate it :)
That's great, too! Also spec the tegular from time to time...I look forward to the tutorial so very much!
Thanks again.
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Definitely a roof tiling system would be awesome. With the proper ridge tiles/wet verges etc :)
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A tutorial for creating a stair with landings and railing for an oil tank would be great. (I've been trying to do this but I never got it exactly right)
(http://wilbertblom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/OilTank.jpg)
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Thanks for the interesting suggestions.
I've added them to our wish lists. Keep them coming!
Cheers,
Paul.
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It would be great to have an Alucobond Facade Cladding Preset!
http://www.stylepark.com/en/3a-composites/alucobond-silbermetallic-500 (http://www.stylepark.com/en/3a-composites/alucobond-silbermetallic-500)
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I really would like an tutorial specifically targeted at the Arithmetic Expression Operator. This seems to be very powerful, and since the user bought this plugin for its parametric modelling abilities, mastering this part of the plugin probably can enhance the parametric possibilities of Railclone significantly.
But first, the help-box inside the editor needs to be way more helpful. Now it’s really too basic to get an idea what an variable does. For example, the “XSplineCoords” This is used by the bridge tutorial to size the pillars to the ground. The help about this variable is: “Position over X Spline on local coordinates (vector)”
But how did I supposed to know that XSplineCoords.z gives me just the Z - value? It would really help if this help box gives some basic examples and a list of optional parameters we can use.
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Scaffolding, so it can be drawn using horizontal and vertical spline. Set distance between decks. diagonal bars are created over a set distance. Monoflex too, the occasional logo.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4477507/itoosoft/Scaffold.jpg)
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Traffic. Not sure if its possible with RailClone for Forest. It doesn't have to move.
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Traffic. Not sure if its possible with RailClone for Forest. It doesn't have to move.
There is a recent thread about this kind of application. You can find it here (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=2807.0).
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Is there a possibility to add a UVW map modifier inside the Railclone object?
To avoid things like this?
(http://i62.tinypic.com/beaph3.jpg)
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Is there a possibility to add a UVW map modifier inside the Railclone object?
It already exists, as Segment->Mapping (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/RAILCLONE10/Segments#Segments-mappingMapping). Unlike standard mapping, it generates a seamlessy tiled along the RailClone object.
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I suggest adding a little button to select the participating spline in the Railclone object, instead of selecting it manually in the viewport.
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I suggest adding a little button to select the participating spline in the Railclone object, instead of selecting it manually in the viewport.
You can use rightclick and use top left quad while RC is selected to select spline
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Will there be a tutorial for the Window example from the Railclone 2.4 feature tour video? Would be awesome!
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I think that could be arranged ;)
Thanks,
Paul
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I think that could be arranged ;)
Thanks,
Paul
YEEEEEHAAAAAW
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Is there a possibility add to Export the Reverse, Flip A and Flip B parameters? for the Linear 1S item?
That could be great to faster set up some of my stuff :)
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Hi!
You should find that these parameters are available in the export menu of the most recent stable version of RailClone.
(http://i.imgur.com/OY7OyCh.png)
Many thanks,
Paul
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Hi!
You should find that these parameters are available in the export menu of the most recent stable version of RailClone.
(http://i.imgur.com/OY7OyCh.png)
Many thanks,
Paul
I should have installed the latest version before bringing this up. Apparently I'm using 2.3.4 :-X
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Hi everyone ! I found some nice idea which will be great to create with railclone.
But i don't know if railclone could succeed this challenge (fig 2 and 3).
Fig 1 is for say you can controll each corner. Like you set a segment into the railclone object for the first corner, the second corner is an other segment, the third an other again... That's will be a good tutorial for the conditionnal operator (if i do not make a mistake). And for create unique buildings (in opposite to symmetric buildings).
Fig 2 and 3, it's like create a limit on the clipping aera, when the railclone object reach this limit, some segments are translated on a specific axis.
Sorry for my english, i wait your answers :P
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Hi Bruno,
thanks for the suggestions, those are interesting example and I think they should be possible with RailClone. I'll look into it as a possible future tut.
Many thanks,
Paul
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Hey guys, I would definitely like to see a tips and tricks tutorial on windows and doors. I noticed in the features video you showed us a window that was made up of multiple arrays. I would like to see that style in more detail and start adapting and creating my own styles like it.
Thanks!
Brendan
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Hi Brendan,
Thanks for the suggestion. We've had a few requests for this now so it's going on our to-do list. That style is actually available in our "Getting Started with RailClone" guide in Chapter 11 (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/RAILCLONE/11+-+How+to+overlap+and+transform+geometry). Just scroll down to the generator padding section and you'll a link to download. The chapter only discusses generator padding but you may find the style useful to reverse engineer while we prepare new tutorials.
You may also find this post (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=2709.msg10307#msg10307)on the forum useful as it discusses a similar case.
Many thanks!
Paul
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Hey,
I don't know if it was ever brought up and sorry if repeating. I suggest that additional global scaling options could be great.
Now we have only Global Scale option in Geometry dropout. Sometimes I don't need to scale proportionally and I don't mind if it will be stretched a little.
If I want it to be done now, I must open Style Editor and customize each segment separately which is a pain for many known reasons.
So if there were separate Global X Scale / Global Y Scale / Global Z Scale options in the Geometry dropout I could have done this in seconds.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/2ynf85t.jpg)
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Hi Itoo,
Would be great to be able to DL and see the files/scenes used in the examples on this page.
http://www.itoosoft.com/tutorials/tutorial_rc_24_feature.php#n1 (http://www.itoosoft.com/tutorials/tutorial_rc_24_feature.php#n1)
Is it possible?
Thanks!
TL1895
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Hi!
Most of those scene files have made their way into the Getting Started With RailClone (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/RAILCLONE/1+-+Introduction) guide and the Next Steps with RailClone (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/RAILCLONE/1+-+Introduction+to+Next+Steps+with+RailClone)guide. The download links are in the introduction chapter to each guide. If there's something else that isn't in the guide, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Many thanks!
Paul
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Thank you for pointing that out!
TL1895
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one more vote for roof tiling
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Thanks for the suggestion. Lots of requests for this so roof tiling is top of our priorities list for the next update.
Thanks!
Paul
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Thank You!
Great plugin by the way.
Keep up your great work :)
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a seed parameter for the randomization could be nice, instead of manual input of numbers.
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a seed parameter for the randomization could be nice, instead of manual input of numbers.
+1 for this! Good one!
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a seed parameter for the randomization could be nice, instead of manual input of numbers.
+1 for this! Good one!
Hi, it can be done replacing Randomize by a Selector node, and attaching the index to a Random number generator. In the folllowing way:
Then, you can export Seed to a Parameter, if needed.
(http://i.imgur.com/Mn7blYs.jpg?1)
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Well,
my experiance untill now shows, that producing styles that are useful for other useres, as we need them in our company libary, leads sometimes to very many exported parameters, to control what we need...
so the list of parameters to change gets sometimes a bit to long and to unorganised, and theres no way to organise it in a more handy and meaningful way... maybe a dropdownlist, seperators, grouping of parameters with a headline something like this... could be nice... :)
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Thanks for the suggestions. We've added them to our wish-list for review. I sometimes add an unused Numeric node named with a line of dashes to a style to act as a separator, but we'll look into other options.
Many thanks!
Paul
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Great tutorial on the windows. It got me thinking - is there a way to adjust the vertical spline in a 2D array to use the material ID of the segment like you do in the drop kerb tutorial. It would be great to build a 2D array for the first floor of building (call that material ID1), then a separate 2D array for the podium floors (ID2), then a 3rd 2D array for the upper stories of a building (ID3). Assuming the same footprint for all of them I guess). But to be able to drive it all with a single vertical spline might be kind of cool. So if you need to remove a floor from the podium level, you just slide the vertex down some.
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Is there any way to scale the windows displaying the different parameters ?
Is that conceivable ? Or is it due to 3dsmax standards ?
Thanks a lot :)
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Thanks for last tutorials, it is very useful!
Second is little bit similar but difference is random count of objects in depth and these "goods" are sorted by groups, something like this
(http://i.imgur.com/wGMwKQC.jpg)
Regards,
Sergey
+1 on this please!
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While we do have several asking for a roof tiling tutorial already. I would a little more specific. I recently had someone ask me, how to apply roof tiles (slate) to a curved roof plane Now I have seen examples of flat roof planes, and even conical roof sections..but this one was curved inwards and the lower edge was a smaller curve to the top edge... Try as I might, I just couldn't solve that one, is seemed to me that it required 3 splines, not 2, one for bottom edge, one for top edge and one for the slope.. So yes a comprehensive roof tiling tutorial covering several style of roof flat, concave and covex, would be incredibly useful.. I imagine it would be a lot of work, but I also imagine many very appreciative users out there, if this type of tutorial was produced... Have only had Railclone since mid December last year and haven't as yet had a great deal of time to practice with it.. although it has come in very useful on a few projects, roofing is one of the big problems with architectural visualisation, that Railclone could really make a lot easier.
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Thanks for the suggestion. We'll certainly be producing a roofing tutorial soon, but we're waiting for the release of RailClone 3 which has several improvements that will make roofing even easier. On the other hand, I'm interested in the type of roof you describe. I'd like to see if it can be solved with RC, so I wondered if you had any images of similar roofs or even a simplified scene you could share? If so. please feel free to email me paul@itoosoft.com.
Thanks!
Paul
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Hi Paul
Apologies for the very late reply.. I've been so incredibly busy, which is great, but also meant that I have not visited the forum for some time. Anyway, I have emailed the scene as it was sent to me. It is basically just the roof planes, originally modelled in AutoCAD, which I imported into Max and then saved as a max file, I also included the image, that was initially produce, using a basic render and photoshop, which obviously wasn't as realistic, as my friend wanted it to be. He had attempted to model the tiles individually.. but never had the time ad try as I might, I could not solve it either.. My only suggestions were to model them individually, which would take forever or to use textures and perhaps displacement, which was not exactly ideal. but would be easier.
Anyway as I say, despite my very late reply, I have emailed the very basic Max scene and the very simple render of how the building itself was to look, for you to play with... I will be very interested to see if you can solve it and an explanation as to how and even more interesting is the new tiles library I noticed mentioned... I look forward to seeing what you come up with on this tricky roofing problem
Many thanks for your prompt reply and once again my apologies for my very late response.
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Thanks for last tutorials, it is very useful!
Second is little bit similar but difference is random count of objects in depth and these "goods" are sorted by groups, something like this
(http://i.imgur.com/wGMwKQC.jpg)
Regards,
Sergey
+1 on this please!
+2!
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Hi !
I have a suggestion, but not for a tutorial.
It would be great if there was a Discord group for Forest Pack and Railclone users. It could help a lot artists to exchange between them, I think.
Best regards,
Cyril
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Hi,
Thanks for the idea. we've created a Discord server here for our users: https://discord.gg/m9WXQym
Please note that we can't provide official support on Discord, for that purpose users will have to use our Forum and Email. But if you want to use it to talk and start a community with other artists who use our software - go for it!
We'll publicise it more widely with a couple of other social options soon.
Cheers!
Paul
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Hi !
I have a suggestion, but not for a tutorial.
It would be great if there was a Discord group for Forest Pack and Railclone users. It could help a lot artists to exchange between them, I think.
Best regards,
Cyril
You do realise what Discord actually means don't you.
Discord
"disagreement between people"
"lack of concord or harmony between persons or things"
strife, conflict, contention, dissension, a state or condition marked by a lack of agreement or harmony. discord implies an intrinsic or essential lack of harmony producing quarreling, factiousness, or antagonism.
Is this really the kind of group you want to be associated with????
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Is this really the kind of group you want to be associated with????
Yeah !
:P **laugh in professor chaos voice**
Thanks btw for the creation of the group !
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Tutorial Request
Hi Itoo
Can you guys create a Video tutorial explaining in depth how to use Expression the values etc because they are very hard to understand cant wrap my head around them
thanks in Advance
Mouton
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Feature - Segments Align
Aligning (left, right, top, bottom) elements inside Style Editor.
I know that adding multiple segments deploy them in an array and we can keep it using Note but in further adjustments, it is often difficult to keep simple order inside RC schemes. If such feature already exists, please let me know where can I find it.
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Thanks for the suggestion, it's added to our wishlist.
All the best,
Paul
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Some time ago now, I mentioned creating curved roofing using Railclone. I wonder if it will ever be possible, maybe Railclone 4 will find the way.
While flat plane roofing, with skylights / dormers, is easy enough, it would be really fantastic to be able to tile a curved surface.
Examples of the kind of thing that would be a fantastic addition, would be.
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Some time ago now, I mentioned creating curved roofing using Railclone. I wonder if it will ever be possible, maybe Railclone 4 will find the way.
While flat plane roofing, with skylights / dormers, is easy enough, it would be really fantastic to be able to tile a curved surface.
Examples of the kind of thing that would be a fantastic addition, would be.
All 3 examples You pasted in is already possible with RailClone Pro.
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Well that's news to me, having discussed this some time ago and having sent in an example of a curved roof, so that they could see if it was possible, I never heard anything back and have yet to see any examples of Railclone doing curved roof surfaces, as yet. Perhaps I have missed something, maybe I need to search and see if I can find examples of someone actually doing this sort of roofing. Great to know it is possible, but would love to know exactly how i is achieved..
Thanks Rokas
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Hi - wondering, could we ever get interactive font / number text? if I'm adjusting a spline, could it give me a length and change on the fly along with my rail-clone geometry? Could rail clone ever grow to not just be parametric models but more of a grasshopper from Rhino? So many things I want to do but not sure if I could do them currently (not to say i can't use it, I use it all the time!).
thanks,
A
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A very practical trick, which it would be interesting to correct: when by mistake you use the mouse cursor to start changing a size value instead of entering a value on the keyboard... railclone systematically freezes max. (amplified by the number of polygons in a module...)
It would be interesting to stop the action by doing ESC on the keyboard....
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A very practical trick, which it would be interesting to correct: when by mistake you use the mouse cursor to start changing a size value instead of entering a value on the keyboard... railclone systematically freezes max. (amplified by the number of polygons in a module...)
It would be interesting to stop the action by doing ESC on the keyboard....
Some max operations are stoppable, but some are not. We will investigate the possibility.
Thanks for suggestion.
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A very practical trick, which it would be interesting to correct: when by mistake you use the mouse cursor to start changing a size value instead of entering a value on the keyboard... railclone systematically freezes max. (amplified by the number of polygons in a module...)
It would be interesting to stop the action by doing ESC on the keyboard....
Some max operations are stoppable, but some are not. We will investigate the possibility.
Thanks for suggestion.
Personally I never use the mouse to change values, it's just too messy. Particularly messy when extraordinarily large numbers of objects can suddenly be generated, slowing down Max and it's response time, even leading to max freezing or worse crashing out.
If the spinners were more like a rotary dial, with fine a course settings, sure they would be much nicer to use, but as they are, they are far too course and prone to jumping to extremes, so I'll stick to entering numbers / values from the keyboard..
Yes you can adjust them, just as you can for zooming in/out, using the mouse wheel, but while I love Max and wouldn't change to another platform, for all the money in the world, it has a clunkiness to it, that some find ways around and others get frustrated over.
Took me many years to get used to it's sometimes antiquated behaviour, but I refuse to give up on it, it's like an very old friend, who I know almost as well as myself. Sure they'll screw up once and a while, but that's life and you just move on.
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Hello dear Itoo geniuses,
Would greatly appreciate tutorials/tips on the different macros shipped with RC...maybe one Ten Second Tip per macro?
Thanks!
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Hi Terri,
Thanks for the suggestion. We've released a few macro tutorials, but You'll be glad to know that more complete coverage is on our to-do list! We're just waiting to push out some updates to the macros before we get underway.
Cheers,
Paul.
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Is there a way to make the segment to appear in the Base Objects list?
I have these templates that I made and I use them to quickly distribute geometry along a spline. Sometimes its benches, street lights, trash cans etc, and I use markers to specify their locations on the spline.
There is no significance which geometry are being distributed. All I do is drop the template from the library, open Style Editor, pick the geometry I want from the scene and violla.
The thing is - its time consuming to open Style Editor every time to swap the geometry to something else.
And I don't want to make a complicated RC object and swap them with a selector - many of them I won't be using for other projects.
So is there a possibility for a special type of Segment Object that will be intended for swapping directly from the Base Objects list? Like a shortcut.
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Is there a way to make the segment to appear in the Base Objects list?
So is there a possibility for a special type of Segment Object that will be intended for swapping directly from the Base Objects list? Like a shortcut.
There is no such option as of now, but thanks for Your suggestion. Registered.
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Hi team - are there any plans to update the RC preset library? Some items in there are outdated and it would be refreshing to have some new content
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Hi team - are there any plans to update the RC preset library? Some items in there are outdated and it would be refreshing to have some new content
If you had seen the first every live Q&A video back in May of 2020, you would have heard them discussing new libraries for Railcone, nothing was definite of course, but I can't imagine them releasing the new version, without releasing some new presets for it, if only to demonstrate the new features, whatever they might be. If you have not seen it, I can highly recommend it and I do hope they will be doing more of them in the future, even better when things are a little less restricted, due to the current situation
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Could the Style Editor have a maximize button? Suitable for multiple monitors. Thanks
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Thanks for the suggestion - added to the to-do list.
Best,
Paul
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Could the Style Editor have a maximize button? Suitable for multiple monitors. Thanks
Can't wait to see the tips&tricks tutorial for this
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Could the Style Editor have a maximize button? Suitable for multiple monitors. Thanks
Can't wait to see the tips&tricks tutorial for this
It'll be a 3 hour epic.
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How about that for service? :)
(https://i.imgur.com/RHJkHxr.png)
It'll be available in the next beta release.
Thanks again for the suggestion,
Paul
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It's not animated, I don't understand :-)
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Could the Style Editor have a maximize button? Suitable for multiple monitors. Thanks
Can't wait to see the tips&tricks tutorial for this
It'll be a 3 hour epic.
It's a shame that you just don't have the time to dedicate to producing a tutorial once a week for both Railclone and Forest Pack Pro.. Have learnt a lot from the many you have produced over the years. Have watched them all, some several times, but as you can imagine, especially with Railclone, there is still so much a person can learn.. What makes it even more difficult is the current situation, which seems to go up and down recently.. One thing I would love to see is a really long series, taking a user from basics all the way through every feature of the plugins, based around a single project, perhaps one for Railclone and another for Forest pack, but again thinking of the immense amount of time that would take, sadly I doubt there will ever be such a series.. Anyway, can't wait to see this 3 hour epic, any ideas of when it might be released hahaha.. Keep the great work, I have found both plugins immensely useful in my every day work and finally to all the folks at iToo Software, a very Merry Christmas and maybe, just maybe a very Happy New year.
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Thanks for the kind words, we're glad you find the tutorials helpful. We have plans for several new tutorials including longer series as you mention. More info soon!
Paul
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Procedural Buildings A2S generator with a closed spline (Clipping area), not separately X and Y splines
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Procedural Buildings A2S generator with a closed spline (Clipping area), not separately X and Y splines
Hi, you might find this tutorial handy which contains both options: separate x and y spline, or footprint spline and height parameter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5vjdy4ZG0&t=634s
I hope that helps,
Paul
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another suggestion would be to add a switch into the rail-clone lister for "switching auto update"
I realized even if the rail-clone object ist disabled, editing the source segments in max, feel sluggish when they are connected to an auto-updating rail-clone object.
Not sure if that is just in the recent rail-clone version, or was behaving like that before.
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another suggestion would be to add a switch into the rail-clone lister for "switching auto update"
I realized even if the rail-clone object ist disabled, editing the source segments in max, feel sluggish when they are connected to an auto-updating rail-clone object.
Not sure if that is just in the recent rail-clone version, or was behaving like that before.
I suggest to use Display->Proxy Cache->Embedded, which is more efficient.
It saves the state of the RC object with the scene, and it's not necessary to rebuild it anymore, except if you want to make some change.
It can be changed easily from the Lister (latest column).