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Author Topic: wishlist: Surface as base objects - Materials Management.  (Read 4913 times)

Mustafa

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wishlist: Surface as base objects - Materials Management.
« on: April 18, 2014, 10:28:10 PM »
I'm new learner of RailClone but I can see a great potential for such amazing plugin ..

here's my wishlist:

1. Using surface as base objects:
There are three plugins similar to what exactly I expect from railclone at the future ..
- simple plugin like: Populate panels http://populate3d.com/products/panels/
- para 3d http://torabiarchitect.com/parametric-array/
- grasshopper for rhino http://www.grasshopper3d.com/
In general I expect railcone will be able to scatter objects to polygonal faces (object for each face) or apply a pattern to nurbs surface or using uvw mapping for objects ..

2. Material Management for  objects:
I need to use multi objects with separate materials (not ids) at the same railclone object .. because I'm thinking to use railclone to distribute plants & cars .. etc .. and reassigning ids for each group is a  painful task specially when i deal with heavy geometries .. If that is not possible at the current time, Could you please refer me a script to make this process automatically?

Best Regards,
Mustafa
« Last Edit: April 20, 2014, 08:36:09 AM by Mustafa »

iToo

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Re: wishlist: Surface as base objects - Materials Management.
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2014, 09:15:45 AM »
Hi, thanks for your suggestions.

1) We have plans to support surfaces, but not in the way these plugins work (you can post links if you like). RailClone works in a very different way, offering features that are not available in other packages, but others are not possible. For example, there is not way to use Start, End or Evenly rules over a UV Surface, since these are not directions clearly defined.

2) In Max it's not possible to assign multiple materials to a single object. So, i'm afraid multi-subs are the only way. We are evaluating to use the same method of Forest (create a multi-sub material on the fly), but this adds one extra level of complexity to the plugin.

Have you considered to use Forest ? It's a pure scattering plugin, more suitable for this task. If not, you would use the classic method to create a multi-sub:

a) Attach all cars/trees in a single mesh. Use the default options, so Max creates the multi-sub.
b) Detach each element in separated objects.

Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

Mustafa

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Re: wishlist: Surface as base objects - Materials Management.
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2014, 08:43:42 AM »
Thanks for your replay ..

I posted the links of the plugins on my OP..

for the materials ids, I found the technique you posted to attach and detach is really helpful except when I deal with proxies .. unfortunately I can't figure a solution for that
I'm aware of forest and for sure it will do these task in much better way .. I'm considering to buy it soon.