RyanSpaulding Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Hey guys, How does Maxwell take to XFrog trees? I ask because I've been spending time in VRay lately and there is a lot of discussio about VRay's problems with opacity mapping. Does Maxwell have a similar issue? Or does XFrog work pretty well? What about handling a large number of trees in Studio? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F J Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 (...) What about handling a large number of trees in Studio? sup Ryan, think u might have missed this 1: cgarchitect.com/news/newsfeed.asp?nid=3375 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 I don't know about XFrog but with Onyx trees you have to convert them to a mesh before you bring them into Maxwell because Maxwell of course doesn’t support the plugin. You also have to create your own Maxwell tree material which isn’t that hard. The biggest problem is that these trees are all geometry and are very large; I'd say you couldn’t put more than 20 of them in a scene before your computer chokes. I like using planes with JPEG's mapped onto them, it's much quicker to render and far less expensive in the memory department. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skogskalle Posted November 15, 2006 Share Posted November 15, 2006 I dont think vray has any problems with opacity anymore... Ive used xfrogtrees with opacitymapped leaves many times and they have never caused any troubles... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanSpaulding Posted November 20, 2006 Author Share Posted November 20, 2006 I don't know about XFrog but with Onyx trees you have to convert them to a mesh before you bring them into Maxwell because Maxwell of course doesn’t support the plugin. You also have to create your own Maxwell tree material which isn’t that hard. The biggest problem is that these trees are all geometry and are very large; I'd say you couldn’t put more than 20 of them in a scene before your computer chokes. I like using planes with JPEG's mapped onto them, it's much quicker to render and far less expensive in the memory department. So do you use a criss crossing technique or just try and have them face the camera? And if you use criss crossing, do you leave shadowing on for all? The thing I don't like about using planes is in highly forested areas is you lose the volume for the shadowing. If you plane 20 planes with trees mapped to them, it eems you lose the volume of your shadowing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 I usually just have one plane that is facing the camera, but you’re right you do loose some volume using this method. There are also some situations where this technique works better than others especially if you’re are staying close to the ground and moving parallel to the planes. It's not a great solution but until Maxwell supports RPC's or someone comes up with a good looking low poly tree this is the only way you can do a large forest of trees without killing your computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F J Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 so no go for GroundWiz Planter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Unless you can take the object and convert it to an editable mesh that can exist without the plugin being present you won't be able to use it. Maxwell doesn’t support ANY plugins at this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F J Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 ehh maxWELL huh? should be maxAWFUL! teehee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanSpaulding Posted November 20, 2006 Author Share Posted November 20, 2006 Is there an option in Maxwell to have an ovject/texture always face the camera? Or sill this have to be done inside Studio to match the shot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 There's no option for this in the 3D Studio Max plug-in, there might be one in Studio but I avoid Studio like the plague so I don't know for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanSpaulding Posted November 20, 2006 Author Share Posted November 20, 2006 I'm so torn on workflow... 1st off, we use MicroStation to model and they're developing a MStoMaxwell exporter which is REALLY nice. It converts our materials, geometry imports well, keeps our lighting settings, our saved views become cameras...so that's nice. BUT, I have a huge amount of 3ds files that I can import into Vue/3dstudio/other apps, but not MicroStation. Thus, I cant place my plants/3d people/autos in MicroStation to their right spots. Studio is a bear to work in and it doesn't seem to save 3DS textures when I open a 3ds in there. I'm thinking I may have to go to 3DStudio anyways and do a DWG link from Studio to Maxwell...not sure yet. If I can figure out a stable way to place trees and stuff, that's the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fac311 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 trees are over rated i say we start a movement against trees stupid trees and kangaroos shady kangaroos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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