Onyx

[RyanSpaulding]

Now this may be an easy one, but is there any good way to select say...just the leaves in an ONYX model that comes through as one object?

 

Right now, I end up importing the model (it's one object named 'OnyxTree0'), selecting everything, then deselecting each branch and trunk, set a UV map and creating a material for the leaves and applying it. Then, manually going through and selecting each horizontal branch one by one, setting the UV there, apply material, then finally the trunk. That can be quite tedious to rotate such a heavy model and deselect each branch.

 

Is there a better way? Like a 'select by color' option or something? Cause even tho it's 1 object, the branches come through grey and leaves green.

 

Never saved an object in max so i hope after I do this, I can save out each tree and have them ready to import and render.

[Ernest Burden III]

Onyx is supposed to save a structured model--branches, leaves, twigs, attitude. I've only brought the models into C4D, but they are separated properly. Try another format, like obj. You shouldn't have to address those things as you described. Also--how about posting this in the plant/tree forum instead of vray. Its not a vray issue.

[RyanSpaulding]

Also--how about posting this in the plant/tree forum instead of vray. Its not a vray issue.

 

Dar. I forgot about that forum. My bad.

 

I'll try another format perhaps. Thanks.

 

mod: Close/move thread

[BrianKitts]

my first suggestion would be to make your life easier and get the treestorm plugin..... but if you are working without it.....

 

export your models as a .3ds file. When it comes in to max you should have one single object with a multi/subobject applied to it split up into the trunk, boughs, branches, leaves, etc..

 

but also it will have material ID's assigned to it, so after you select the object, go in to the modify panel and in your mesh selections use the polygon selection and you can do a select by ID which will grab all of the element that you are after.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

....and including the software you are importing the file into. if it is 3dsmax, i highly recommend purchasing the TreeStorm plug-in. it allows Max to read Onyx Tree format without exportng out of Onyx Tree. then you can simply turn off and on geometry elements as needed just like you would in Onyx. also, it auto generates UV mapping and such.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

....as brian said.

[Devin Johnston]

I've got a question that is kind of related to this, has anyone noticed a significant difference in render times between trees that are completely geometric as opposed to those that are made of geometry and opacity mapped images? I've been using Onyx trees for a while and they work quite well and render quickly, I just got a new library of Dosch trees that are half geometry with opacity mapped leaves. The Onyx trees seem to render significantly faster than the Dosch trees do and the only reason I can think of is the Dosch trees are causing Vray to have to deal with a lot of opacity.

[manta]

I've got a question that is kind of related to this, has anyone noticed a significant difference in render times between trees that are completely geometric as opposed to those that are made of geometry and opacity mapped images? I've been using Onyx trees for a while and they work quite well and render quickly, I just got a new library of Dosch trees that are half geometry with opacity mapped leaves. The Onyx trees seem to render significantly faster than the Dosch trees do and the only reason I can think of is the Dosch trees are causing Vray to have to deal with a lot of opacity.

 

You got it, vray would rather deal with geometry than opacity...

[Devin Johnston]

Is there a way to speed up something that has opacity in it?

[Tommy L]

Re you converting your trees to vray mesh and proxying them into the scene? I only realised just how awesome proxy is on the scene I am doing now (hundreds of chairs and high poly cars for an exhibition, planting goes in next).

Also, you could make your trees not generate GI, this helps. Or you could render them in a seperate pass. Also, you can lower the number of opacities that vray 'sees through'. This is in the Globals part of the render panel. But make sure you set the opacity over-ride to a reasonable colour, or you may get black patches.

But if its a still, I would just suck it up and go for the long render time, stick it on the farm and wait.

[RyanSpaulding]

my first suggestion would be to make your life easier and get the treestorm plugin..... but if you are working without it.....

 

export your models as a .3ds file. When it comes in to max you should have one single object with a multi/subobject applied to it split up into the trunk, boughs, branches, leaves, etc..

 

but also it will have material ID's assigned to it, so after you select the object, go in to the modify panel and in your mesh selections use the polygon selection and you can do a select by ID which will grab all of the element that you are after.

 

Well, I'm not too keen on shelling out another $500 on the plugin, thats the only prob so I'll have to wait on that part.

 

Basically, I'm really confused on the workflow to get this working in VRay here. I ultimately want the tree to be one object, with a sub/multi object material, than can be used as a VRay proxy.

 

Where I'm at is I can get the model into max, however, sometimes, it comes in segments. How do I 'merge' multiple objects into one object? I tried selecting all and converting it to a VRayMesh, and it output a file, but I cant find where to load a VRayMesh, nor did my object change into one that I can see.

 

It is my understanding that you want to get the model textured and mapped, convert it to a VRayMesh, and Proxy that for use in scenes.

[BrianKitts]

How do I 'merge' multiple objects into one object? I tried selecting all and converting it to a VRayMesh, and it output a file......

 

It is my understanding that you want to get the model textured and mapped, convert it to a VRayMesh, and Proxy that for use in scenes.

 

Continuing on from where I left you before in the mesh edit of your object, use the ATTACH option to combine your two objects. Then you will be left with one object like you want. When you do the attach it will ask you how you want to handle your materials, have it assign material ID's to the new object, it will combine everything and leave you with one new object and one new material and all the ID's assigned respectively. Then all you have to do is export your mesh as a vrayProxy and you've got it.

 

 

 

I've got a question that is kind of related to this, has anyone noticed a significant difference in render times between trees that are completely geometric as opposed to those that are made of geometry and opacity mapped images? I've been using Onyx trees for a while and they work quite well and render quickly, I just got a new library of Dosch trees that are half geometry with opacity mapped leaves. The Onyx trees seem to render significantly faster than the Dosch trees do and the only reason I can think of is the Dosch trees are causing Vray to have to deal with a lot of opacity.

 

I saw a suggestion once (i think on chaosgroup's forum) that when you are dealing with a large amount of opacity, such as the foliage on an onyx tree..... to go into your opacity map and turn the filtering to "off" to speed up your renders. This comment was directed at ONYX leaves, but give it a shot for a dosch tree....maybe it will help out there as well in the way that vray handles the opacity map. I've always heard the vray doesn't always like opacity maps, and this should be a bit of a helper.

[CRD]

The Onyx trees seem to render significantly faster than the Dosch trees do and the only reason I can think of is the Dosch trees are causing Vray to have to deal with a lot of opacity.

 

Here's Vlado's answer to a similar question about geometry vs opacity:

 

It is slow for the following reason. Imagine a ray from the camera hitting the opacity-mapped object. If the object is fully transparent, the ray continues forward, if it is fully opaque, bounced rays are traced for GI, shadows etc. However, if the surface is semi-transparent, the raytracer must still compute the bounced GI, shadows etc, AND then trace the ray onward. Now, some of the spawned rays for GI will also hit a semi-transparent part of the object. Again, this will generate more GI rays, and also further transparent rays and it goes on... each time a GI ray hits a semi-transparent surface, it must be split in two rays. This causes a tremendous amount of rays in the end.

 

Further on, the situation is made worse by the fact that V-Ray can find out what is the transparency at a surface point only after the material has been evaluated at that point. This means that even on perfectly transparent portions of the surface, which do not contribute in any way to the final result, V-Ray must still collect a lot of information (normals, texture mapping coordinates etc) and pass it to the material only to find out that there is nothing to do for this point.

 

Of course, this is a naive description and V-Ray tries to reduce the amount of unnecessary calculations, but still there is a lot more work to do compared to tracing actual geometry.

 

Best regards,

Vlado

[gfa2]

Is there a way to speed up something that has opacity in it?

 

You can turn bitmap filtering off for that map. That can actually speed up renderings with opacity maps.

[Devin Johnston]

Thanks guy's I'll give it a try and let you know what happens.

[RyanSpaulding]

Continuing on from where I left you before in the mesh edit of your object, use the ATTACH option to combine your two objects. Then you will be left with one object like you want. When you do the attach it will ask you how you want to handle your materials, have it assign material ID's to the new object, it will combine everything and leave you with one new object and one new material and all the ID's assigned respectively. Then all you have to do is export your mesh as a vrayProxy and you've got it.

 

Thanks a ton for that. I found this as well:

 

http://www.evermotion.org/index.php?unfold_exclusive=154&unfold=exclusive

[RyanSpaulding]

Ok, any idea why my proxies when loaded into my new scene are...pink? They seem to have lost all material info. =\

[F J]

Ok, any idea why my proxies when loaded into my new scene are...pink? They seem to have lost all material info. =\

 

try adding a check on the 'automatically create proxies' option..

[jkletzien]

you must reassign materials to proxies if you bring them in straight. So...The best way to handle them is bring the proxies back into a clean Max file, assign the materials there and then save it so you can merge it in later on.

 

Otherwise you're stuck assigning the materials every time.

[F J]

you must reassign materials to proxies if you bring them in straight. So...The best way to handle them is bring the proxies back into a clean Max file, assign the materials there and then save it so you can merge it in later on.

 

Otherwise you're stuck assigning the materials every time.

 

i noticed that merging it doesnt update the material editor with the respective materials of that particular object..

is there a way to have the material editor updated like that?

or r we confined to using Xref or somethin'?

[Tommy L]

I always merge the collapsed and materialled mesh from another max file then create the proxy in my scene file, automatically create the proxy and it works great.