Groundwiz animation problem

[Craig Ramsay]

I'm having a problem using Groundwiz in an animation that I am working on in 3DS Max.

 

I have a animation path set up in which the camera moves in and out of trees that have been planted in the scene using Groundwiz Planter. The problem that I am having is this - When the camera moves past a tree in my scene and the tree is out of shot, the shadow of the tree should still be visible... What is actually happening in my scene is when the tree is out of view of the camera, the shadow of the tree disappears too even though it should still be in shot. It seems like Groundwiz is turning off any trees that are not in view of the camera. Does anyone know how I stop this from happening?

[Craig Ramsay]

For anyone that's interested, here's the reply that I got from support... guess I should have read the manual properly -

 

Hello,

 

There is a render setting that should help with your problem. GroundWiz Planter will remove trees that are not visible but sometimes like in your case that may happen prematurely. To keep plants visible for longer you should increase 'Expand Clip Planes' value, found on Planter's render settings panel. Do not increase this value too much - probably twice the size of your biggest tree should be enough - too big number will send more work to the renderer and Max will consume more memory.

 

See GroundWiz help file for more detailed explanation of this feature, topic is : GroundWiz Planter / Reference Guide / Render Settings / Expand Clip Planes.

[ihabkal]

what a smart solution to save resources...

I am liking Groundwiz more and more

[jkletzien]

thanks Craig....good to know.