Forest Pack Question on Large Areas

[shauncarollo]

Working on a scene with a large city park on an island. I am doing an animation with encompasses the whole mile long, by half mile wide isle from an aerial view.

 

I'm running into problems with Forest Pack. How do you guys texture a huge area with grass? I can't seem to find any help on the forums, or elsewhere with what settings to use. Do you normally just break it up into smaller, manageable patches?

[Corey Beaulieu]

You should just texture your source objects and let the Forest Pack do its thing. If you want it to have clumps or patches then you play wit hthe distribution maps and switch Random to Cluster.

[shauncarollo]

You should just texture your source objects and let the Forest Pack do its thing. If you want it to have clumps or patches then you play wit hthe distribution maps and switch Random to Cluster.

 

You mean assign the grass library material to the isle as a whole correct? Because that's what I did, but it gives me errors with how many items are displayed. I guess I'm looking for what setting to tweak in FP. I've changed the density,the threshold, as well as the display parameters as far as render time goes and no luck. I guess my question is, what am I doing wrong to where I can't cover a 2 square mile area with grass? I would have thought it would automatically put in the low poly stuff, but I still am getting errors.

[Corey Beaulieu]

Are you using a built in object to FP or one of your own?

 

I would make one of your own. Make a rather large cluster so that FP doesn't have to repeat so many objects. then cross you fingers.

 

2 square miles is a big area. I would usually set a falloff in the density so that is populates fewer and fewer objects as the grass gets farther from the camera and place a similar map on the terrain below.

[shauncarollo]

Are you using a built in object to FP or one of your own?

 

I would make one of your own. Make a rather large cluster so that FP doesn't have to repeat so many objects. then cross you fingers.

 

2 square miles is a big area. I would usually set a falloff in the density so that is populates fewer and fewer objects as the grass gets farther from the camera and place a similar map on the terrain below.

 

I was using a built in with the hopes that they were optimized the best, but I will go ahead and build my own. Thanks Corey.

[jasonstewart]

You need to read that error it tells you what to adjust. Max number of objects will need to go up for sure, forget exactly what it is called in the rollout.

[shauncarollo]

You need to read that error it tells you what to adjust. Max number of objects will need to go up for sure, forget exactly what it is called in the rollout.

 

Max Density and Threshold I believe.

[Scott Schroeder]

The bigger question is can you even tell the difference between forest grass, a displaced map, or even just a flat good grass texture from the distance you are viewing these objects?

[Francisco Penaloza]

I think you need to be creative and smart setting up your shots and scenes, trowing all the geometry in one single scene in a eternal shot is not right, you will inevitably will run out of memory and your computer will jump out of the window.

If you watch transformers, or Godzilla, or any of those big FX movies they didn't build the whole city up to the last brick with a giant Iguana running around in one single scene.

as Scott mentioned you should divide your animation in shots, then decide what resources will be involved, for areal shot, a good texture map with bump will do fine most of the time, you can't tell the difference from scattered grass, Your camera is moving, and should guiding the attention of the people to the development, not to the grass.

Then as you get close to the ground you can start using, scattered grass, but then you won't need to cover the whole mile.

in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, in most of the shots the front part was 3d or real object and scene, everything else in the back was always "Painted" scenes, (Backdrops) with flat planes simulating depth.

Best luck and show us your progress

[andymaw]

If you want to stick with FP, take a look at the stats in the general rollout, that should tell you how many rendered objects there are in the scene. Then adjust the max number in the Display rollout. Keep the max number of visible objects as the default though or the program will become unresponsive, at least it was in my case.

Edited November 21, 2014 by andymaw

[shauncarollo]

If you want to stick with FP, take a look at the stats in the general rollout, that should tell you how many rendered objects there are in the scene. Then adjust the max number in the Display rollout. Keep the max number of visible objects as the default though or the program will become unresponsive, at least it was in my case.

 

The stats always says it is under my display max, that is the part that is boggling my brain to why the items aren't showing.

[andymaw]

I know what you mean. I did the same thing yesterday and kept having to up the number of max items, then looked at the stats and it was always above, so kept upping it until eventually it worked. I suppose you may be having the issue because the size of your model is so large. It might be worth trying what the others are suggesting and use a texture, or cut down the area to only what's ever seen by the camera.

 

Sorry can't be more helpful!