ptrain03

are all the leaves showing at once or is it a growth animation?

I think you have to have the "convert to mesh" box check under the main preferences sub menu preference parameters. It might be grayed out on a demo. I think Corona and Vray also do the same thing.

Amazing work as always

nice !

You can use the explode button in the editable mesh tab. just set the spinner to a higher number to get the whlole sub object. ( I think I did 150) For the pivots I am not sure what to do, you can center them per object in the heirarchy tab (heirarchy- affect pivot only - center to object). But this won't put them at the begining of the path.

I tried this out today, unfortunately I don't think it will work as I had hoped. The path position parameter for the path position distributor appears to only affect its own properties. I will keep trying.

you might be able to do this using a third invisible path with a chaotic path position distributor. You would just make an invisble path with the path position distributers position varying randomly. Then you would use the path position to drive the effect you want. so path position of 0 - 50% would have directional modifier characteristic A path position 50 -100% would have directional modifier charctoristic B This way you would have a chaotic distribution of the modifiers that would me mutually exclusive. hope it helps, I am not sure 100% if this will work but it is worth a shot. I will try to varify this for you tomorrow when I get chance.

The windows enabled fault tolerant heap causes issues with corona you might look at this; https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000678431-windows-enabled-fault-tolerant-heap-for-3dsmax-or-dependent-processes-this-may-have-severe-perform

I looked around a bit for tutorials for you. The most relevant ones are here : https://exlevel.com/tutorials/ I also checked Youtube but I didn't see much about just vinework. For vines I would just get the first few paths to attach to the surface as desired then grow the smaller paths without the influence of the "object reaction" modifier. also, If your surface isn't working out you can always make a dummy surface and make it invisible to the camera. Hope it helps

Thanks Eduard

Hi All, In version 1.9.9 service pack 2 using 3ds max 2017 my scale factor spinner in my graph editors keeps resetting to 1 whenever I close and re-open a file. I can avoid the reset by hitting the "rescale" button but It is sort of a problem for all of my existing plants, Is anyone else having this issue, and if so has anyone found a fix ? I haven't had this problem in previous releases and my workmate is having similar issues. Any help is appreciated. I will try to recreate the issue and attach a file a little later this evening. Thanks !

count rate % does seem to be working correctly when applied to a path position distribution. you might try converting your path distribution to a path position distribution and then applying the count rate. good luck !

I looked into this a little more. the chaos density is a little strange but it is predictable and seems to be working as described; In the help file it is defined as follows: Example: Density = 10, Chaos dens.% = 50, so the density varies from 5 to 10. If you had a 10' distributing path with a 12" module and a density of 10 (paths = 100), then at a chaos % of 0 you would get 100. at chaos % of 10 you would get the mean of 9 to 10 (so apx 95) at chaos % of 20 you would get the mean of 8 to 10 (apx 90) at chaos % of 30 you would get the mean of 7 to 10 (apx 85) and so on. I am not good at math but this this seems to work predictably. On the other hand, I can't really make sense of how the count rate is calculated. In the manual it says: Count rate "Specifies how many paths in percent to calculate using the selected distributor" So it sounds like is meant to work as you have described in your posts, but for some reason it does seem to be very unpredictable. In situations like the application of modifiers It appears to work as described but It seems to run into problems when defining a distribution. weird.

Thanks Jaime ! I will have to try unwrella, I have been using zbrush's UVW master but this looks pretty useful.

I wasn't sure so I looked around the forum to see if anything about this had been posted. I know growFX can use different parts of a single image, but I am not sure If you can map materials outside of 1to 1 UV space. I guess If you couldn't tile you could just use a really narrow high res image (for trunks and limbs). you might also be able to break your objects textures up with Vertex color assignments (but that you add significantly more work). You could also add an unwrap modifier to the top of the stack and change the tiling that way. maybe also give the manual a shot. I haven't re read it in a while and there may be some new helpful stuff in there. good luck ! If I come across anything I will re-post.

I think the chaos% and count rate% are based on the density within a base unit set in the preferences (default every 10 inches), not for the entire tree. But I could be totally wrong about this. It sounds like you could achieve the effects of node proliferation or death by affecting the density with the path position.

You might pm Massimo here in the forums. I haven't seen him for a while but you should be able to find his user name here ("massisan" I think).

For maps I would say it depends upon which renderer you are using. For Corona I get by with just diffuse, glossiness (plants are dielectric so no metalic component), and normal from B2M. You might also need a translucency map for the leaves ( you might need to make this in photoshop, I am not sure if this can be made in B2M) For the most part You can just use vertex colors and material ids and seamless textures to get what you need. Unwraping doesn't appear to be supported within the framework of growFX. You can add it as a modifier but that can be tricky if animation is involved. For most trees the surfaces don't require anything specific enough to justify unwrapping and painting in a program like Mari or substance painter.

Yup jamies example is more correct than mine though. I double checked and there isn't a way to control the parameter you need with a parent paths offset like I was trying to do in the first post. What you want is to make two paths. Path one is a distributor an is pretty short (also invisible). Path 2 would have a path distribution on path 1. From here you can use the path position of path 2 to affect its offset and length, and then use its length to affect its angle bend. you could also do this with one path. 1. create a 3d rock 2. select the faces you would like for the moss to attach to and detach 3. creat a path with a surface distribution. 4. check "at all vertices. (make sure you rock has enough vertices for this to look good) 5. up the count and up the chaos offset 6. use directional modifiers to make the blades look realistic moss example.max

I think you could do this in two paths. make the first distributor path distribut over the surface of your object. this path would be very short and invisible. the second path would be a path distributor. for this one you would increase "offset" random in the distribution properties tab. Make your offset about the size of each pillow the increase your density until things look right. next you would use your offset to affect both the length and the angle bend to give a pillowed effect (short at the edges with an increased angle and longer in the center with a smaller angle. I don't have grow fx open in front of me at the moment but I think this should work. If not I can try it out for you later. hope it helps

I would probably just try to do this with texture (displacement and normal) maps as opposed to actual geometry. Then you could just use a twist direction modifier. It might not get you exactly the look you are going for but It would probably be pretty close.

Hi Jaime, Couldn't you just use the cropping tools in the standard "bitmap" map ? It sounds like it has the functionality you are looking for already. You would still need multiple materials but you could use just one texture map. Hope it helps

I am not sure this exact thing can be done. The growFX model is already calculated before it is placed into forest pack and proxied. Rotating the proxie in Forest Pack wouldn't cause the Grow FX object to correct itself because the instruction happens outside of GrowFX (I think). One thing you might try is making several sunflowers with different body rotations withing Grow FX and then assign no rotation within Forest Pack. This should give you sort of the same effect.

have you tried opening a new file and Import / merging in the objects you want from the damaged file. Some times this works for me. Eduard can probably get you a better answer though.

does this help any ? https://exlevel.com/forum/index.php?/topic/603-preparing-a-tree-with-wind-for-forest-pack/?hl=cache&do=findComment&comment=3500 If it doesn't solve your problem let me know and I will look into it further