wind animation of leaves bending and distorting

[Pawel]

I've just got your software, and it looks amazing. I am very anxious to learn it.

 

While evaluating it from your demo version, I've test-rendered wind animation of the freebie palm tree you provide for download. I've noticed that the trunks and leaf stems have very convincing movements, but the leaves are not bending and flopping in the wind as they would in reality. They do sway and twist, but are pretty stiff. In reality palm leaves are very flexible and they change their shape the most as they sway in the wind. (I know I live in Florida!)

 

Is this just my ignorance of the software, or this is what to be expected? If they are stiff, can wind leaf distortion be added? (Man, this would blow away any competition! I use Vue Xtreme and their ready made trees are pathetic!)

 

Also, on another topic -- the coconut palm tree in the Palms collection have coconuts that were already cleaned up from the outer layers... (It is kind of funny to see them hanging on the tree <g> I understand you guys live in Russia where those treed don't grow -- I can send you photos or videos or real trees with coconuts if you have the desire to correct it).

[Eduard]

Hi Pawel,

 

Thanks for your order!

 

I think you can adjust the movements leaves it to be realistic. Play around with the parameters of the Wind animation modifier. If you can't adjust, please send me your palm, I'll try to do it.

 

Hmm, but we didn't created the coconut palms. Maybe it's palm from our partner 3dmentor.ru? I think need ask him about this...

 

Cheers

[Pawel]

Thanks Edward for the offer regarding adjustments. At this point it is more important for me to learn to use it and the limits of the software then making this perfect... I will play more with it once I understand it more fully.

 

I do have some questions or suggestions if the answer is "No" to those questions...

 

Since 3Ds Max is an animation software it would make sense that the plants and trees interact with other elements in the scene, or at least make it easy to manipulate that it gives the illusion of interactions.

 

1) Is there a way to directly manipulate the splines that are the base of the mesh? Like grabbing a point and moving it around? (If now, could it be implemented?)

 

2) Just imagine cartoon character that grabs a branch and swings it at another, or a giant that brakes a tree and runs with it with leaves and branches shaking... How can this kind of interaction be made -- with Bones? Could the splines be turned into bones automatically when you convert the model to mesh -- with all the branches and leaves skinned automatically and meshes assigned to specific bone. (I wouldn't want to skin a complicated tree manually! It would be a nightmare!)

 

Anyhow something to think about...

 

On another note -- I am completely in love with your software. To have it directly in Max is a dream come through. Thank you.

[Eduard]

Hi Pawel,

 

1) Now it's impossible, but in the future we want to add a modifier that allows you to manipulate the paths by a particular points.

 

2) Yes, we've plans to implement a system such as the bones. Hopefully next year, we'll implement something like this.

 

Thanks for your kind words!

 

Cheers

[peleus]

Thank you for confirming this and yes, I think that feature would be fantastic. The software is great right now but we could always use an additional feature to play with.