Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I have made 3 variations of a tree. I have put 300 frames of wind animation as well What is the procedure to prepare it for future use with forest pack, to make a forest for example? What a convert to mesh does exactly? (Why I need to do it) How I make them animated Vray proxies for Forest Pack? Sorry for the questions but I am little nervous, as I have to finish a project till next week, that includes a few seconds of an animated forest. Regards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 If I put one of the trees in a forest pack area max crashes. I have no idea what I have to do to use the tree to forest pack. Thats why I need your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduard Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 Hi Zakkorn, Have you seen this tutorial? http://www.itoosoft.com/tutorials/tutorial_animation_new.php But there I could not find anything about preparing the trees. I think you must to turn on the Convert to mesh in the Preference parameters rollout. I also hope you can convert your models into animated VRay proxies. But this is not necessary. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I have seen the tutorial but doesnt say how to convert object to animated vray proxies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I found out that it crashes if the Grow Tree has a cache wind animation. How am I suppose to make then animated if I dont use the cache? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduard Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I found out that it crashes if the Grow Tree has a cache wind animation. How am I suppose to make then animated if I dont use the cache? Yesterday we've updated the latest version and many bugs are fixed. I checked, and no any crashes. In any case, I think that you don't need to cache a tree before creating a proxy. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptrain03 Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 for forest pack I don't think you need to make a proxy before you add the geometry to the forest object. It will make its own proxy (using vray proxy) I think. I can remember doing this before but I think it was a while ago. I will look into this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptrain03 Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 It seems to work fine for me, but I am using corona. I don't think it should make any difference though. I am not using a proxy at all. I just made my object, cached the animation, copied the object over and converted it to an editable poly. Then I copied my cache modifier from the stack and pasted it onto the editable poly version (which no longer had animation until I pasted the other models cache). From here I just opened forest pack and added the editable poly version with the cache info into the forest objects geometry. I didn't convert it to a proxy beforehand. I think converting to a proxy before adding the geometry to your forest object is the problem. A cache won't work on a proxy. Proxies only work with static Geometry (to the best of my knowledge, it might be different now). An animated proxy is just a series of static models swapped out in a sequence. If your tree object is quite large just hide it to take stress off your card while you maneuver. Hope it helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 Yesterday we've updated the latest version and many bugs are fixed. I checked, and no any crashes. In any case, I think that you don't need to cache a tree before creating a proxy. Cheers Glad to hear that I will download the update. It seems to work fine for me, but I am using corona. I don't think it should make any difference though. I am not using a proxy at all. I just made my object, cached the animation, copied the object over and converted it to an editable poly. Then I copied my cache modifier from the stack and pasted it onto the editable poly version (which no longer had animation until I pasted the other models cache). From here I just opened forest pack and added the editable poly version with the cache info into the forest objects geometry. I didn't convert it to a proxy beforehand. I think converting to a proxy before adding the geometry to your forest object is the problem. A cache won't work on a proxy. Proxies only work with static Geometry (to the best of my knowledge, it might be different now). An animated proxy is just a series of static models swapped out in a sequence. If your tree object is quite large just hide it to take stress off your card while you maneuver. Hope it helps How you pass the cache to as a modifier? Because after you put an edit mesh modifier and collapse it you lose everything (as you normally should). So how you add the cache on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptrain03 Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I just made The grow fx object with animation, then added a point cache modifier and recorded the animation. Then I copied the grass, converted is to an editable poly (which gets rid of its animation). Then I copied (ctrl + c) the point cache modifier from the stack with the GrowFX model at its base. Then I selected the collapsed model and pasted the point cache modifier into its stack. I have attached my test file as reference. The forest pack objects might not work but the cached objects should be there. animation test.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 Oh silly me. I didn't notice the Point Cache modifier :P Now everything is clear. God bless you ptrain03 for your help And a big thank you for the file Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptrain03 Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 No problem, glad I could help post if you have any more questions before your deadline. good luck ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakkorn Posted December 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I will, but hopefully I will not have any Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheerioboy Posted April 14, 2016 Report Share Posted April 14, 2016 How do you collapse a growfx mesh without animation? I thought I'd just be able to righ-click and change to edit poly, but the option isn't showing up... I feel like such a noob. edit: of course I find it, yet again in a quick search. a youtube video showed that you go into the Preference parameters rollout and check 'Convert to Mesh' - THEN you can collapse to editable mesh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduard Posted April 15, 2016 Report Share Posted April 15, 2016 How do you collapse a growfx mesh without animation? I thought I'd just be able to righ-click and change to edit poly, but the option isn't showing up... I feel like such a noob. edit: of course I find it, yet again in a quick search. a youtube video showed that you go into the Preference parameters rollout and check 'Convert to Mesh' - THEN you can collapse to editable mesh. Yes of course, you need to turn on the Convert to Mesh in the Preference parameters... Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terri Brown Posted August 21, 2018 Report Share Posted August 21, 2018 Sorry to be off point with the original theme here, but can I ask why there's even the option to convert to mesh? Shouldn't this be taken for granted and built into the main framework? Or does it improve performance to have it unchecked? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduard Posted August 21, 2018 Report Share Posted August 21, 2018 21 minutes ago, Terri Brown said: Sorry to be off point with the original theme here, but can I ask why there's even the option to convert to mesh? Shouldn't this be taken for granted and built into the main framework? Or does it improve performance to have it unchecked? Thanks Yes this is to improve performance. If you've a binding to the vertices or some other, every time when your mouse over a tree, the model is constantly converted into a mesh, at least after any update, but if the model consists of several independent meshes (this is possible in GrowFX), the conversion takes some time, as a result, the viewport becomes slower. Also the plugin should store the whole mesh after each update, which takes more memory. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terri Brown Posted August 22, 2018 Report Share Posted August 22, 2018 Thanks Eduard. Good to know! I always check it when starting my growFX model as I usually make a copy mesh once satisfied and save the growFX original to a clean file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terri Brown Posted August 28, 2018 Report Share Posted August 28, 2018 On 12/9/2015 at 7:46 PM, ptrain03 said: I just made The grow fx object with animation, then added a point cache modifier and recorded the animation. Then I copied the grass, converted is to an editable poly (which gets rid of its animation). Then I copied (ctrl + c) the point cache modifier from the stack with the GrowFX model at its base. Then I selected the collapsed model and pasted the point cache modifier into its stack. I have attached my test file as reference. The forest pack objects might not work but the cached objects should be there. animation test.zip Hi Ptrain, I'm having some issues trying to use the method you have described above. I would ideally like to use a mesh with the Point Cache Modifier as I'm noticing that Forest Pro often has issues reading my geometry when it's the GFX model with cached animation. Do you first use the built-in cache record option with GrowFX, and THEN record with the modifier, or do you abstain from caching within GFX model altogether? Hope that makes sense! I downloaded your file, but the mesh with Point Cache modifier doesn't work...maybe it's my version of Max? I'm using 2014. Thanks (PS Eduard have you heard of that issue with animated GrowFX models within Forest Pack Pro before?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptrain03 Posted August 29, 2018 Report Share Posted August 29, 2018 Its been a while, but I think I remember not caching within GFX. The Grow FX model was just used to generate the point cache file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel Posted June 2, 2022 Report Share Posted June 2, 2022 Hi! Can you please help me find a solution to my problem? I want to use a model of a tree from Forest Pack assets, and use on it the wind from the Grow FX. Is it possible to not make a tree from scratch but to put there a tree that is ready, with leafes etc. and only use a wind on it? Ofc ideally then I want to put this tree as an object to pick to the forest pack library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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