WIP - need a hint for the speedtree reflections/shadows

[casewolf]

Hi there dear Forum,

I'm currently helping a dear friend of mine with his final professional thesis and trying to experiment a bit with vray in the meantime. There occured a small problem for me with the Speedtree's (which I'm using the first time for testing as well) - the reflections are wrong - any idea how to solve this in MAX ? - I know this is no vray-problem, rather a speedtree prob but maybe you have a trick for this. Thanks for hints.

P.S.: Same Prob with Shadows - should I instancinate the tree and make it somehow invisible, just shadow casting and facing towards the light ?!?!.

Heres the pic:

[GoncaloP]

Did you check 2 sided option? Dont know if this would help....

Gonçalo

[tonymacdonald]

cant see your image.
TonyM

[bakbek]

Problem is Speedtree uses billboarding... so while all of the billboards face the camera... the reflection gets the side view of most of them, hence the odd reflection.

i'ts been a while since i last used speedtree but maybe u can try cloning the tree and set it up with an other camera placed so that the billboars r at a good angle for the reflection. just make the new tree visiable only for reflections. and the old not. ( i think i remember u can control that but if not then i'm sorry for thr false tip )


i'll try it as soon as have some time.

regards,
bakbek.

[casewolf]

@bakbek:

Thanks, I'll try that and already thought about this - it would be a logical solution for billboards in general. I hate using billboarded geometry because of this - but the amount of polygons in this scene would be unmanagable otherwise.
Just thought there is an 'easier' way of workaround.