onyxtree

[re:FORM]

Yep, its a pain in the proverbial.
btw, you could avoid using 3ds mesh if before you make the leaves into objects, make a copy of the treestorm tree. You can then convert that one to mesh, delete the leaves(select by ID), and be left with the branches in the correct location for the leaves you make with the rest of your process.

I've just given up using treestorm.... crashing every 2 mins is a recipe for an early grave! .. changing the seeds for the different elements in broadleaf doesnt take more than a few seconds, and max is now stable as a rock (albeit a rock balancing on the edge of a precipice)...

[jkletzien]

It seems almost intentional on Onyxs part that this dissasembling of their trees is difficult and results in corrupted files. It would seem that they don't want their trees to be available without their plugin being installed. This is just my guess.

The problem with this is that you have to get the trees to a mesh level, unattached to treestorm, to properly map the trunk and branches.

I think it is a really good guess, and the real tip off is the 3ds export dialog when they tell you it is illegal for you to distribute the 3DS file you just made.

As far as workflow...The one thing I would add is when you try to break off the leaves after you've removed them from their parent (the trunk/branches) attach them to another object, then delete that objects original element, otherwise the leaves'll retain some kind of relationship to the tree and crash you every time you attempt to delete them.

The support or rate of development ain't great, but I think that is what happens when one company has a virtual monopoly in a very small, minimally profitable niche. Either someone with a similar passion needs to give them a run for their money, or landscape architects need to get serious about doing computer renderings that aren't collages so the market expands.

[mikeh]

on a final note here...Olli96 asked why i didn't contact onyxtree support and i said that my past experiences showed me it was a waste of time..

My current experience is no different. i emailed onyxtree support two days agao and have not recieved a reply...

this is what has happened in the past. email with no reply. It's just a waste of time.
mh

[re:FORM]

I emailed them a couple of days ago too, and I did get a reply... not that it really solved my problem.

Are you using the right email address? support@onyxtree.com

[voltron7]

I've only had to contact them once, and I called them, and spoke with someone immediately, not even placed on hold...never tried emailing them, though. Generally, I try not to use email as a means of "first contact" since their security might block an unknown address and all that jazz...

[mikeh]

well...apparently this time my email finally got a response. here it is below..
mh

Thank you for your email. We are getting feedback from some users where they say that Tree Storm x64 is unstable and crashes the system. The problem we have is that this does not happen on our x64 system. We repeatedly ask those customers to send us a sample scene which exhibits the problems and a step by step instructions which lead to at least one of those reported crashes. But we never get that from those customers and we are left in the air. This is the main reason we have not been able to do much so far. We have even sent a copy to Autodesk's developer support lab and they could not find anything either. So, we are dependent on your support here. Please, send us a sample scene that exhibits problems and accompany that with a step by step instructions which lead to the crash so we can test it on our system.

We want you to know that it is in our utmost interest to resolve those problems as quickly as possible and we are certainly not dragging our feet about it. Thank you for your support!

Kind regards,
Customer Support

[mikeh]

Spoke with onyxtree (Pjer, i think) and we came to the conclusion that possibly everything i was trying to do with the trees didn't require disassociating the treestorm trees from treestorm (Which is where treestorm started crashing). So now i am working on them as associated trees and not editable meshes. So far the only crash i had was when i tried to clone 8 of them at once. max didn't like that....but it didn't corrupt the files and didn't corrupt max.

Apparently if you want to modify onyxtrees in max, you are better off importing the 3ds versions from the stand alone onyxtree. they don't crash max at all.

I still like treestorm and am going to see how far i can push it.
mh