Stone

[beestee]

I think they look great. Count me in as interested in the process.

[Donald2B]

I too would be very interested in the process.

[voltron7]

Okay, I want to state that at first, I started with simple primitives and some extruded shapes, some "L" shapes and "U" shapes, I don't think that mattered.
They were low poly to begin.
-Next I added the VB modifier
-Then, after some trial, crash, error, and tip from developer, I added turbosmooth mod, 1 iteration. Seems without this, the vb shows the cut lines, but the object is not broken yet.
-now go back to the VB mod and adjust settings
-For the grid, I used "homogeneous."
-now is where a lot of tests come into play

Try to mess around with the homogeneous density and the raster values the most. These are in the grid part of the roll-out. I tried about all the stuff in the roll-out, but for now, these are the key players.
depending on your scene, end result, material technique, the rest may vary.

First, I chose 36 stone bitmaps that looked close enough to the existing walls I wanted to represent. (Some required downsizing.)
I made a folder for them and renamed them as "stone01D", "stone02D", etc....this part was the most tedious part of making all 25-27 of these walls
Then, I chose to go with a MaterialByElement mod set to....36, random distribution
-back to the VB mod roll-out
-look for the options area of it
-set MaterialID to match your number of stone bitmaps, for me it was 36
-Map Type = Box
-I won't go into all the steps, but now make a material using all the stone maps and apply it to the wall, apply a box type uvw mapping mod.

So, in the end, I have a stack in this order

1-VolumeBreaker
2-Turbosmooth
3-MaterialByElement
4-UVWMapping

After this, copy and paste the stack to other walls if you need more than 1.
I did this and each time mess with the volumbreaker and materialbyelement seeds to keep variation
And, for some walls, I ended up adding optimize and/or subdivide mods beneath the VB mod. This was mostly because the scene was getting heavy, and from the camera distances, it didn't seem to have much ill affect.

Well, I hope this can help someone like it did for me. I got this project and the deadline was just shy of 2 weeks away, for (2) 24"x36" prints. I work alone and thought I could never make all those walls alone in the alloted time so I looked around for anything that would help. I found a few things, but this one seemed like the best bet. The learning curve was all of 6 hours, maybe less. Actually, the material part really was the worst part for me, just so tedious. I got my walls and site base finished in a day and a half thanks to this plug-in and the client loved it and stated amazement. I must admit, I really regreted the purchase after the first hour, but now I look forward to my next project where I get to use it.
Sorry for the delayed response, I've been hunting big varmint in my gardens...

Thanks

edit, here is a screen during creation...

[3DMK]

Hi All..

I bought Cebus Volume Breaker for exactly this task of making rocks......it sucks...please excuse the language

Then I bought RAYFIRE.........Game over volume breaker

Ray fire has a much more robust fragmenting engine & you have sooo many more options to control exactly how you want the rocks to turn out. You even have different fragmenting types that are different than Voronoi & an option to interactively create your fragments/rocks with a mouse.

If you were to compare Volume Breaker & RayFire JUST for creating rock walls then Ray fire would win hands down...by a mile
But then you take into account That RayFIRE is a complete physics solution that is so easy to use & [Volume breaker can ONLY create framents/rocks] then I have to say that Rayfire is so far out in front it's in a different universe.

Cheers
Hope this helps

[voltron7]

Sounds sweet! I will definitely try it out sometime.
OT...funny how the word sucks has become so negative. Most things that literally suck seem like good things (vacuums, mouths, etc.)
Can you post any examples using Rayfire?

TIA

just looked at their website and definitely looks great, and not too pricey!

[JeffG2]

reference ping

[MoonDoggie]

Sounds sweet! I will definitely try it out sometime.
OT...funny how the word sucks has become so negative. Most things that literally suck seem like good things (vacuums, mouths, etc.)
Can you post any examples using Rayfire?

TIA

just looked at their website and definitely looks great, and not too pricey!

Laughed out loud at work at this comment

[leehumphries]

Voltron 7

Rayfire - less than 20secs to do

Literally create a box - fragment to required spec and then i added a turbosmooth mod. if this helps the basic power of Rayfire

[voltron7]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5958[/ATTACH]Voltron 7

Rayfire - less than 20secs to do

Literally create a box - fragment to required spec and then i added a turbosmooth mod. if this helps the basic power of Rayfire

looks very similar to VB, but a nicer interface...
I did these 3 in about 45 seconds using VB and to me the look is quite similar

...so...
can you show another variation/type of stone? Would love to see it make a more ashlar or stacked type look...I could not get that look with VB so far...

here is what I am hoping to get...

Thanks for the example!

[3DMK]

Here is a quick scene using Rayfire
you can also get very different results using combinations of Relax/subdivide/turbosmooth once your basic rocks are created

[voltron7]

Laughed out loud at work at this comment

glad someone got it ;-P

[voltron7]

Here is a quick scene using Rayfire
you can also get very different results using combinations of Relax/subdivide/turbosmooth once your basic rocks are created
[ATTACH=CONFIG]5964[/ATTACH]

looks very good, but I still am not seeing a huge difference in results between VB and Rayfire...
Rayfire does seem to have a better interface...
Thanks for posting the example

[stevesideas]

Is this the kind of thing you are looking for ?

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...lacement-tools

[voltron7]

Yes, that is great! Thanks for the link Steve

[Morne]

Is this the kind of thing you are looking for ?

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...lacement-tools

That script looks good. But make a wall just a little bigger than the "example" and you'll soon find yourself with a dying pc. I remember giving it a go few months back.