rendertime scatterer.

[losbellos]

Hello, I just thought about it, what if vray would be able to do rendertime sactter objects (like max scatterer does). THe huge advantage is the use of memory. Because using scatterer is somehow very limited. Displacement can go only normal directions, and future fur is only fur. But what I propose is for custom geometry. Even for grass, a bunch grass. And then use the random transformations, and "vertex chaos" (random vertex transformations). So this would put quite high on possibilities/quality I think.

[percydaman]

sounds good. You can also use Pflow for grass. Tried it out this weekend, and works pretty well.

percy

[Dynedain]

percy, could you show an image or share some settings? this sounds like a great idea

[losbellos]

yes, but thats very limited what you use, because it will take eronomus memory. what I meant like calculate alwas just for the currenet bucket which is being rendered.

For that us dont need pflow, simply just scatterer does it, but it is limited because of the memory usage. And grass and onther things takes too much memory, thats why actully that fur will be good, but that also limited because it can only render just one type of geometry.

[taboo]

i gues this is paintfx in Maya...

[losbellos]

look, this would be excellent for all kind of foliage, including trees, grass, crops, whatever clouds, rocks, many many stuff.

[percydaman]

Ill post an image later, though frankly I dont think its any better method then scatter. For a static image scatter works fine. Where pFlow comes in is when you want to do cool things with the grass, such as have it blow away and other things.

With regards to memory, I have yet to come across a method that doesn't gob up tons of memory.

percy

[Da_elf]

i still prefer the free grass plugin. its animated motion is nice. and you can also lower the amount of grass shown in viewport by a % to help speed up modeling processes.

[percydaman]

Heres a quick test using pFlow. Nothing too spectacular, but what I like is the first time render took about 4 mins due to precaching of the particles. But after that, as long as I didn't mess with the pFlow settings, it didn't need to cache them again, so each render after that only took like 45 secs. I think theres about 75000 instances there and my memory stayed about 300 megs I believe.

[Dynedain]

very nice percy...care to share the file?

[losbellos]

its really nice, but 75.000 is good for a corner, but not enough for a park, or anything you have a little more view. Dont get me wrong its really nice, but not much. I played with 750.000 and it was rendered, but thats also just for a little place, for bigger view need much much more. And there have not been placed any trees. Also it is better to do a bunch of grass or something and then have it scattered/pflowed It looks more realistic.
(this one is a test image, with much less bunch, because of the closeup)

[trixian]

Losbellos. Particle flow would not use any more memory than a scatterer, as it is one it self. The only way to not have a steep memory footprint would be if Vlado writes a way to procedurally generate the items you wish to "scatter" rendertime. BTW, check out the feature that lets you fill a volume of any mesh with an instanced object (or group of objects, animated or not), and use a procedural 3d map like perlin marble to controll the density og the instances. Imagine what else you can do with the scriptable controlls it has

[losbellos]

you misundertood the point please read back...
Then: As you see its not about pflow or scatterer, its about rendertime generating the scattered objects, BUT not all at once, just like with anythnig like fur, which is generated on the fly (i guess), it can be also instanced on the fly I believe very much. So you got one bunh of grass, at rendertime generate for the bucket which is being rendered, and then forget... then go to the next bucket generate for that bucket, then forget and so on. So this is what I mean, and I beleive that it is much much more powerfull than playing with scatterer alone, or with pflow...
Since before rendering they have to generate the mesh anyway, or instances, whatever, and this will limit its capabilty mostly because of memory usage.

[losbellos]

the image I used just for illustration, nothing else.

[percydaman]

oh i firmly agree that 75000 is a drop in the bucket for anything other then a closeup. Ill try to up it considerably and see how it works. I wonder if the fur system would make for good grass? never tried it so couldn't say.


percy