Forest Pro for parking lots?

[sea2stars]

I think Forest Pro may work well for placing random car proxies on parking lots.

You can place individual proxies on a mesh just by clicking where you want to place them. I figured I'd try it with vehicles. Forest will chose which car based on the percentages you set up and align it to the surface by normals. By editing the pivot points you can fine tune how the tires interface with the pavement. You can then select individual proxies in the "forest" and rotate them to match the parking strip layout. I've attached screen grabs of a quick test.

I wonder if the random tint material would work well for car paint shaders? I'll have to try that tomorrow. Time to go see the tyke.

[sea2stars]

The Random Tint works, but you're limited to shades between two colors of course.

[voltron7]

Nice tests, looks cool!

[Shimakaze]

I've been thinking of that as well but haven't tried it yet.
In a related question... What is everyone's favorite way of doing markings like parking stripes? Textures, geometry, booleans, what?

[Da_elf]

i find it always depends on the situation. for instance on roads i use gradient ramps for the stripes
(not the best of work but check this http://www.elfpro3d.com/MTW/video3.html )

[sea2stars]

Shapemerge for me; although it doesn't always create perfect geometry it works well enough for large lots. I rarely have the joy of working with simple roads or parking lots.

I wonder how hard it would be to specify the orientation of the "trees" when placing them. That would save a step in the process. I'll have to ask on the Forest forum.

[trick]

I also use HDInstance for Lightwave from Happy Digital and it has a parking lot mode (works with cars and people in stadium):

You simply put rectangles on the locations where you want cars, and by looking at the longest side cars are placed in the right direction: by putting one shorter side slightly lower then the other short side, the cars always point to the lowest side.

Would be nice if this was possible with VRayScatter, GroundWiz and/or Forest Pro !!

[flino2004]

in Forest Pack there is an option to place objects taking as reference another object(In Objects Positions), for example you could bring CAD files with block (dummy for cars) then you pick your car library and FP will put them where the blocks are...the problem with the current version is that it's not taking the rotation of the cad block.....I requested few weeks ago an option to take that rotation in consideration, they said that they can add that option without problems....that feature will allow to use forest pack even to put people in stadiums, auditoriums, etc

[trick]

....that feature will allow to use forest pack even to put people in stadiums, auditoriums, etc

Any idea when ?

[peakyfreak80]

I have found that RPC (yes...RPC) is the best way of placing random cars in a parking lot. I haven't tried it with ForestPro, but will definitely take a look at it! Here's my workflow with RPC.

1. Place RPC proxy objects in all the parking spots
2. Use RPC's distribution tool. (Don't worry about having multiple car types...it won't matter)
3. Rename the cars with consecutive numbers (Car_001, Car_002, etc.)
4. Make a separate file with all your nice cars and rename to coincide with RPC names (Car_001, Car_002, etc.)
5. Use the replace function in Max on the RPC cars and replace with the Max cars.


It works well because you can always Re-populate if you're not happy with distribution, or even use the attractors to get cars to gather closer to entrances.

peakyfreak

[flino2004]

I'm waiting for Forest Pack(next release)

[duke2]

Yeah they seem to have slowed down a bit! They were ripping along with patches for a while there but it seems to have stopped

[Itoosoft]

Yeah they seem to have slowed down a bit! They were ripping along with patches for a while there but it seems to have stopped

We just completed the modifications to allow item rotation in all axis. The tool to create items from a list of referenced objects, gets rotation and scale values as well.

If there are not problems, the next week we will release Forest Pack Pro 3.25 beta including these new options.

[trick]

Very smart move
All these landscaping tools are actually for the larger projects where you need to spray a lot of greenery around. Making this tool suitable for parking lots, audiences, hedges, carpets, etc. gives it a wider use and easier the justify the purchase. For bugs I really like to see patches on a regular basis, but for the better features I really can wait some longer. Looking forward to this update

[Itoosoft]

Well, Forest Pack Pro 3.2.5 beta is out !. This version includes free rotation in all axis and many improvements to Creation Tools. Now is possible to create items using mesh faces as reference:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=302.0