Tree Storm + vary

[e3d]

Hi

I have just bought tree storm for Max6 and am having a few problems with it and Vray Advanced. Basically when the trees are in preview mode I get a vray error message, if I put them in full mode it works for a limited amount of trees and then error messages again.(Vlado I will e-mail the message to you)

Has anyone had any experience with this?

The guys at Onyx told me to use 3ds files exported from Boradleaf etc, but that seems to defeat the object!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Neil

[jacksc02]

Neil, I have been having the same issues but with max 5, tree storm and vray adv.

One work around is to convert the trees to editable meshes.

But sadly this defeats the purpose of have the treestorm plugin!

I am yet to chase anyone up regarding this.

Let me know if you come across a fix for this problem.

Cheers
Chris Jackson
cj@arcad.co.nz
www.arcad.co.nz

[andrius]

Hey, just wondering if you found a solution to your problem. I'm thinking about picking up tree storm but if I can't animate it and render it out using Vray, well, just like yuou said, what's the point?????

[e3d]

Yep, I unistalled treestorm and put it in a cubboard, then bought Bionatics and Speedtree

Drastic but necessary!!

[rhino]

Treestorm has about a one tree limit then it starts causing numerous problems. Converting the trees to edit mesh objects helps a little but it often gets that raytrace in line....blah blah blah error. I was wondering if it was a vertex colour issue or a multisub issue, I have had slightly better luck when discarding the Treestorm materials.

[andrius]

That's too bad, TreeStorm looked cool. Zerfractal did a good job with his trees using Onyx. I was looking for results like his:

http://www.chaoticdimension.com/foru...highlight=onyx

Have any of you used Xfrogs wind/turbulance? I'm still waiting for the Max 6 plugin.

e3d, how do you like Bionatics and Speedtree?

[UBIKmh]

Strange problems. We've currently switched to MAX 6 and the new treestorm and so far we've had no trouble concerning the trees. With importing 3ds meshes of huge Bamboo forests (memory problem), but not with the trees. We do mostly convert the tree materials to Vray though, and run the stuff on new computers with Win2k prof and Wildcat graphics cards. I must add that I hardly ever use more then three different trees and instance them to about a hundred or so.
The plug-in could have been written better though, or is it that MAX 6 is still far from stable.

Marc

[rhino]

No kidding 100 trees, is that with Instanciate on in the vray system panel? I just find the introduction of any treestorm trees in a complex scene (lots of displacement, raytracing) causes problems.

[trixian]

......, or is it that MAX 6 is still far from stable.

Marc

My experience is that Max6 is the most unstable release they have ever sold. Even with the sp1. Though it could be purely hardware related.

[cocolas]

My experience is that Max6 is the most unstable release they have ever sold. Even with the sp1.

what makes you say that?

paul.

[trixian]

what makes you say that?

paul.

The insane amount of crashes and corrupted files i have had to deal with since its release.
I remember good old max3 was a stable work horse (....omg, a pun).

[cocolas]

yeah...I know what you mean...we just switched to VIZ 2005 (based on max 6 SP 1) and I'm getting at least a crash - if not more a day......some of them are vray "unhandled exeptions" as well.......

I also got a couple corrupted files.....

I wonder what the heck is going on at Discreet.....is their Q&A department dead or something??.....it's as if they are letting out more buggy stuff then usual.....


paul.

[Matt_3D]

3DStudio for Dos never crashed

-Matt

[UBIKmh]

Yes, a hundred trees are not much of a problem when you use and check instanciate. The trick is conserving memory. The operating system is the bottle neck. Mine is limited to 1.8 gig of process memory (I don't have XP or win2k advanced server with the 3 gig switch). Also, turning off 'send GI' for the trees is a good one (more memory saved).
In the comming weeks I'll try out Win 2k enterprise edition server, that's supposed to be able to handle 32gig per process. But seeing is believing. If it works, I can finally load up those RAM slots.

Concerning MAX6: Discreet should make more service packs instead of sending out a new dodgy MAX version every year. I don't think they realise what a new MAX version every year means. The first half year nothing works, then all new plug-in come out which you have to buy again, takes some time before they work, and then the another new MAX will be comming out.

anyway, life's a bitch and then you die.

Marc