VRay Proxy and Forest Pack problem

[chrisjacks21]

Got a strange one....

Working on a scene which is using Forestpack Pro3.3 to distribute grass/tree Vray proxies (as 2 seperate forest objects). Now this scene is by NO means heavy compared to some we have done recently.

The problem I am having is that other Vray proxy trees which have been manually placed in the scene have now disappeared in the render. If I delete the forest pack objects, they render fine - very stange!!

I am using 3dsmax2010 SP1 x64 and VRay1.50.SP5.

All proxies are using UNC path, I have tried it without DR on and problem still persists.

Anybody have any ideas as this is doing my nut in!!

[flino2004]

Check the layers, FP creates layers where it places information, maybe those proxies are there

[chrisjacks21]

thanks - but not that. Proxies are visible in viewport

[flino2004]

to work around the problem I would split the trees in different files and xref them

[chrisjacks21]

Seems I have figured it out! The manually placed trees are actually the ones forest pack is referencing also, so I have copied the trees (non instance) and re-positioned and they render fine. I guess it is best practice to not use the same proxies that FP is using, some wierd bug/conflict.

[flino2004]

Since I have FP, I always use it to populate landscape, cars, etc...for that reason I haven't had that problem but it's good to know!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Fernando

[Itoosoft]

This is an intentional feature:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forestpack/r...refdisplay.php

Hide Custom Objects before rendering

If this option is on, the plugin hides from the render the objects assigned in the Geometry->Custom Object rollout. Use it to avoid rendering the high-poly meshes, proxies and other objects that are used only as source geometry for Forest.

We hide these objects because in Mental Ray it saves a lot of memory while rendering. In VRay, you can turn off this parameter safely. Further, it doesn't work well with DR because the objects are not hidden on the render nodes (we must fix this).

[chrisjacks21]

aha - thanks for clarifying that!

[plastic_]

This is an intentional feature:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forestpack/r...refdisplay.php

Hide Custom Objects before rendering

If this option is on, the plugin hides from the render the objects assigned in the Geometry->Custom Object rollout. Use it to avoid rendering the high-poly meshes, proxies and other objects that are used only as source geometry for Forest.

We hide these objects because in Mental Ray it saves a lot of memory while rendering. In VRay, you can turn off this parameter safely. Further, it doesn't work well with DR because the objects are not hidden on the render nodes (we must fix this).

I also had issues with hidden custom objects and restrict-to-cam-view settings, I think it would be better to disable this features by default. When I enable a feature manually, at least I'll get the idea where the problem lies if something unexpected happens.

[Itoosoft]

I also had issues with hidden custom objects and restrict-to-cam-view settings, I think it would be better to disable this features by default. When I enable a feature manually, at least I'll get the idea where the problem lies if something unexpected happens.

Well, really the camera-clipping setting is disabled by default. When a high-poly mesh or a proxy is added to the Geometry List, Forest suggests to the user the most adequate settings for the scene (camera clipping, points-cloud view and others). Thus, less experienced users do not have to worry about knowing all the plugin options.

We will change the 'Hide Custom objects..' parameter to disabled by default, adding it as a suggested option only for Mental Ray configurations, solving this issue for VRay users.