Vray Proxy: equal distrib. of faces

[nirsul]

Hi

When using tree proxies I often get a proxy where the folliage is seen as faces but no face in the lower trunk area (even with high count of faces).
This makes it dificult to place the tree proxy low enough in the ground so that the resulting rendered tree is now hovering above ground level.

Any way you can solve this in the next SP ?


NIR

[Pixelab]

A quick workaround, place the pivot of the mesh you proxy on the base of the tree before vrmesh conversion and it'll be the pivot of the proxy.

Anyway, that would be cool to take the first 60 "preview" polygons of the proxy on the XYZ maximum/minimum of the mesh, if I made myself clear

[nirsul]

the workaround u mentioned is what I do but I want to have it built in

[vlado]

You can specify the number of preview faces when creating the proxy; normally it just takes every N-th face from the object.

Best regards,
Vlado

[nirsul]

Vlado

I know this but due to the tree shape - most faces are in the foliage area so the trunks (in most cases than not) get no preview faces.

preview as box may sometimes help vut it hides the point where the tree touches the ground.

Nir

[vlado]

Yes, I realize the problem... will try to think of something.

Best regards,
Vlado

[nirsul]

Maybe a checkbox can be added to the export dialog to specify wether this is a tree/person model after which the user can move a special helper object to the touch point....

thx for the prompt response.

Nir

[vlado]

I was thinking more of showing the actual bounding box, when using that option, rather than the bounding box of the preview.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Codi]

Agree that having more options to have the proxy displayed would be useful. Maybe being able to specify different detail level meshes would be very useful for this and for rendering purposes also.

But I still don't understand why this "special helper object" can't be the pivot point itself. What's the benefit of having the pivot in a random place and a marker in the object base?

For me, placing the pivot at the object base is not a workaround, it is very convenient. If you ever planted hundreds of trees/brushes you'd know how useful it is to have the pivot placed in the touch point.

[vlado]

The pivot is determined on how you export the proxy; if you choose the "Export each selected object in a separate file" option, then the pivot will be preserved; if you choose "Export all selected objects in a single .vrmesh file" option, the pivot will be assumed to be at the coordinate system origin at the time the export is done.

So it is a matter of collecting all the tree components into one mesh (if they are separate), placing the pivot where you want it to be before exporting the proxy, and then selecting the "Export each selected object in a separate file" option.

Best regards,
Vlado

[nirsul]

Agree that having more options to have the proxy displayed would be useful. Maybe being able to specify different detail level meshes would be very useful for this and for rendering purposes also.

But I still don't understand why this "special helper object" can't be the pivot point itself. What's the benefit of having the pivot in a random place and a marker in the object base?

For me, placing the pivot at the object base is not a workaround, it is very convenient. If you ever planted hundreds of trees/brushes you'd know how useful it is to have the pivot placed in the touch point.

The pivot is not shade-able object - you can never tell if it is above the ground level or below it.

NIR

[Codi]

The pivot is determined on how you export the proxy; if you choose the "Export each selected object in a separate file" option, then the pivot will be preserved; if you choose "Export all selected objects in a single .vrmesh file" option, the pivot will be assumed to be at the coordinate system origin at the time the export is done.

So it is a matter of collecting all the tree components into one mesh (if they are separate), placing the pivot where you want it to be before exporting the proxy, and then selecting the "Export each selected object in a separate file" option.

I'm aware of that Vlado, I was trying to say that having an extra option to for placing an object within the proxy, in the place where you should be having the pivot anyway, doesn't seem a good solution to me.

What about being able to specify different detail level meshes? You could even be able to display the full low level mesh in shaded mode in the viewport. I'm not sure if it would be useful for rendering large proxy extensions too.

The pivot is not shade-able object - you can never tell if it is above the ground level or below it.

I can certainly tell if the pivot is below a surface moving the viewport, but understand that there could be a more straightforward way.

Wasn't there an option within MAX to change the pivot display mode that would help with that?

[Janosik]

can i ask for check box in vray proxy export to choose pivot position .....

[peterguthrie]

It would be great if we could specify an alternative low poly mesh as the preview mesh when we create the proxy. Then for trees you could make a simple cylinder with a squashed sphere on top ala the max aec foliage object, or if you really wanted you could copy the trunk and stick a blob on top of that - as the original poster said its helpful when composing views to have the trunk visible.