population not on ground

[Dune]

I've encountered a problem with my population. When I click for the location of the pop center and paste it in the populator (say 100/-20/300), the population partly floats when a minimum height is blended in. The lowest trees float.
If I manually set the center Y at 0, the whole population goes up. While the population is attached/sits on the last surface shader. Even when the compute terrain is set at 1; no difference. Shouldn't the population size and location be independent of the actual objects of the population, if they 'sit on the surface'?

I hope I make myself clear, I don't even understand myself.

[jbest]

Since I'm no expert at Terragen 2, I can't exactly tell what problem you're having. But I did do something like this a while back (image attached). I think if you want to have the trees sit on the terrain you can't fiddle with the trees X or Y or whatever. I usually leave those as default, and I make sure in the "Terrain" tab that "Sit on terrain" is checked. I'm pretty sure you've got a more complex problem though. 

[cyphyr]

Have you tried with a compute terrain after the last shader?
Strata can screw placement about too, if your using any try turning it off just in case.
Good luck and a great image, I can hardly see the floaters but the artist is always his worst critic
Richard

[freelancah]

There is a possibility that the problem is in the object too..

[Henry Blewer]

I hook a Compute Terrain after the last shader all the time. I then plug this into the objects input which is hooked into the Terrain nodes Compute Terrain. The reason I do this is I can't break the habit of using displacement in the shader nodes. Works well.

[dandelO]

If you don't set the pop' to 'sit on terrain' then there shouldn't be a problem. You confuse me here I think, Ulco.
Sorry if my post is nonsense to this topic...

If 'sit on terrain' and 'planet' is unchecked in the populator then, any input you place into a populator should keep position according to the world-space you are in.

I must be lost in this now as I seem to not understand what you mean.

[Dune]

Setting 'sit on terrain' is not the problem (I have done some TG2 work before  ), I think a distribution shader somehow 'throws dirt in the food'. I had it set at a minimum height, and at that height the trees indeed float, while the rest (upwards) is sitting alright. I'll try to make a less complicated tgd to see where it goes wrong. I sometimes manually drag the pop area to another location, and the Y would change then as well. But I cannot remember anything going wrong there.
A compute terrain at the end slows things down, I'd say, and shouldn't be necessary. But I'll try that.
And, no, it's not in the object.
Thanks for your comments, guys.

[Kevin F]

......Good luck and a great image, I can hardly see the floaters .....
Richard

What image are you referring to Richard? Is there an image I'm not seeing?

[Kevin F]

......Good luck and a great image, I can hardly see the floaters .....
Richard

What image are you referring to Richard? Is there an image I'm not seeing?

Never mind, found it in another thread!

[Dune]

Still couldn't figure it out. Here's some screendumps. Maybe someone sees where I go wrong.

[ajcgi]

I've had this issue before as well, but forget how I solved it. Think the origin in the original model I was using was below the roots of the tree rather than roughly at ground level.

[RArcher]

This is probably way off but from the picture it looks like maybe the trunks of the pinus bush are not being rendered at all.  Are you using the raytraced objects option or do you have it off so that your bridge looks better? 

[Tangled-Universe]

It looks to me that the very last compute terrain in this case can cause trouble.

The "surface layer 01" goes to the planet node isn't it?

If you compute terrain after "surface layer 01" you can get mismatches with what has been calculated up to "surface layer 01" and is being fed into the planet node. See what I mean?

...I had it set at a minimum height, and at that height the trees indeed float, while the rest (upwards) is sitting alright.

This sounds very puzzling...I usually use a surface layer, but I suppose it shouldn't make a difference because they should use the same 'key' to calculate altitude and slope.

[Dune]

It's not the trunks (RTO is on), and it's not the last compute terrain (without it it's just the same). I have now deleted many of the distribution shaders and set the max/min height in the surface shaders, but it's still the same.
If you put down a pop, and set a (copied) location of say 100/10/100, and later set the Y at 0, it shouldn't make a difference, should it? Because that's what's also happening   

[freelancah]

I would still suspect the problem is in the object. Origin somehow messed up. Have you checked it in an outside app?