Hello and instances

[RedSquare]

I'm a bit embarrassed to even suggest this, but you know when one gets an idea and, no matter what, can't seem to override it . 

So to finally put this to bed I've decided to ask you lot, knowing full well that when you all stop laughing, you will finally scotch the concept or who knows it may lead to something. 

Either way, it will be a monkey off of my old back, so that I can concentrate on relearning Terragen.  Always assuming that this tired old brain can. LOL.

In a nut shell; I cannot for the life of me understand why you haven't suggested adding another brush in addition to the existing paint brush. When it comes to the question of population dispersal.

To me, as virtually a noobie back to Terragen, the existing paint brush methodology for population control is like trying to paint a scene with a distemper brush when it fact I need a 000 sable brush.

I have trawled through this forum from page 110pp up through time to here, nowhere have I seen the following suggested.  Sooo, here goes.

Would it not be possible to develop a brush for the population node that enables one to paint depending on the brush size, a 'single instance' up to +thousands. Not a mask, an instance ?

Obviously the scale and rotation of  lets say the single instance will be a matter of chance because this is controlled by your settings, but its placement in the terrain would not be.  The addition of a rubber button in the viewpoint would permit removal if the scale and/or rotation is not quite to your liking.

This would permit a much easier placement/editing of hero objects and thus time.

As an aside would it save any time if one populated not on a paused rendered preview inclusive of colour but on a rendered preview of the displaced terrain wire framed mesh?  Obviously in conjunction with any pre-painted  population control masks.

Oh yes, one last thing it might advantageous if one could check out the normals of imported objects
within Terragen. So that flipped normals can be identified/rectified sooner rather than later.

Right I've said it, bye.

[Oshyan]

We've discussed having better ways to confine the populating calculations, which is related (I think) to what you're saying, i.e. much faster population at high densities when a majority of the population bounding rectangle is empty. But putting that aside for a moment, I don't see much of a difference between what you're suggesting and simply creating a populator with a population area that covers your intended area of "population painting", setting the spacing for instances very, very low, and then immediately masking it by an empty Painted Shader and painting where you want instances to go. I suppose the issues that could occur with this are overlapping instances and long population calculation times (unless you restrict your high-density population to a much smaller area). I'm not saying your suggestion would not be easier to use, or at least faster, but I think it's a different technical implementation than the current population technology, not - as you seem to suggest - a different "painting function".

If a real population is not what you need and you just want true "hero" objects, you would place them manually. To aide in this you can import a model, then find where you want it to go, right-click in the 3D preview, copy the coordinates, and use the Copy/Paste button next to the XYZ position coordinates of the model Position to paste those coordinates and reposition your model. It's a lot faster and easier than it sounds. If your model is floating, you can use the D key to drop to terrain. You can also use the adjustment gizmos to change position, rotation, and scale dynamically once you have your model where you want it. If you want to do this for several models it's a bit more hassle than it should be as we have no grouping function yet, but you can Duplicate the node for the model at least and then copy/paste coordinates for it as well, which should go fairly quick.

These are workarounds, no doubt, but hopefully fairly functional ones (I use them all the time and they work pretty well for me at least). Give them a try and let us know what you think.

- Oshyan

[RedSquare]

Hello again Oshyan,

Long time no speaky.  Thanks very much for taking the trouble to address my ramblings, all points taken and understood. Actually, I was suggesting a method to be used inaddition to the existing painting shader, not a replacement nor an alternative.  Anyways, I have my little say and now I will shut up.   

Cheers Roy

[Oshyan]

Happy to help whenever I can Roy. Sorry if I've misunderstood your request/suggestion. Did my workarounds apply at all to what you had in mind?

- Oshyan

[RedSquare]

Far too early to tell, you over look, that I haven't used Terragen for about seven years.  So for me it's back to the drawing board.  May be in a couple of months I might be better placed to respond sensibly to your question.   

[Oshyan]

Hehe, fair enough. Well, dive in and let us know if you have any other questions along the way. And check out the Geek At Play tutorials for TG3 that are available, they should help get you started (free for streaming on YouTube, purchase to download; also downloadable for TG3 owners):
http://geekatplay.com/dt3.php

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

Interesting thread. Never thought of the blank Paint shader trick...good one Oshyan.

[RedSquare]

Interesting thread. Never thought of the blank Paint shader trick.

O'er that's how I've always tried to place hero's etc.  Shows how little I know on the subject.    Never mind onwards and upwards.

[mhall]

Kinda seems like ... perhaps with the plugin capabilities coming ... the ability to right click a spot on the terrain and choose "Add to Instance Population" using the right clicked coordinates would be handy. Using this information, the tool could then add an instance to the cache for the population.

Of course, how to manage an update to the population would have to be addressed (the tool would perhaps need to store its own list of coordinates, which could be added back into the cache after an update ... or something ... )

Just brainstorming ...

~Micheal

[RedSquare]

Well now, that seems it maybe a better alternative to my suggestion, in the fullness of time as they say.  We wait with bated breath...

[bobbystahr]

Interesting thread. Never thought of the blank Paint shader trick.

O'er that's how I've always tried to place hero's etc.  Shows how little I know on the subject.    Never mind onwards and upwards.

I use the Right Click to get the coordinates and use that to place specific objects like Hero trees and rocks.

[bobbystahr]

Well now, that seems it maybe a better alternative to my suggestion, in the fullness of time as they say.  We wait with bated breath...

By the way. I updated the link you couldn't get in File Sharing if you're still interested in it....they last about a week but restart the time they're up everytime they're downloaded so if no one else dl's it you have a week.

[RedSquare]

Cheers Bobby and, I hope you sort out your cooling prob's.

Bobby-I use the Right Click to get the coordinates and use that to place specific objects like Hero trees and rocks.

I'd forgotten that; perhaps that's why I suggested a second instance brush.

[bobbystahr]

Cheers Bobby and, I hope you sort out your cooling prob's.

Bobby-I use the Right Click to get the coordinates and use that to place specific objects like Hero trees and rocks.

I'd forgotten that; perhaps that's why I suggested a second instance brush.

A pal came over with a can of compressed air and some time and i went out...when I came back it was lots better. Did a render in fairly fast time with no crash but Terragen hangs when I'm loading anything...spinning wheel on the pc and it says Not Responding.  I have to click in the screen twice till it greys out and then whatever I'm trying to do loads....weird.