Exporting Population Settings

[dorianvan]

If I want to export a population of only trees (using Rendering Layer to only render trees out), what TG settings, like uncheck raytrace objects, should I be using/not using? I just want the trees as object, don't care about materials. When I try, I get all of these zig-zaggy planes of geometry everywhere.
Thanks

[cyphyr]

You can't really export populations, at least not sensibly. Also even if you could think how huge the resulting file would. How ever many instances in your population multiplied by the size of the original object. This could easily run into terabytes even on a relatively modest population.
A better approach is to export a set of render layers (and create a separate shader setup to get an Object ID pass) and comp these into your final project.

Why do you need to export a population anyway?

[dorianvan]

Merely to throw a sun shadow onto people walking in 3dMax.

[dorianvan]

I was able to export my trees to the render layer by using a perspective camera, opposite as getting a terrain obj; orthographic freaked it out. The higher the detail (I did .6) the better, the lower the more choppy, ugly looking. Also dimensions seem to make a difference. The trees don't come in with materials or anything alpha'd, but totally solid. That's okay for my purpose as I'm only looking for a general shadow on people walking by. And I only needed a strip, not all the foliage so I changed the dimensions. Size was tolerable 158MB.

[bobbystahr]

cool solution

[Oshyan]

Yep, if you turn off Ray Trace Objects and render with a single thread at reasonably high detail, you can get out object/plant/tree geometry. It's not perfect, but it works for some cases, like this. Glad you figured it out and it worked for you.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

I was able to export my trees to the render layer by using a perspective camera, opposite as getting a terrain obj; orthographic freaked it out. The higher the detail (I did .6) the better, the lower the more choppy, ugly looking. Also dimensions seem to make a difference. The trees don't come in with materials or anything alpha'd, but totally solid. That's okay for my purpose as I'm only looking for a general shadow on people walking by. And I only needed a strip, not all the foliage so I changed the dimensions. Size was tolerable 158MB.

Well colour me impressed
and now I understand what you meant by "throwing some shade" lol
well done