Populations and Single Object Issues

[choronr]

This describes two problems with adding plants to an image:

First, when adding populations after setting heights and slopes, the plants do not follow the settings. Example; height and/or slope settings are set for minimum so as to have plants appear only on the almost flat foreground and in the flat distance. But, the plants will go all the way up to the top of mountains. Several combinations were tried with no satisfactory results.

Secondly, there definitely is a problem with the Preview Window vs. the Render Window. When placing a plant object (tree) in the bottom, lower corner of the preview window I am surprised to see it above the bottom in the render window one the image is rendered. The Preview Window and the Render Window do not match. The Preview Window does not seem to display the actual bottom of the scene as appears in the Render Window.
One of the weakest points of TG2 appears to be working with .tgo and .obj items that I wish could be fixed. It takes many hours of cropped renders only to find that you wind up scrapping your ideas.

The image I'm working on is a loaded heightfield (a 4097 DEM file I used in Terragen 0.09 called Moonlight Peak CA).

[Oshyan]

Without seeing at least a screenshot and rendered image, if not a .tgd, it's virtually impossible to tell why this is happening. But I must note the fact that you have reported issues like this in the past and as best I recall they have all been resolved through adjustments to your technique and proper use of settings, and have not been found to be bugs. Please post some more detail and we can determine whether this is really a bug and resolve it if so.

- Oshyan

[choronr]

Thanks for getting back Oshyan. I had decided to place individual objects (the same plant rotated and in groups) exactly where I wanted them instead of using the populator. Its more work, but the results are more gratifying without negative surprises. As for the difference between preview window and render window, I had decided to place a tree further up and a bit further away from the right edge to get away from the problem. The picture balance didn't suffer much by making this move.

I will have to re-create this problem for you and provide a screen shot. What would happen when I spotted the tree bounding box at the very lower right-hand corner, the render would display that the bottom of the trunk was still above the corner. It was then that I realized that the two screens (preview and render) were not the same. The preview screen was not showing the actual bottom of the scene. I have noted this on other occasions. You may want to try this in a simple experiment and see if you get the same results.

[Oshyan]

I have not been able to duplicate this issue yet, but I will work with you to troubleshoot it in email. I suspect however that it may simply be due to the lack of wireframe causing difficulty in perceiving the real boundary of objects. If only the object position appears different, this is the likely cause.

- Oshyan

[choronr]

Thanks Oshyan. As mentioned in the e-mail, I replaced the bush model with another and were able to do some cropped renders without the Runtime error. Then, I did about a 60% cropped render so I could see that all the plants (one population and nine single objects - actually three different models used) and got another error reading 'Trace ray...'. So, I went into the render section and unchecked 'Do ray traced shadows'. Unfortunately, after another cropped render, none of the single plant nor the populated plants have shadows.

I re-checked the render section and did another render; this time, I got a error message reading: 'An unknown error has occured in the render thread'. I'll send you a screen shot in another e-mail.

[choronr]

Oshyan,

I deactivated four (all same model of lightning's groundcover) of the 7 foreground models and was able to render a cropped section of the image without incident. Your suggestion about a model's wireframe is probably right. I will try using another plant and see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

            Bob

[Oshyan]

Hi Bob,

I'm getting your emails but have not yet been able to investigate and reply. I will get back to you via email ASAP.

- Oshyan

[choronr]

Thanks Oshyan, sounds good.

[choronr]

Hi Oshyan,

I finally tried another plant model; also went back to the one that perhaps causing the problem. The results were the same; Runtime error and Terragen 2 error notification errors. Strangely, when I tried to expand the error message, it went 'black'. Basically, it said something about the 'sub-division cache' including what one might do to correct the situation. Unfortunately, as I tried to expand the message, it went black.

I am thinking that maybe I should increase the sub-division cache; it is now at 400. Perhaps I should increase it??

Below is a cropped render where all plants rendered after I disabled three plants in the foreground. Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

            Bob