When I place an object into my scene, and then add a population, the population goes where my object is as well, not around it. Is this normal? I thought tg would try to avoid having 2 objects in the same spot when it automatically places them? I know I can use a distribution shader with an image/mask to avoid the area, but I'm not sure how large an area my object takes up.
Any help?
Iain
TG2 does not currently include any kind of object intersection handling. You will have to manually ensure that objects do not overlap for now.
- Oshyan
Would it be in the feb release, or later in 2008?
I'm not sure when such a feature might be implemented, but I can say that it won't make it into the February release.
- Oshyan
I would say that "object intersection handling", or (in plain english) the avoidance of objects colliding and merging is a crucial feature when it comes to building a 3d scene. As long as T2 is unable to handle smart object placement then it falls short (imo) when compared with other 3d scene building applications, such as Vue. Ok, it is probably too late to implement this for the Feb launch; but it should be high in the list of your priorities. Reading between the lines of how you responded, Oshyan, this doesn't appear to be the case.
Ah schmeerlap,
You are very astute /smiles/// Objects and object Populations does seem to be the weak link in tgd2 for me as well, and I wish that objects and placement and texture mapping were much more like Vue in that respect, maybe not all, but Vue is a good example in some ways of the ease it takes to get them around in a scene, and see them, except for flipboards, but hay nothing is perfect yet /winks. Now if that was combined with what tgd2 is now, well it is the most masterful art, Terrain, world building program in the world I think bar none, and I am pretty sure in the next 2 years it will become that with our wish lists in our hands /smiles....And like you I have been working on bringing in objects of all kinds for staging in TGD2 with varying degrees of success. But with all the other great things, bugs, and new and old features, guess it was to much to wish to get with final release, but hay this week I get a much better product as we all do, and I hope the next major update will have those things address more as well.
To me maybe the single most important things that needs doing next as an artists point of view anyway. I would like to see up to 120 textures in a model, sub mapping and maps that take noise and so many other features to texturing to name here, but we all know them. At least it looks like we can have transparent water now and I would suppose be able to have transparent Object or parts there in now which is wonderful and will help tons like have wings on a dragon that have 40% transparent and so on, so I am excited, but sure hope they work on the object menu much more in next update.
I also know not many people are trying to get Models in other then a few of us, and most are still trying to get Trees, grass, rocks and so on to work right. But for those of us that like running the edge, sure hope some updates get done for those of us that need Object Dev, and texturing solutions we hope soon.
Oh any thought of Bones, IK and bringing in Animation information to Characters and object animation info with DSQ's for mesh or IFL for textures in animation features for tgd2? I do not need right now, but before years end of 08 I will if any Dev on that, it would be nice to know as I have seen nothing to that aspect yet in tgd2. Thanks Oshyan you da man. Sorry if I am such a pain bro, but have a need to know. Trying to plan out a huge Project in TGD2 and Models, texturing and so on have me stumped on time lines and or work arounds.
DT
DeathTwister
At the risk of disappointing some of you, I think it's important to be clear about our priorities and focus for TG2 as a product. TG2 is first and foremost a landscape modelling and rendering application. The support of objects is included largely to allow the significant increase in realism and the establishment of scale that comes from the use of natural objects such as rocks and vegetation. Although by its nature it supports arbitrary objects, including houses, vehicles, even human characters, that is admittedly not our primary focus, and although object support will most definitely improve in the future, the focus will remain on the needs of vegetation and other natural object phenomena. You are for example unlikely to ever see a Planetside-developed Poser import system, simply because supporting complex human figures within a landscape scene is not a particular aim of product. In general even the current object support is adequate for the majority of vegetation objects, which seldom include more than 16 textures, although of course object manipulation is still not ideal even for this more limited range of object types.
On the one hand you could say we are overlooking a large part of the market in keeping our focus narrow, because many people do want to include figures and other complex objects in their scenes, and those people will not consider TG2 as seriously. From our perspective, with limited development resources and time, we must necessarily focus on that with which we can most readily and significantly differentiate ourselves from our competitors. TG2 would not be a relevant product at all were it not able to create and render landscapes that exceed the quality or flexibility available in other applications. If Vue or other products were superior in all respects already then I would not expect to see anyone here bothering to use TG2. We believe, like you our existing users and supporters, that the problem of realistic landscape modeling and rendering is not yet solved, and that TG2 offers something unique and valuable in the market. It is due precisely to that more specific focus - on landscape creation and rendering - that TG2 does excel in certain key areas. Broadening our focus would only diminish our ability to stand-out in our real areas of expertise.
You could certainly discuss at length where to "draw the line" on support of other features - object import and rendering, animation, particle systems, simulation (cloth, fluids, etc.) - but ultimately a line must indeed be drawn. In the end Planetside's focus will always be on serving the core needs of the landscape market most effectively, with the aim of producing the most realistic output and, by extension, the most capable (and flexible) system for doing so.
For those of you interested in object support rest assured that our plans do include better object support, including a greater number of textures, etc. However modeling features, and likely even advanced object-based materials editing, will be limited to what - if anything - is valuable for the creation of realistic natural landscapes, and that which cannot be much more effectively accomplished in other programs. In other words, and by way of example, if you can successfully model and texture a figure in another program and then export all material definitions in a format that we can easily read and support in rendering, then we will support the loading and rendering of that object, but not modeling, and to a lesser degree complex material definition.
By definition there are many things that are either very difficult or impossible to support, such as proprietary procedural formats or other proprietary data. This is the main reason we won't be directly supporting Poser any time soon. If a Poser figure can be fully exported, with all material definitions and textures, into a standard object format such as OBJ, then TG2 should fully support accurate rendering of it in the future. The same is true for the object export from any application. We will work to support standard formats and expect other applications to do the same, in the spirit of data exchange and facilitating effective workflows.
For those who feel like this level of support is not enough, I think the answer is simply to work with several applications. While this can be seen as a limitation of TG2, on the other hand it can be looked at as simply using the right tool for the job. Making an application that is "all things to all people" has resulted in enormously complex packages like Maya and Max, which cost many thousands of dollars, and still are still not capable of producing realistic landscape scenes as easily or fully as TG2. It is due to our narrower focus that TG2 can do these things, and at a much lower cost. So if object
manipulation and rendering are of paramount importance to you, work with a program that more fully supports those functions.
For our part we will work to better support data interchange and seamless, easy combination with other applications, so that you can create a landscape in TG2 and a model in Maya, Max, etc. and render them separately but end up with an integrated, seamless image, wether a still or animation. It is a fundamental necessity for TG2 that this be possible and relatively easy as one of our main markets is the effects industry, who you can rest assured do not look to Vue or other landscape-focused products for primary object rendering. The vast majority of effects industry production pipelines that result in a finished frame for a movie or TV program involve several applications working closely together to achieve the best results. Our aim with TG2 is to fit comfortably into such a pipeline and fulfill the landscape rendering needs of professionals and hobbyists alike.
Quote from: DeathTwister on December 30, 2007, 12:34:33 PM
Oh any thought of Bones, IK and bringing in Animation information to Characters and object animation info with DSQ's for mesh or IFL for textures in animation features for tgd2? I do not need right now, but before years end of 08 I will if any Dev on that, it would be nice to know as I have seen nothing to that aspect yet in tgd2. Thanks Oshyan you da man. Sorry if I am such a pain bro, but have a need to know. Trying to plan out a huge Project in TGD2 and Models, texturing and so on have me stumped on time lines and or work arounds.
DT
DeathTwister
I think the answer to this follows from the above discussion. Providing tools for setting up complex object animation, such as Inverse Kinematics, bones, etc. is really outside of the focus of TG2 and is very unlikely to be supported in the future. However import of "baked" animation information from other programs, that can be associated with an imported model for animation, may at some point be supported. Object translation and orientation is much easier to handle for animation and is our current focus, and even though that may be expanded in the future, ultimately any complex animation of an object should really be handled in a more purpose-built application. Compositing that output with TG2 imagery is a workflow we will be improving and better supporting in the future.
- Oshyan
I'm not that disappointed Oshyan. All I want is to be able to place a single object like a house, then place a population around it and not have trees growing inside the house. Unless the house is delapidated in the forest and there should be trees growing through it. All the rest, I completely understand and agree.
Iain
I agree that such functionality would be useful and appropriate, particularly as it also applies to similar more natural systems like mixed species plant environments (e.g. grass grows less in the shade of large trees). Such a thing may already be possible using functions but if not it should be possible in the future at least.
- Oshyan
Oshyan,
Thanks for the above very clear and lengthy explanation. This is the clearest anyone has explained how all of this works and it's very helpful. Seeing TG2 in the correct light will be a great asset.
I'm glad it was helpful Calico. In the end we as a company don't benefit from misleading our potential customers, either intentionally (which of course would never do) or even unintentionally - through omission, etc. Though we might get more purchasers in the short-term if they thought TG2 did something it doesn't do, in the end they would not be happy customers, they would complain and likely want their money back. We would rather have a smaller number of happy customers who know very well what our product is designed for and use it for that purpose, than to have a broader market of less satisfied users who always want us to be advancing in a multitude of non-core areas.
The generalized 3D application market is already too competitive to bother with. The best potential market, which fortunately coincides well with our development interest, is in the details of really high quality landscape and planetary rendering. Virtually any 3D program can create a reasonable approximation of a planet or even a simple landscape scene, but getting a realistic atmosphere, clouds, and fine terrain detail is another matter entirely and even many programs more dedicated to these areas fall short. With our focus on these areas we have the best chance of providing the highest quality solution for these needs on the market.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 30, 2007, 10:17:03 PM
I'm glad it was helpful Calico. In the end we as a company don't benefit from misleading our potential customers, either intentionally (which of course would never do) or even unintentionally - through omission, etc. Though we might get more purchasers in the short-term if they thought TG2 did something it doesn't do, in the end they would not be happy customers, they would complain and likely want their money back. We would rather have a smaller number of happy customers who know very well what our product is designed for and use it for that purpose, than to have a broader market of less satisfied users who always want us to be advancing in a multitude of non-core areas.
The generalized 3D application market is already too competitive to bother with. The best potential market, which fortunately coincides well with our development interest, is in the details of really high quality landscape and planetary rendering. Virtually any 3D program can create a reasonable approximation of a planet or even a simple landscape scene, but getting a realistic atmosphere, clouds, and fine terrain detail is another matter entirely and even many programs more dedicated to these areas fall short. With our focus on these areas we have the best chance of providing the highest quality solution for these needs on the market.
- Oshyan
Has Planetside done or do you as a company plane to do market segmentation analysis to find out what expectations professional users expect from TG2 in both terms of general features and pipeline intergeneration functionality?
If Market Research has been conducted what is the user profile in the Post-production / FX industry segment and more over what has the aforementioned research shown to be that users greatest skill set to be within the production-pipeline to be and more over how will TG2 meet the needs of that individual, in terms of productivity and efficacy for any given assigned task and how would these overflow to the overall team?
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
I think it's safe to assume that having been at Digital Domain (at least), that Planetside knows their market okay.
Or do you know something we don't, CA?
Quote from: calico on December 31, 2007, 08:27:03 AM
I think it's safe to assume that having been at Digital Domain (at least), that Planetside knows their market okay.
Or do you know something we don't, CA?
Just a little curiosity with a touch of user advocacy thrown in for good measure given in-light of the response given to you (The I quoted from), it raised curtain questions that where going to be asked by some one, some where at some point in the future!
If I do not pose these questions now, then who will? Difficult questions have been the most troublesome for those to whom they've been asked since the dawn of recorded history and further more history is re-pleat with occasions where the right question been asked at difficult times, so I shall not shy away form that which must been asked; all pursuant in the end toward truth and the pursuit of excellence out these things comes progress and in the end progress is good for the betterment of the individual, the society in which that individual in an intrinsic part, and the Sprite of Free Enterprise, A Win, Win situation for all concerned.
The first tenant of diplomacy is facilitate not instigate, in an idealized and perfect world there would be a free flow and contra-flow of information however at this time we do not live in that world some information is to be widely known wile others are only known to a select group that is to say its on a need to know basis "People are told what they need to know, when they need to know it, in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time and not before" or as the old chestnut goes "Keep your friends close and your enemy's closer".
In this way then are the basic tenants upon the dogmas of trade and other such secrets are based and as such the information compartmented within would be of great value, but that information is not what is been sort here nor would it be duly provided except by the order of a court of law for certain proceedings, again not the issue here.
As a student of history, a student of human nature and a Terragen user all I have ever wanted is to try and maintain an open discourse that is two way, to ask what may be throat but never voiced and for this I make no apologizes and am not likely to in the foreseeable future, but am not closed to the possibility should it be prudent and logical to do so.
;D
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Quote from: Oshyan on December 30, 2007, 07:30:25 PM
...You are for example unlikely to ever see a Planetside-developed Poser import system, simply because supporting complex human figures within a landscape scene is not a particular aim of product...
...the problem of realistic landscape modeling and rendering is not yet solved, and that TG2 offers something unique and valuable in the market. It is due precisely to that more specific focus - on landscape creation and rendering - that TG2 does excel in certain key areas. Broadening our focus would only diminish our ability to stand-out in our real areas of expertise...
...support standard formats and expect other applications to do the same, in the spirit of data exchange and facilitating effective workflows.
...better support data interchange and seamless, easy combination with other applications, so that you can create a landscape in TG2 and a model in Maya, Max, etc. and render them separately but end up with an integrated, seamless image, wether a still or animation. It is a fundamental necessity for TG2 that this be possible and relatively easy ...
...do not look to Vue or other landscape-focused products for primary object rendering. The vast majority...involve several applications working closely together to achieve the best results. Our aim with TG2 is to fit comfortably into such a pipeline and fulfill the landscape rendering needs of professionals and hobbyists alike.
...Compositing that output with TG2 imagery is a workflow we will be improving and better supporting in the future.
amen and thank you!
have a safe and happy new year
@CA - The only worries I might have are if I see Planetside promise something clearly and not deliver it as we all expected. The two basic problems any developer faces are false expectations from end-users (whether by misunderstanding or the end-user is just not thinking clearly) and meeting the expected requirements. Another sub-issue for a developer is scope creep that is closely associated with false expectations. Scope creep basically represents a constant request flow for changes / new requirements, when the present schedule of requirements hasn't been met yet.
In other words, we could request until the moon turns into blood and it won't help make a better product. Planetside is being very gracious about the constant complaints and new requests, but the reality is that Planetside (according to the above declaration by Oshyan) is interested in a landscape software that excels. If we as end-users can help in this process, and Planetside agrees our ideas are truly assistance, then I guess we're all happy.
@Planetside - I'm available to send you converted retail xFrog trees to make sure these are working as well as possible with TG2. I'm working on the conversion process slowly on my own and am thinking you might want assistance. I realize there are copyright issues, but I believe this issue is safe in your hands. Let me know.
Make a render of your scene, paint on top of it in pure red green and blue to create an RGB mask, extract each RGB channel to make three masks for placement of populations through the camera you rendered from originally. No overlap of populations and you could be very specific about where they go.
Quote from: lonewolf on December 30, 2007, 08:08:17 PM
I'm not that disappointed Oshyan. All I want is to be able to place a single object like a house, then place a population around it and not have trees growing inside the house. Unless the house is delapidated in the forest and there should be trees growing through it. All the rest, I completely understand and agree.
Iain
Iain - this is already easy to accomplish using masks. Simply shoot an orthographic image looking straight down onto the house, then turn it into a B/W mask image. You can even blur the edges so the vegetation will fade out as it gets near the building.
It is also possible to place individual objects using masks and populations. The 'Relay Station' pic I posted a while back used that technique to place poplars along the roadside. That way you can use the 'sit on terrain' function and avoid headaches trying to get object elevation set correctly, and place the objects just where you want them. The mask was just a black bmp with white splotches where I wanted the trees; you then change the object spacing and splotch sizes till you only get one object in each splotch.
Thanks, Oshyan, for taking the time to give us this comprehensive explanation of Planetside's T2 development prioroties. I am concerned with purely natural phenomena that can be found in most landscapes (plants and rocks) and don't like trees growing out of rocks when I don't intend them to. I know the avoidance of unwelcome merging of rocks and trees can be accomplished using masks, but in a complex scene I would not consider this to be "easy".
Quote from: calico on December 31, 2007, 10:07:57 AM
@CA - The only worries I might have are if I see Planetside promise something clearly and not deliver it as we all expected. The two basic problems any developer faces are false expectations from end-users (whether by misunderstanding or the end-user is just not thinking clearly) and meeting the expected requirements. Another sub-issue for a developer is scope creep that is closely associated with false expectations. Scope creep basically represents a constant request flow for changes / new requirements, when the present schedule of requirements hasn't been met yet. Quote
I would never go as far as expecting Planetside or any one else for that matter to get into is to raise expectations then only be be unable to meet them as expected January 1st 2007 is a case in point.
Your point about the end-users is received and understood and that in the end is why I do what I do its the End-Users or as they called them in TRON "The Little People "
Misunderstandings tend to happen when people don't know what to expect and when it appears to them that their voice is lost among all the rest, my personal philosophy on debate (In the classical meaning of the term) is that all opinion are important a no one opinion should be any more or less important than any other a tenant I believe that was enshrined in the forum in Rome, but there other things tended to take precedence such as social standing, family influence and wealth among factors considered in that place and I don't believe in "Times change, but people never do".
In the end then, it is market and other forces as well as end-user demand that all commercial entities must respond this is no more so in the fast moving, rapidly advancing worlds of software and technology in general and the phrase "Do or Die" comes to mind: in the end history will judge weather what is said today is right , wrong or indifference we can only do so much.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel ;D
Well, if it is possible using image masks, wouldn't it be possible to substract 2 masks (either image or fractal) and use the normal version for the placement of one population and the inverted version for the placement of the other? That way, the populations would "avoid" eachother.
Wow what a great responce and thank you so Much Oshyan for getting back to me and setting things strait. Yes I had pretty much figured most of those things out, but as I look at this tgd2 interface it looks to be so very close to being able to actually be able to add more Textures. But I think it is not Textures that are at issues as I have been working with Models in tgd2, but more it seems to only look at 16 parts of a model. If I bring a Dragon in that has 24 parts to it, I can see the model pats in a drop down menu, but have not figured out how to get tgd2 to except what was actually imported in., I sure would like to be on the Beta team on the models aspect dearly I would, hint hint. And not so much a texture problem at all, other then mesh and texture go together. If I make a model I can only make 16 parts for each model at a time.
I love TGD2 and love the effect I can get as it is so much more realistic, and that is exactly why I want my models in tgd2, It is OK if I cannot animate them directly for now, just to be able to do sets would be nice for graphics. And I understand completely all that everyone has said on this posting. It has been most helpful.
QuoteBy definition there are many things that are either very difficult or impossible to support, such as proprietary procedural formats or other proprietary data. This is the main reason we won't be directly supporting Poser any time soon. If a Poser figure can be fully exported, with all material definitions and textures, into a standard object format such as OBJ, then TG2 should fully support accurate rendering of it in the future. The same is true for the object export from any application. We will work to support standard formats and expect other applications to do the same, in the spirit of data exchange and facilitating effective workflows.
Yes that is OK, I have been getting Daz, poser and other .obj objects in for a while now, and my own, just need to be able to bring all the little parts that maker a great model, thus a killer scene into tgd2 is all, and I know it will happen sometime this next year, that ok, just wanted to talk about it as I consider it important as a artist and a landscape artist as well. And houses, ships, people even if they do not move in animation still many have more then 16, well most do really. It would be nice to see a way to do add ons to the model you bring in, like maybe using 3-4 even 5 of those shaders GUi's that are used when importing .obj's? I was trying to string them together, but couldn't get them to, so gave up lol. Anyway thanks for the update brothers all of you and yes was long winded and gave me all I needed, so thanks very very much. I am working on a Scene now for a Space calender contest and having trouble building models that are only 16 meshes, and make it look like they have more, not easy to do sometimes......Work in progress, still have a spaceship import to do and I want a space suited person also in the scene, then maybe win an award using TGD2, will post and let Planet Side get Cudos if I can manage a win lol.
OK I have to go work, but here is a image I am working on that is low Rez, but as you can see the power of tgd2 with models can be so very sweet and photorealistic which in my mind no other software can match. So I hope you guys understand /winks. huge hugs to all and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR my friends.
(http://www.theatomizer.com/Downloads/MarsColony1.jpg)
this is work in progress. I personally think tgd2 can step up to that bar easier then people think, they actually from what I can see as a non programmer it looks like they already almost have it now with a tweak or 2 /winks.
Thanks guys I feel much better.
DT
have a good one guys.
Quote from: Virex on December 31, 2007, 12:15:00 PM
Well, if it is possible using image masks, wouldn't it be possible to substract 2 masks (either image or fractal) and use the normal version for the placement of one population and the inverted version for the placement of the other? That way, the populations would "avoid" eachother.
Exactly. A little imagination and the mask solution can be quite powerful (and easy).
Cyber-Angel, my brain hurts... :P
;)
Matt
Quote from: Matt on January 03, 2008, 11:17:40 PM
Cyber-Angel, my brain hurts... :P
;)
Matt
Never my intention, just expressing a few thoughts I had.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Understood. It's good to test me sometimes :)
DeathTwister -
QuoteI love TGD2 and love the effect I can get as it is so much more realistic, and that is exactly why I want my models in tgd2, It is OK if I cannot animate them directly for now,
Whole heartedly agree with the above. My models are crap but I still want them in a Terragen generated landscape/atmosphere/etc. All I would add that it would take away much pain if Terragen would read a mtl file in the same order that it was created, instead of mixing up the materials/textures. Come to that consistantly read a mtl correctly would be something as well. Not I would have thought a major big deal, but hell what do I know. I do know that I shall wait patiently for the next release and like DeathTwister, keep my fingers crossed for the following release. ;D
HAHAHAHA ROTFL, they will get to our list soon I think, to many of us need those features and soon. And I agree with ya on the .mtl files and the firing order of the mesh/textures. It would also be nice to at least be able to go in and select one of the meshes in that drop down list, bring them into the scene, and then maybe say get one side of a model rendered, but it will not take a different file after you import it in, well it lets you move the texture in, just does not render it instead of the one you tried to replace. Sure wouldn't mind being on the Beta team for this part if the tgd2 Dev, nope sure would not mind helping out a bit right now.
DT
DeathTwister
please see my post in the following link to deal with your dragon
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1255.msg12587#msg12587
Hay Peejay
Thanks I will go check it out. Love workarounds when I can figure them out, ro find what other peeps have figured out. Hope I can make it work /smiles......
OH PS: have one entry and at least one more in rendering now for the NSS 2008 Calender Contest at:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/ (http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/)
and the entries so far are here at:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/gallery.htm (http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/gallery.htm)
I thought I would enter this one and see how TGD2 stakes up to other apps, just wish I had time to get the modeling together more first. So staying simple for the most part and doubt I have time to go through that Tut before the deadline hits, and redo files and the rendering and post before the deadline on the 11th, but hay, maybe we see /smiles........Thanks for the info.
DT