Population area not fixed

[drongo]

Hello,

I have a population of grapevines and want to have it exactly in an area of, for example, 500x500m. All 3 by 1 m one plant of vine.
My problem is: the area seems to be random or there is a placement-factor I don't understand.
Area 500x500m, Object spacing 20x20m, no Spacing variation: Objects fit well in the area.
Area 500x500m, Object spacing 22x22m: the objects grow out of the area.
and so on... always a little bit larger. Up to object spacing of 31x31m. The objects fill an area 1,5 the size of the area they should fill.
With 32x32 they go back to the area and start growing again.
This depends on the area and the object spacing. With a different area size, the spacing numbers are different, too.

Another isue: Object rotating. Also very random. If I have min. rotation of 90° and max rotation of 90°, all objects are rotated by some (the same) degree. If I choose 91° for min and max, all objects are rotated by a totally different degree. But ok, I just use the rotating option of the object itself, not in the population...

Both isues are happening in the old&new win-version and atleast in the old mac version (did not test the new version, yet).

Greetings,
Drongo

[Henry Blewer]

The only way I know to get precise (very close anyway) is to use image maps. They need to be large, but they do not need much color data, black and white works well.

Creating a image of just the area you want the image map to cover is a good idea. Place your camera 90 degrees above the population area. Size the render window size to fit the border square of the population. Adjust the camera up or down as needed.

By using the test color option of the surface layers, you can mask out the other surface layers. I set the other test colors to black and the surface layer I am interested in white. When you render, turn off the atmosphere in the render settings.

This will give you a mask to use in a paint program. An airbrush will paint the places where the population should be. Then use the rendered mask to block out the stray airbrush pixels.

[Tangled-Universe]

That sounds more like a work-around than a solution, but indeed, for the time being that might be an option.
Perhaps there's a bug going here, as I've experienced the same things as well, but didn't had time to investigate it much further. Will do so soon.

[RArcher]

This one has been reported before (Bug #141 for Matt/Jo's reference)

Currently masking out the area, or finding a spacing that sets the population within the 500 x 500 area are a couple work-arounds.

[Oshyan]

As RArcher notes, the "population outside area" issue is a currently known bug that has not yet been addressed. It will be taken care of in a future release. I haven't seen the object rotation issue and we have no bug filed for it. I will try to reproduce it and file a big if I can do so.

- Oshyan

[Dune]

Blend the population by a simple shape shader the same size as the population area might help. Or use a painted shader. As for the rotation; if you want them to have approximately the same orientation, set the angle to 0-10 degrees or something, and rotate the original object the way you want it.

[drongo]

Hi,

the shape shader works fine for me. Thanks!

Greetings,
Drongo

[rosoule]

Hello.

I am looking to model a population of grapevines, lo-res is fine, but I'm am far from a modeler. Are the grapevines proprietary or would you mind sharing them? I may be out of line, but I could give you final approval or credit for any uses.

Thanks in advance

[drongo]

For now, I can give you my first version (.tgo and ngplant). There will be a better one at the end of february. I do this together with my students and am willing to share the results in some kind of model-platform for terragen.
http://rapidshare.com/files/441355879/vine.rar

Greetings,
Drongo

[rosoule]

Excellent,  I'll share some final images although I am a newbie.

[drongo]

I posted the vine model:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=12385