xFrog Plants Billboards in wrong format?

Started by jlenker, July 07, 2009, 06:30:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

jlenker

I have T2 with xFrog plants. The Billboard workshop tutorial states that the billboards that we are to import should be through population/tgo reader. The problem is that within the billboards folders for all the xFrog plants, all the billboards are in TIFF format. When I try to import one of these I get an error. Did planetside send the wrong data with my install disk? Any help would be appreciated.

jo

Hi,

I'm not sure what the story is with billboard objects. You're right that Walli is using billboard TGO models in his tutorial, but I'm not sure where they've come from. You won't be able to import the TIFF billboard images into a populator, as you've found.

In any case, it is important to point out that TG2 - Xfrog plants bundles are bundles with products from Planetside and Xfrog. Xfrog is responsible for all the plant related content, so questions related to the plant content are best addressed to them. That's not so say we won't help if we can, of course.

Regards,

Jo 

Walli

I don´t know the details about content of the bundle dvd and so on, as I don´t have to do with business. But with the billboards nothing is wrong. Like with all other libraries for all other applications, you get the models (3d object) and as add on billboard images - the tif files. Those you can put on plane objects for example.

The tgo´s you can see in the tutorial where part of an earlier sampler or something the like, as far as i can remember. Its plane objects with bitmap applied and saved as TGO. It could well be that the billboard objects have been brought as obj to Terragen at this time. I am not sure if the built in plane object will work for that kind of job, thats something Jo knows better.

best,
Walli

rcallicotte

Somewhere on this site, a few people created TGDs and TGCs so you can use billboards.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

jlenker

thanks for the advice. I guess the story is that since TGO files use instances in T2, there is no need to use billboards any more. They're going to be taking that workshop down.

rcallicotte

Billboards still save some rendering time for massive populations in the distance.  Not much good for animation, I'm guessing.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Walli

Billboards have been valuable before instancing and in some cases still might be. And as they also burden the renderers with alpha planes, they also can take a while to calculate.
Since instancing gets more and more common, I usually don´t need billboards any more.

robk

#7
I have also bought the xfrog TG2 bundle and was confused by the billboard tutorial.  As mentioned previously we also didn't get any TGO billboard files with the bundle.  Why even included the tutorial if the TGO billboards did not ship with the bundle.  Reading the rest of the comments most are saying they don't use billboards anymore.  Is this due to using 3d xfrog tree objects instead don't slow the system down?
Someone else says use a plane instead.  How about a tutorial using planes as the billboards with the billboard tiff's from the xfrog bundle being used since that looks like the way it will have to done.  I don't see anything under the plane object that lets you load a Tiff onto it to use it as a billboard either.  

Is the bundle we purchased the same bundle that was shipped out in 2009 and no one has addressed the issues such as deleting non relevant tutorials from the Xfrog TG2 bundle?
Had to wonder when the tutorial was in SWF format. (very old school)
If so I am not impressed.

Walli

I don´t have the discs here and don´t know what is included and what utorials ship with them. The only billboard tutorials I can remember where for Vue - is there one for TG also?