Restricting object populations to specific areas

Started by dannyboy, November 23, 2013, 12:50:59 PM

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dannyboy

Hi all

Occasional and pretty novice TG2 user here - over the years I've had several false starts at trying to get my head around the complexities of TG2, compared to TG1.

At the moment I'm having a concerted push to try and at least master the basics once and for all, so have been watching Neus Padrin's youtube tutorials which have been really helpful.

I started out by following his tutorial vids exactly, but as I've got a little more confident it's gradually morphed into my own scene. I know it's nothing special, but it's good practice for me. But one part I'm struggling with is adding a grass population (from Walli's plant pack). I'd like it to cover the green areas of the hillside, but can't find an easy way to do that as there are no altitude/slope constraints for objects, that I can see anyway. Alternatively, there doesn't seem to be a way to limit the grass population only to my green-shaded areas.

I know there are the area centre and area length a/b values you can set for the population, but these produce a very tightly defined rectangular area which doesn't really look natural when I add it. Any tips you guys can offer would be really appreciated :)

thanks
Danny





dannyboy

Thanks, that would clearly be a good place to start.

I see that TG3 offers more manual control over positioning of populations, but it sounds like the Distribution Shader might do what I want.

Oshyan

Definitely get TG3 if you're still using the free version of TG2. The basic interface is largely the same, but it's faster and easier to work with, and has some nice new features.

There are some other useful starting resources too. You can check out Geekatplay's new video series: http://www.geekatplay.com/dt3.php
Or CGScenery's introduction to TG2 (still applicable to TG3): http://www.cgscenery.com/basic/

Keep practicing, you're on the right track!

- Oshyan

dannyboy

Thanks for the links Oshyan, will check them out :)