Populate only to cropped area

[choronr]

In testing multiple changes to an object population, it would be helpful to have the ability to 'Populate only to a cropped area'. If this is possible, I would like to add this ability to the next Terragen update.

This could be a time saver rather than having to wait for the an entire area to add all of its instances.

[mhaze]

Crop to camera plus simple shape and PFs?

[choronr]

Thanks Mick. I'm already clipped to camera. I guess what I'm saying is that with the present tools, the populator creates all instances for the area one sets up. Now, if one wants to just do a small crop of a specific area to test and see if the object spacing is ideal; or, if maybe that spacing needs to be shorter. Currently, by doing this small test cropping, the populator creates all instances. What I'm saying is I would like it to create only the instances within the cropped area without having to add any additional nodes to the setup. 

[Dune]

It's a good idea, I think, but you can test spacing by testing a very small pop size, then if good, make it the final size.

[choronr]

It's a good idea, I think, but you can test spacing by testing a very small pop size, then if good, make it the final size.

Thanks Ulco. The reason I've made this request is that when I run the test, the populator runs for almost an hour before finishing ...this is inordinately long!

[bigben]

I know you didn't want to add nodes, but here's a simple image map I use for cropping surfaces within a render... projected through the camera. Size and position are adjustable

[choronr]

I know you didn't want to add nodes, but here's a simple image map I use for cropping surfaces within a render... projected through the camera. Size and position are adjustable

Thanks Ben, I'll give this a try. My spacing was at 0.7 for a pop of grass clumps. When I reduced the spacing to 0.5, the pop time went up to almost an hour. From what I'm seeing, the pop may look best at 0.3 ...can't imagine how long the pop would run for this spacing.

[bigben]

It's only a single node so it's nice and simple., 2 x 2px image.
Hooked up in the screengrab to the population density PF and a surface preview

[choronr]

Thank you very much Ben, this is very helpful.

[Dune]

The compute normal you are using, Bob, takes extra time too, so if it's for spacing testing only, you might want to disable that temporarily.

[choronr]

Thanks Ulco for the tip. Hopefully Planetside might consider adding a setting so one could test as I described earlier.

[Oshyan]

That's an incredibly long population time now that things are multithreaded. Perhaps your population is larger than it needs to be, at least at that density (you could use additional populations further away with lower density).

As you may have realized when using Clip to Camera, the population system still needs to *check* outside the camera to see if a potential instance falls there (and thus should not be added to the population). The reality is that the rectangular boundary of a populator is currently the only thing that defines the "area of consideration", and thus your population times are always directly linked to the size of this area. That's a fundamental limitation to the way the populator currently works, so while what you're proposing is not a bad idea, it would require a more fundamental overhaul in the way the populator works. We do hope to improve this kind of thing *overall*, which I think would help in your situation and many others.

- Oshyan

[bigben]

Yes, forgot about that... been a while since I worked with populations.  May be easier to use a small dummy population within the fov to test spacing

[Oshyan]

Yes, if it were me I'd just make a copy of the population, resize it to be small (around the size of my crop area), then copy the coordinates right in front of the camera and center it there. Voila!

- Oshyan

[mhaze]

Thanks for those tips, very useful - if I have a big pop I usually just cache it.