Single Object Placement

[choronr]

I am finding single object placement (not populations) almost impossible. Are there any good tutorials to be found on this subject?

[Tangled-Universe]

Basically it's quite simple:

Open your render camera node and keep it open or write down its coordinates.
Import your model of interest and go to the object node.
In the translate field you enter the same values as your camera's coordinates. Now your camera is right in the middle of your model.

Move your camera carefully backwards using the mouse and key controls. The boundary box of the model should show up (check if it's activated "show b-box in preview").
Double click on the cross at the base of your model, you'll now see 3 axes in green, blue and red and the b-box's lines also turns yellow.
Click on the X or Z axis and move it a but further away from the camera.

Now click on "view camera" under your preview window to restore your original p.o.v.
You now also have your model in your preview window and from there on you can finetune its positioning.

It looks like a lot of actions but in facts its really easy and only takes about 10 or 15 seconds.
If you have any troubles, you know where to find me

Martin

[Tangled-Universe]

Another simple method I forgot to tell is that you can also use the mouse pointer in the preview mode to determine the desired coordinates for your model. You should move a little bit around the area to check if the coordinates are consistent, since it is not really that accurate.

Martin

[choronr]

Hello Martin,

Thanks for your reply. I have tried the first method you describe and it works fine except that when I click on the 'view camera' to get back to the original POV, the bounding box for the object disappears. I also tried the second method but so far the bounding box does not show up.

[sonshine777]

Another thing you could try is to get your camera set near the ground looking in the direction the final scene will be looking. And add a sphere, the sphere will always be placed in front of the camera (at least for me it does).

Move the sphere to where you want your object to be and write the coordinates for the sphere and apply them to your model object, then disable or delete the sphere.

There are some benefits to using the sphere:
        1) You can scale it to a known size
        2) The shape is visible, not just a bounding box.

The one thing to remember is that the origin of the sphere is it's center not the base as is the case of most models.

[joshbakr]

sonshine777 That's a very good suggestion, TY!

[sonshine777]

sonshine777 That's a very good suggestion, TY!

No Problem, I stumbled onto it by accident, I wanted to use a sphere for scale comparison of a model that I already had in TG2. When I added it it popped up right in front of my camera instead of 0,0,0 like models do. So I just took it from there, it seems to work fairly well.

[Tangled-Universe]

Indeed a good suggestion I didn't think of myself
This might even be easier.

[choronr]

Thanks to all of you; your advice will be used in the future scenes I will produce. However, I've given up on the project I'm working on; nothing seems to work getting a single tree object to show up.

[gregsandor]

When I have a building to place on the terrain, or a single tree, I create an obj population, with the area x and y set to 1 and the density at 1.  Since it is plugged into the compute terrain node it is automatically located on the terrain, so its just a matter of moving it in the horizontal plane to place it properly.

[normhol]

Another thing you could try is to get your camera set near the ground looking in the direction the final scene will be looking. And add a sphere, the sphere will always be placed in front of the camera (at least for me it does).

Move the sphere to where you want your object to be and write the coordinates for the sphere and apply them to your model object, then disable or delete the sphere.

There are some benefits to using the sphere:
        1) You can scale it to a known size
        2) The shape is visible, not just a bounding box.

The one thing to remember is that the origin of the sphere is it's center not the base as is the case of most models.

What is and how do you add a sphere?

[bigben]

Go to the objects tab and add an object... select sphere from the list

[sonshine777]

Thanks Ben

[dandelO]

I made a quick guide on single object placement a few months back.
The trick is to view the area you want the object on, let the preview render a bit then, pause.
With the scene paused the window won't refresh with each movement you make and you can move your object around on this paused preview.
You can even go beneath the terrain to check the underside of the bounding box is at a suitable level above and below.

Here's a link to it... http://rockyknuckles.googlepages.com/terragen2help