I know the top view is used for painting ecosystems, but I'd like to paint ivy on walls. Could I do this in the top view if I turned the building sideways, I wonder? (just thought of that) How do people generally do the wall-climbing plants?

Ivy generator, it's a neat little proggie ;)
Easiest way by far for great ivy.

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/9.html
neat little cheat I found to do this, but, soon as you edit it, bam, they reset to normal Vue angles.

Ivy generator, it's a neat little proggie ;) I agree, but it's a memory hog. I'd like to do this with Solid Growth, even though I have 8 gigs of RAM. I'll check the link in a while. Gota run. Thanks.

Just lay the wall down flat then use the top view to paint over it, then tip the wall up the right way.

HTH

Jon

I haven’t used the flat wall before, but have populated many 45 to 60 degree slops of mountains or hills by tilting the terrain or object.  Unfortunately, getting the item back to its original position, in exactly the same place, does make for a challenge.  You will want to write down the Location Coordinates of X,Y,Z, before you start.

 

I find it easier to make a copy of the object, move it away, populate it and then turn the base material transparent.  Then I can select the original material and the secondary material and align them to the correct X,Y,Z, coordinates to match it all up.  This will also work for multiple objects that must all be aligned to the first. 

You could also create a flat cube or other shaped object make it transparent, populate it and then align it with the Wall, much easier all around.

 

Another method is to create the Ivy separate and then align it to the wall.  I take one of the basic dead trees and turn it into a very long thin branching vine and then I can populate that item with leaves and add it to a wall. 

 

I am on my other computer now, as the other is rendering so cannot give you an example. 

I played around with Ivy Generator to create the vines in my submission to the monthly Vue contest here, and found it works pretty well, but doesn't import as scaled when its created. (Had to fiddle to get the exact placement.) Created four ivy plants in all, and that's only on a 1GB macbook pro! Way back in my Bryce days I did get reasonable results by creating a tree and 'squishing' it into almost a 2 dimensional object and placing it against the wall. Should work in Vue as well, so long as its not a closeup. I've also created a material similiar to the Silverblade33 Dirt Map tutorial. The background wall in [ this picture](http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1386106&member) shows a little of  it above and to the right of the dancer on the right. The attached image shows part of a WIP with this same material. It's also possible to show this with flowers of any color too, with as many, or as few flowers. I would post it as a freebie, but some of the materials used are not open to distribution. (Such as the stone in the picture)

Here is an interesting bit of information about CopyPast versus Duplicate from the Vue Manual.

 

In the Options and Preferences Dialog under the attribute named Object Options is the following:  (my paraphrase)

 

Offset duplicate objects:  when you duplicate objects, the copy of the objects are offset by one nudge unit in each direction of the X,Y,Z axis. You can disable this feature by unchecking the box. As a result, duplicated objects will be in the exact location of the original object for precise alignment.

ATC,  If you ever fall asleep at the keyboard, do you have any idea what is going to happen?!?

I’m having a hard time figuring out how to get ecosystems to stick to objects. I can paint objects in the top view. Things start to look promising, but when I rotate, the ecosystem remains suspended in space. So I thought that maybe an ecosystem only remains tied to terrain. I created a flat terrain and put my object on top. Then I rotated them for painting in the top view. When I rotated the terain back, the ecosystem still didn't stick.

Yes, I know what you are talking about.  I cannot paint on an eco, just populate an eco because I have Esprit, but I have had the same trouble from time to time.  I do not know what causes it.  I usually clear, save, and then repopulate, highlight the terrain in the world browser, move the eco and it has usually gone away. 

 

I assume in my case it has something to do with resources and Vue not writing to or reading the temp files correctly.

Maybe if I just reboot and try again things will work.

Let's hope, but if not, you should let e-On know just in case it is becoming a problem for more than a few of us.

No luck. Has anyone out there every sucessfully rotated a terain along with a painted ecosystem?

There are two ways to paint ecosystems.  If you use the top tool bar icon and start painting, the objects are not "stuck" to the object they are painted on.  This can be good or bad depending on what you want to do... 

To make ecosystems stick, use the material editor and use the paint button there.  Now you can rotate, paint, rotate and the ecosystem will stay were painted.

To make ecosystems stick, use the material editor and use the paint button there. Now you can rotate, paint, rotate and the ecosystem will stay were painted. Thanks for that. I'm relieved to hear it.

Thats the way I did it, selected it from the material editor and painted from that, works fine.

Jon