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Vue F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Dec 30 8:14 pm)



Subject: Can Vue assign a variety of masks through a color bitmap?


Paloth ( ) posted Wed, 08 July 2009 at 1:43 AM · edited Mon, 20 January 2025 at 3:54 PM

I’d like to be able to use one bit map with separate colors defining many different ecosystem areas instead of loading black and white mask maps over and over again until all areas of my city are represented. It would save a lot of memory if this were possible. Is it?  

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Rutra ( ) posted Wed, 08 July 2009 at 2:03 AM

I never tried it myself exactly like this but theoretically I think this should work:

a) draw your bitmap with a different level of grey for each type of object in the ecosystem. For example, object A corresponds to RGB 0,0,0, object B corresponds to RGB 20,20,20, object C corresponds to RGB 40,40,40, etc, until you reach RGB 255,255,255. You should cover the entire spectrum and you should equally space the different levels of grey.

b) in the ecosystem settings, General tab, load your objects in the same order as the levels of grey. In my example, load A, then B, then C.

c) still in the same tab, click on the little ligthning in the Distribution section. You'll go to the function editor. Attach a projected texture map node to the distribution node and load your previously created bitmap.

d) click ok. The objects in the list of ecosystem population should now have a range of numbers, corresponding to the range where they'll populate.

e) click Populate and see what happens... If it doesn't work, try fiddling with the levels of grey and the spacing between them. You may want to start with just 2 or 3 levels, to test the concept.

f) oh, very important: in the density tab, increase the sampling quality a lot. Depending on the relative size between the areas and the objects, you may have to increase it way above 100% (don't be afraid of numbers like 1000%). Populate will become slower, of course.


Paloth ( ) posted Wed, 08 July 2009 at 11:08 AM

Thanks, Rutra. I will test the concept soon. 

Do you think that the shades of gray would allow for the placement of various materials as well as ecosystems associated with the materials? Your example focused on assigning individual objects in an ecosystem to the shades of gray, which is useful, but a little different from what I was after. 

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offrench ( ) posted Wed, 08 July 2009 at 11:25 AM

Rutra, your explanations have just made me understand something I have seen a while ago on the graphique 3d website.

Check out the scenes/Silent Spring page.

The author used a bitmap with multiple shades of gray to control a complex ecosystem.


Fantasy pictures, free 3d models, 3d tutorials and seamless textures on Virtual Lands.


Rutra ( ) posted Wed, 08 July 2009 at 1:04 PM

file_434381.jpg

Paloth, in your initial post you mentioned "ecosystem areas". I assumed you just meant different ecosystem **objects** in each area, not different materials. But with your 2nd post, I understand now that you want the two things at the same time: different materials **and** different objects in each area. Right?

For the different materials, I guess you could use the gray scale bitmap to drive the mix in mixed materials and use cutoff filters to select one individual shade of gray at each given mix. See in annex. The bitmap has 3 gray levels: (0,0,0), (127,127,127), (255,255,255). The cutoff filter isolates the intermediate level, filtering out the remaining ones. You can see in the preview that the mix acts only on the gray level, not on the black nor on the white.
You could make several mixes, each time with a different cutoff filter but always the same bitmap as mix source.

For the ecosystems, you now have two choices: either you associate a different ecosystem with each new mixed material or you use the same technique that I explained before, applied to the base material. The two techniques should lead to the same result. Again, I'm just theorizing, I didn't test this in practice.

offrench, thanks for that link, I don't remember ever seeing that site, although many of those images are very familiar, from other sites. Great stuff !... Yes, my proposal seems very similar to his method, from what I could understand.


offrench ( ) posted Thu, 09 July 2009 at 5:07 AM

Czarnyrobert has a Renderosity account, with closeups of his scenes and variants. Also, the images are in larger size.


Fantasy pictures, free 3d models, 3d tutorials and seamless textures on Virtual Lands.


Paloth ( ) posted Fri, 24 July 2009 at 5:47 AM

I've spent some time experimenting tonight. It seems that I hit a limit at 3 shades of gray for the placement of ecosystem objects. (By the way, thanks Rutra for the explanation about the cutoff filters. I'll see what I can do with that.) 

Does anyone know if you can alter the orientation of ecosystem elements with a bitmap so you can determine which direction houses face, for instance? 

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Rutra ( ) posted Fri, 24 July 2009 at 5:55 AM

Quote - "It seems that I hit a limit at 3 shades of gray for the placement of ecosystem objects."

That seems too low. Did you increase the sampling quality like I suggested before? Which number did you use?


Rutra ( ) posted Fri, 24 July 2009 at 5:58 AM

Quote - "Does anyone know if you can alter the orientation of ecosystem elements with a bitmap so you can determine which direction houses face, for instance?"

That has been discussed more than once in this forum. As far as I remember, there was never a satisfactory answer (i.e, a fully automatic method). I don't know the answer. Maybe eonite and ArtPearl will come to your rescue here as they seem to have mastered the mathematics behind the function editor (see other recent threads). :-)


Paloth ( ) posted Fri, 24 July 2009 at 6:45 AM · edited Fri, 24 July 2009 at 6:46 AM

*Did you increase the sampling quality like I suggested before?
*Now I have. (I'm not sure how I overlooked that part of the directions before) Sampling quality is now at 200000 and I've managed to get five ecosystem elements to appear in rows.

This is good enough. Thanks again. 

 

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ArtPearl ( ) posted Fri, 24 July 2009 at 11:37 AM

Quote - Quote - "Does anyone know if you can alter the orientation of ecosystem elements with a bitmap so you can determine which direction houses face, for instance?"

That has been discussed more than once in this forum. As far as I remember, there was never a satisfactory answer (i.e, a fully automatic method). I don't know the answer. Maybe eonite and ArtPearl will come to your rescue here as they seem to have mastered the mathematics behind the function editor (see other recent threads). :-)

Coming from you, Artur, that is quite a  compliment! Hurray! I made it - with a few quantum leaps thanks to some helpful guys/girls on the net, I can do a thing or two in vue:)
Or are you throwing down the gauntlet? I cant speak for eonite, but from my point of view you may be a gauntlet short for quite awhile:) I keep thinking about this problem from time to time and havent found a solution yet. Although in this case, with roads in parallel/perpendicular arrangement, there must be something...I'll think again this weekend, but dont hold your breath!

"I paint that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence."
Man Ray, modernist painter
http://artpearl.redbubble.com/


Paloth ( ) posted Sat, 25 July 2009 at 12:57 PM

You can assign an ecosystem element to each shade of gray, but suppose you want one shade clear? I want my roads to be clear of huts. I'm experimenting, just using black for the hut zone and white for the roads and concrete. The first object loaded in the ecosystem is assigned to the darkest gray. The second is assigned to the next shade up. In this case, I loaded and deleted an object for the roads and then populated the ecosystem, but huts are intruding on the roads. 

Maybe it's the sampling level. I'll raise it and see if things improve. 

Am I on the right track with my attempt to clear a gray zone of all ecosystem elements?

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Paloth ( ) posted Sat, 25 July 2009 at 1:44 PM

file_435282.jpg

The gray zones only work for the distribution of objects if an object is loaded for each gray shade. Maybe I’ll make a low poly transparent object for the road. Making an ecosystem element really small works too, as in this image, though at a greater cost to memory.  I could work with this, but I wonder if there's a better way. 

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Rutra ( ) posted Sat, 25 July 2009 at 2:56 PM

I would try with a transparent object, it seems like a good idea.

With such a complex configuration and such precise placement necessary, you'll need a huge sampling quality...


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