I'm not sure why you say they're a pain to get into. The web has hundreds of pages dedicated to them, as a Google search will reveal. Also, there are newsgroups like alt.binaries.pictures.stereo in which you can ask questions directly to stereo photographers and cgi artists.

Perhaps a better way to drum up interest is to post images to the gallery. Random OT messages to a Vue forum probably won't do much good.

Message edited on: 12/22/2004 01:08

I'm using the build that came on my cd, 5.01-02, build 272590, and I never get a OOM message. Right now I have a scene open that's over 105 million polys. I can rotate, move, scale 4096x4096 terrains in the scene, even select and rotate the whole scene, and mem usage will momentarily spike to 100%, but no message, and usage quickly goes back down.

WinXP pro SR 1
1 gig Ram
3.2 P4
100+ gig HD space available

Debby, maybe you should try the new "cancel last update" feature, see if that helps. I remember seeing (on e-on's website?)that there's a problem on Macs with 2 gigs of memory. Perhaps it's a problem on the PC, too?

steve (kongorilla)

When I hit space bar, the dialog box disappears. It won't work, however, until the render has finished it's first pass (and maybe 1/4 of the second). Similarly, getting the dialog back by hitting space bar requires some additional time.

steve (kongorilla)

The address under "Free software+modelers" in the Backroom is correct. No need to update that link.

Wabe, did you find a different link hiding in there somewhere?

-steve (kongorilla)

Attached Link: http://grass3d.com/

steve (kongorilla)

Thanks again for the input, everybody. The way things are going for me (all work, no play) I might be able to wait until Vue 5 Pro. But with e-on, who knows when that will be. They do work in mysterious ways.

steve (kongorilla)

Making rolling hills is an instance I wouldn't use a height-map, because I can see the results real-time using the editor, and you don't get the banding, which is most obvious on a smooth hillside.

One handy thing you didn't cover in your tutorial is using the "copy" and "paste" buttons to get your vue terrain in and out of a paint program (to run filers on, or paint by hand, etc). You get the best of both techniques that way.

steve (kongorilla)

Thanks for the very detailed tutorial! It was obviously a lot of work. And thanks for all the included pics, I had fun applying them all.

Here's some observations/questions, listed by tutorial section:

Introduction: Why do you say drawing simple round hills isn't easy? It's one of the easiest things to do in the editor, so I'm perplexed by that statement. In the paint tab/"Brush settings", check "Airbrush style", make the brush size maximum, "softness" approx 50% (middle of slider), and "flow" whatever you like (I prefer around 50%). If you paint on a reset (flat) terrain, you will get round hills without effort. If you don't, there's something wrong with your setup.

1.2 The slope that say would be "impossible" to do in the editor alone is actually fairly easy with the proper brush settings. To make sure I wasn't crazy, I did a successful test in less than 2 minutes. It had some irregularities, but those could've been worked out with a few more minutes work. If I wanted a PERFECTLY smooth slope, I agree a height map is a much easier way. But I'm concerned that if you think a slope is impossible to do in the editor, you haven't played with brush settings enough, or there's something wrong with your setup.

1.3 Regarding the black/white vs. shades of grey gradients: When Vue uses your bitmap, it "equalizes" the output. That's why the two different bitmaps result in the same slope. You should notice that the preview of the grey/grey gradient is already equalized, showing a full range of black to white. The reason the grey/grey terrain is bumpier is because you're using a smaller range of values (of the potential 256 values in an 8-bit greyscale) to represent the same altitude changes. The "banding" you mention is the result of using only 256 values, which really isn't enough. Someday we'll use 16-bit images (and have larger hard drives, hopefully) and that problem will go away. Until then, hit the "diffusive" erosion button tens of times to smooth those out or, as you say, use a texture that hides the banding. BTW, did you know "wedge-2" is sloping in the opposite direction from the others?

1. When you say "don't rotate the terrain", what do mean? Do you mean don't rotate the bitmap? Any other rotating will have no influence on the output. You say "uniformly reducing the height of the terrain is difficult in the editor". One easy technique is to click "filter altitudes", and edit the filter by dragging the right/top keypoint straight downward.

thanks again,
steve (kongorilla)

I can email the material to you if you like. If so, send me an email, and I'll attach it to the reply.

Other than that, the second line in my first reply has most of the ingredients.

Fuzzy materials can be somewhat funky, though. If you scale the object, or get it far away, all of a sudden the fuzzy material goes solid. Even if you put the object back the way it was, it's still solid. That's why I never use this technique to make cloulds, which is too bad.

Lighting can also help or hurt the effect.

steve (kongorilla)

The difference is you sound smarter if you say "quadratic point light". Or more nerdy, depending on your (quadratic) point of view.

But seriously, the intensity of the light cast from a quadratic light falls off more quickly than that from a normal light. So, they're good for lights that you want bright locally, but not effect the overall scene. Notice that the light from the quadratic point light in my pic isn't even reaching the ground even though it's very bright (the shadows are coming from the sun).

steve (kongorilla)

It's many spheres with a fuzzy material. The material has a high ambient and luminous setting, low diffuse and contrast, variable transparency and a slight bump.

There's also a quadratic point light with lens flare that helps the effect a lot.

To make it look better I would add more spheres on the ground, plug some of the holes, and make the spheres nearest the missile more luminous. Perhaps putting some motion blur on the spheres would look good, too.

And I would do some postwork, especially where the spheres intersect too obviously. Actually, I might do the whole effect in post, but that wasn't your question.

steve (kongorilla)

edit the object's material: uncheck "cast shadow" (top right corner of the material editor)

steve (kongorilla)

Okay.

Just so you know, the essential problem is that the .3ds format is much older than Max, so it doesn't support all the features of Max objects. The Max's export filter tries to translate those features into a standard .3ds file, but not all apps like Max's solutions. And .3ds files come from the DOS era, so your files have to be DOS compliant.

So, if you know you're going export using 3ds files, you should make your models .3ds compliant before exporting. That is, made of only polygons, eight character names, no procedural anything, etc.

Sometimes you can break the rules and get away with it, but it's usually easier just to do it the right way.

steve (kongorilla)

Satfj, I don't mean to be rude, but this is the third time you've started this thread.

I've given you my answer twice, in 2 different formats, and the methods I use work for me. No plug-ins needed. It just takes a little preparation before exporting from Max.

You've never said you've tried my advice and it failed, or what part confused you. If you tell me what's confusing you, we can take it from there. Otherwise, I can't help you.

I've gotten countless models, including very complex multi-object scenes, from Max into Vue with no problems at all, apart from Vue not always showing the bump maps correctly (they sometimes bump the wrong direction). So, I don't know why you keep asking this question when you have a working answer.

steve (kongorilla)

Max mirrors objects by giving them a negative scale factor along the particular axis you're mirroring. Other programs might not like that.

The only way I know of getting rid of the negative scaling is to attach the mirrored object to an object that has only positive scale factors. You can then delete the second object if you don't need it, and your mirrored object will keep the positive scales.

steve (kongorilla)