Distribution Tool Problem

[wodan944]

Hi,

Got a weird problem when I using the Distributor Tool in 3dsMax.
I followed the Tutorial from Andy about using this Tool, but somehow it won't work for me.
I made a Island mesh in Bryce, saved it as 3ds format, imported it in 3dsmax, textured etc.etc. and when I tryed to populated it with certain simple test objects, let's say a cube and I pressed the "Go"button from the Cluster compound, nothing happening.
Then I made a simple Plane in the same scene and used the Tools and then everything works fine for me.
When I tryed it again on the mesh, ...nothing!
Maybe its not functionating because of the Vertex Painting what i did on the Mesh? I've tryed everything and now iám stuck.
Can someone help me?

[andylegate]

I recently ran into a problem with the Dristribution Tool myself, where the object that I needed to be distributed, was not doing so correctly, in that I was only getting 2 or 3 of them on my ground.

Turns out the problem was the object itself, not the ground (IE Vertex Painting will not stop the tool from working).

The object was a rock I had imported from one of my other Ages. Even though I had made it a editable mesh, the Distributor Tool just did not like it. I found that if I just made a box and used it, the box would be distributed over the surface just fine.

I ended up selecting the rock that I had imported, when to Create Object tab, and to Compound Objects. I selected Morph, and in the roll out where the Pick Object button is, I clicked on it, and selected the same rock.

I then went to the Modifiers Tab, and just right clicked in the 3D view and converted the rock back to an Editable Mesh again.

Went back and used the Distribution Tool, and the rock was distribuited just fine all over the surface.

There may be other ways to get the Distribution Tool to like your imported object, but this was what I did, and only took a few clicks and a couple of minutes.

It may be that your surface is suffering from this too (you did say you imported it). Try doing what I did with my rock, to your surface and see what happens.

[wodan944]

Thanks Andy for the tip, I will try that, maybe it works for me as well.

[andylegate]

Couple of other tips for you:

Altitude Control: Becarful with this, as it can make nothing appear on your terrain.

Try to also use the Distributor tool on smaller terrains. If you take a look at the terrain in the Cleft or say like Er'cana, the ground is broken up into many, many smaller meshes. Much easier to do things with it like that, also, if left really big, with a lot of faces, when you use the Distributor tool, when it goes to optimize, you can run out of memory (4 gb on my machine, and I've done it).

[wodan944]

@Andy
Well, I did what you said, Andy, but with no results.
I even cut my Island in pieces to see if it works on one piece, but no results. It seems that I have to put my objects manually on my Island.
This is one of 3dsMax mysteries I think.

[rustee]

The scene attached to the post increases the probability of a helpful advice by 87%.

[andylegate]

rustee is correct that many times it helps to solve a problem if we can actually view the max file. If you do not want to post the entire max file, you can do this:

Select the terrain that you are trying to distribute on, and the object you are trying to distribute so they are both selected. Then go up to the menu bar and click on Plasma > Save Selected and create a new max file. Only these 2 objects will be in it, and it will include their Plasma Components that are assigned to them (do not go up and click on File > Save Selected. If you do, the Plasma Components will not be saved).

Then make a zip file and put the max file in it, and include the textures for these 2 objects. Then post it here, and we can take a look at it for you. This helps as there are many times you may forget to mention something, or we may forget to tell you something, but by looking at your file, we an address the problem directly.