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adeptus minor
10-05-2004, 03:17 PM
Is this plug something like image hose for painter? I was wondering if I can take tree images and paint them on a surface for backgrounds so my renders dont get to heavy. I have XFrog and now DPIT2 but once I start adding trees WOW El slomo. So I am trying to find a alternative route and was looking at surface painter for this. And since I am a landscape architect student I have to find a realistic option
AdamT
10-05-2004, 03:41 PM
Yes, should work fine for that.
adeptus minor
10-05-2004, 03:54 PM
Good I will try it thanks adam
acmepixel
10-05-2004, 09:05 PM
I bought Storm Tracer for exactly this reason. to add forests of trees to hill and mountainsides. Storm Tracer is a sprite or placard system so you make a tree with xfrog, render it with an alpha and use this image as a storm tracer sprite. with a half dozen different trees it can be totally convincing. If anything can be called a 3d "image hose" then Storm tracer is it.

I also have surface painter and it is great for manual placement of a small to medium amount of objects. but for thousands or millions of objects, storm tracer is the way to go.
AdamT
10-05-2004, 10:16 PM
Is it possible to render an alpha for storm effects?
adeptus minor
10-05-2004, 10:18 PM
I bought Storm Tracer for exactly this reason. to add forests of trees to hill and mountainsides. Storm Tracer is a sprite or placard system so you make a tree with xfrog, render it with an alpha and use this image as a storm tracer sprite. with a half dozen different trees it can be totally convincing. If anything can be called a 3d "image hose" then Storm tracer is it.

I also have surface painter and it is great for manual placement of a small to medium amount of objects. but for thousands or millions of objects, storm tracer is the way to go.

WOW! :eek: show some images I cant belive you can render it with alpha maps
rendermania
10-05-2004, 10:28 PM
it wouldn't be much of a placard renderer if it didn't do alpha channels... lol... you'd be stuck with square bubbles and smoke effects :D
acmepixel
10-05-2004, 11:32 PM
Rendermania's right.

Here's some links from Kromecat in the big Storm Tracer thread;
http://www.cgtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=57543
http://www.cgtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=57548
http://www.cgtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=57524
the thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=157611&page=8&pp=15
Here's the source:
http://www.peranders.com/c4d8/st/index.html
Lots of examples on the Storm Tracer forum:
http://forum.peranders.com/

And the image that sold me (I needed Fog interaction capability):
http://www.peranders.com/c4d8/st/images/dusk.jpg

But the most important thing to remember is that it can use Normal Maps.

Don't have time to post experiments now. Have to meet a deadline.

[edit]
a quote from the man himself:

>Is there a way to have only the sprites render?

use Multipass.
channels Atmosphere & Atmosphere Multiply. to single out whats been drawn by storm tracer.

Regards
Paul Everett
Per-Anders
10-06-2004, 12:08 AM
Is it possible to render an alpha for storm effects?
storm modifies the alpha of your scene. and there is of course the atmosphere channels, it also has z-depth output through the post effect multipass (cinema doesn't allow you to modify z-depth directly sadly).
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