CMasking_WireColor and Forest Pack

[Tanner]

Has anyone else had an issue where - regardless of the Forest Objects' wire colour - when I save a "CMasking_WireColor", the forest pack objects are all various shades of yellow.  I can create separate black/white or RGB masks for certain things but I use Forest Pack for a lot in a scene, including trees, grass, shrubs, cars/buses, street furniture, and lighting.  I wish that if I set a forest object's wire colour to pink it would show up pink in the element, or respect the sub-object wire colours you can dictate in the plugin.

Is this a Forest Pack issue or Corona? And is there a workaround aside from creating separate CMasking_Mask for each group of objects?

[Frood]

Afaik what you see are the shades defined in the "Material" rollout. If you don't use it, you could set your color to some solid one by having the same color left and right (no gradient). Or use "Get color from Map" option and assign a CoronaColor. But something has to happen with Corona and ForestPack/subobject handling for sure.


Good Luck

[Tanner]

I never thought to look at the material rollout.  I quickly made changes to the three objects and it seems to have worked.

However, it would still be nice for the mask to respect the whole object or sub-object wire colour(s).

[Frood]

However, it would still be nice for the mask to respect the whole object or sub-object

Yipp, we have this discussion for years now. See

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=15201.0

for the very basic one.


Good Luck

[James Vella]

I would like this too. My workaround for now is as you mentioned set the color from gradient (make them both the same), in this case yellow, then set the cmasking_id to "geometry group id" - this way each item has a separate color to select (all the spheres are purple, teapots yellow, boxes light blue). You still have to create two masks in PS one to select the wire for that forest, then another to select the sphere for example.

Its not perfect though, in case you end up with two forests overlapping that share a similar color etc. You dont get to pick those colors either which is not so fun. It also tends to change those colors group colours when it wants to

[James Vella]

There is a better way then what I suggested above on the forest forums however still requires the Mask RGB setup - but atleast it doesnt over ride the material tinting.

https://forum.itoosoft.com/forest-pro-(*)/forest-wire-and-masks-question/

[Frood]

Thanks for those additions James. Changing material IDs or misusing color slots is a no go in complex scenes even when it's a valid workaround currently - assumed you don't need any of the features/slots for the purpose they were made for.

It still should work straight forward without any of those changes inside FP objects - apart from object IDs or wire color (where FP may act weird from a renderers point of view, dunno): Create (object based) mask element -> kick in FP object, done. I think that's what most people need.


Good Luck

[James Vella]

Agreed Frood, I dont really enjoy setting up Mask RGBs for more than a handful of objects myself, once you have cars, trees, seats, people etc it gets too taxing on RAM and my personal time + checking the masks in post. I have put up the request on the Forestpro forums.

edited*

[Frood]

Related:

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=17979.0
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=22689.msg139176#msg139176
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=16719.msg104855#msg104855
https://corona-renderer.com/bugs/view.php?id=2316

Edit: and another:

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=23450.0

Good Luck

[James Vella]

Cheers for the links Frood. Looks like this is up to the Corona developers.

[Frood]

Yes, I remember Ondra claiming it is doable, but "either or". I don't know why we could not have both, selecting base objects or selecting the FP object to create a mask. There is still no "official" feature request for this and it may be not as easy to implement as I hope it is :)


Good Luck

[arqrenderz]

Bump