Help me understand how to use Vue with Lightwave... pretty please

[wesball]

So I'm working on a personal project at the moment, and using it as a chance to test out a few new workflows.

I've decided to take a shot and try to pull it off in both Modo and Lightwave separately, just because I'm curious to compare. I love and use both apps and feel both have strengths and weaknesses. I'm particularly interested in using Vue to add plants and trees into Lightwave.

I'm almost done with the Modo version and I'm happy with the progress. Now, I'm starting to try the lightwave version. And I've hit a wall.

It has to do with adding grass to a freeway trench. In Modo, it was pretty easy. I used replicators to add lots and lots of copies of a single clump of geometry grass (just instancing really). Now, I've ported most everything over to the lightwave version, but I can't figure out this grass issue.

I was hoping to use the grass/ecosystem tool in Vue 8.5 xStream to add grass to the lightwave scene. But I can't for the life of me figure out the workflow from Lightwave to Vue back into Lightwave for rendering. It seems I'm just doing something wrong. I was hoping someone here successfully using Vue and Lightwave together can steer me in the right direction. I'd certainly appreciate and help. I've checked some of the good posts here, but not having any luck.

Here's the Modo version that's getting close to finished. You'll notice the grass in the trench that I'm trying to duplicate in Lightwave.
http://www.vimeo.com/15525900

And here's the Lightwave version, looking good so far, but what to do about that grass? I don't care about the atmosphere or clouds, I just want that vue grass which actually looks pretty decent.
http://www.vimeo.com/15624241

Thanks for any help offered!

~wes

[Soth]

That should help:
http://www.asilefx.net/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21_26&products_id=147

[wolfiboy]

Hi wesball,

I'm working with Vue quite a while and with LW for two years.
What I read out of your post is that you try to add grass with the Vue-ecosystem on an object in Lightwave, right?
Have you imported the object into Vue first? The Vue-ecosystem can only work with Vue-objects, or in other words: only objects that are part of the imbedded vue-scene can be influenced by the ecosystem. It is not possible to add any vue-material to a LW-object.
What does that mean for your problem? Well, I would import the highway to the standalone-running Vue (maybe convert it first to .obj-format?), apply a material to it and paint the grass with ecostystem. Save the scene, open your LW-scene, load the vue-scene in it and adapt the highway to the other objects in the scene. Of course this could be quite tricky in scaling and adjusting the vue-measures to LW-measures and synchronizing them both.

As I saw on your second vimeo-LW-test you used dpinstance. I personally think that's a much better way for your purpose.
Vue is great for landscapes and plants in this vue-landscape-environment, but not so much for adding plants to a given LW-scene. Well, that's only my personal experience.

Good luck!

Wolfgang alias wolfiboy

[clagman]

You can import the LW object (inside xStream) make it hidden from the camera (using controls in the material editor) so that it only shows the ecosystem growing on it. Make sure it's in the same place as the LW native version. That should get it.

[Peter Ekberg]

Great videos wesbal enjoyed seeing them especially LW and AE video
Is it just me or you sound a little like "Steve Buscemi"

Cheers

[wesball]

Steve Buscemi?

:)

[Peter Ekberg]

The actor ;)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000114/

Cheers