Minimum distance in Region Tool

[rvirding]

I have trouble using min distance between objects in Region Tool. I would like to use when randomly placing individual trees and bushes in a region to remove the excessive clustering and more evenly spread them out. If I use the min. distance, however, even set to 0,1 m, I end up with only a few trees spread out over the region much further apart than the distance. This is irrespective of how many trees I try to place.

Is this a bug, or have I misunderstood what it is supposed to do?

[shinRaiden]

I'm guessing that you are not placing enough objects in the region for this to be a concern. My understanding is that the min dist. is just to limit the randomizer to make sure that by weird luck you don't get clumps.

The min dist. option maxes out at 20m, and will cull any objects from the requested count that the region tool doesn't think it can place.

[Snake_Man]

Minimun distance means that if you disable it, by RANDOM chance you might end up having two objects in top of each other, ie overlapping each other.

If you use minimum distance, that makes sure that the object to be placed will be <minimum> away from any existing objects on the selected region.

[rvirding]

I'm guessing that you are not placing enough objects in the region for this to be a concern. My understanding is that the min dist. is just to limit the randomizer to make sure that by weird luck you don't get clumps.

The min dist. option maxes out at 20m, and will cull any objects from the requested count that the region tool doesn't think it can place.

No, that is not the problem.

First I try without min distance by placing 80 tress in a cell (this is approx. density of pine forest) and I get 80 trees but not evenly spread and with clumps.

Then I remove them and again try placing 80 trees with min distance set to 1m and I get about 20 trees in the cell very spread out. Increasing the number to 400 trees does not make a difference in the result, it just takes longer.

Surprsingly there are some clumps but they do follow the min distance.

An interesting point is that if I mix trees and bushes, ratio about 85:15, and use min distance I get the same reduced number as before but predominantly bushes. The trees are first in the list.

Trying to overlay does not add more trees.

As I said I don't know if this is how it is supposed to work,but unfortunately it means that I can't use it. Now I have randomly place the tress and then by hand spread them out a little so it looks better. Of course you can always copy other finished areas.

[shinRaiden]

Okay, what you are seeing is that WRPtool doesn't place what it thinks it can't place due to the min distance filter.

If you say "place 500", but WRPtool only thinks it can place 50 - including objects already present for calculating min distance it appears - you will only get 50 placements.

There's a few questions though that this does bring up, like

• Is the min distance calculated from the origin or the poly?
• How does the min distance filter work? Does it process per-object, per-cell, or how does it figure out where there is 'empty' space?

------------------------

Just did some testing... There appears to be some 'favoritism' to trees, ie there is more 'gap' around them. I am presuming then that the min dist option is based on the poly bounds. Reversing the order of trees/bushes does not impact the porportions.

Second, placement is spaced appropiately inside each cell, but objects placed near the cell boundry may appear to 'clump' with objects in adjacent cells. Thus the randomization appears to be on a per-cell basis. This is not readily seen if you do not use the min dist, or have a very low value.

Placement considers existing objects, so if there is 50 placed objects with no more space, WRPtool will not ignore that and place another 50.

[MidShip]

Maybe, indeed it has to do with the mesh extension of trees. Having made a preliminary test with barrels, which works correctly.

[MidShip]

Perhaps the definition is a little bit confusing also. The manual writes, ... Default distance is 1.0 meters, which means no objects are placed closer than one meter from another object 'already' in there...

[shinRaiden]

Somewhat OT, but this is what I like about WRPtool. You don't have this kind of active support and development on either of the other editors. 8)

[rvirding]

Maybe, indeed it has to do with the mesh extension of trees. Having made a preliminary test with barrels, which works correctly.

Typical, I don't need barrels, I need trees. But I suppose I could put barrels and then replace them with trees? If I have a number scaled objects I wish to replace will the replacements be scaled as well? I know, I know, try it and find out.

[MidShip]

Something in general. A selection of 50*50m, divided into 6 columns and 6 cells (left, right, top, bottom edges included), may contain 36 objects. With the min. distance function not activated, this obviously yields a MEAN distance of 10m between the objects (assuming a uniform distribution). The ratio of the selected area and the number of objects drives the mean distance and can therefore be rather good adjusted and calculated. If there are areas of higher and lower densities, then it's in the basic nature of statistics and random, one normally expects or even wants to have, placing natural objects on the island.
The min. distance feature, to say it again, is useful to prevent objects from seeding over other ones with another context, for instance not to have rocks within a village. This should work with all objects.
Placing man made tree plantations in a well defined order for instance, the Object Placer may be considered.

[rvirding]

Placing man made tree plantations in a well defined order for instance, the Object Placer may be considered.

I am not making plantations as such. What I am doing is extending forests with sections which are smaller than a cell or triangular half of one. This is to get the borders of the forest in the right place and to hide the very rectangular nature of forest objects. I am modeling real terrains.

[rvirding]

I forgot to ask as anyone has made any forest sections of Nogova forests with other shapes then triangles? I could really use a half-size rectangle.

[shinRaiden]

None so far as I am aware of. Your best option would be to build your own then from individual objects, and copy and paste that prefab around. By doing this you would also be able to deal with the distance issues you've been experienceing when using the region tool placer.

One process would be to place your bushes with the region tool, then manually insert the trees, and duplicate that group, another solution would be as described previously would be to use a smaller proxy object for random placement, and then replace those objects with the proper trees.

[MidShip]

@rvirding Think you know, on why it's made by BIS, that forest sections in OFP should have a cell matched triangular shape, in respect to align trees properly along the surface slopes.

[rvirding]

@rvirding Think you know, on why it's made by BIS, that forest sections in OFP should have a cell matched triangular shape, in respect to align trees properly along the surface slopes.

That is what they say. But is it really true? I have placed the Nogova 1 sections non-aligned to cells and there have been no problems. This is in a slope as well, though it is rather a gentle one.

Perhaps if I am a good boy and only placed them on the flat then I could use rectangular forest objects as well. It would me alot of trees. If, of course, I had them.

[MidShip]

It has a Direct3d background. You can find more on this in my tutorial about wrp objects at OFPinfo. To download it, search for the keyword ' object wrp ' .

[rvirding]

It has a Direct3d background. You can find more on this in my tutorial about wrp objects at OFPinfo. To download it,  search for the keyword  ' object wrp ' .

OFPinfo? I must have missed that one.