I grabbed the tree from the LandscapeMountains project because its last LOD is a simple camera facing billboard material perfect for what I need, so I through it on my single quad poly (exported from maya) but it doesn’t face the camera at all, just remains static. ? I’m clueless as to why it doesn’t work as it’s the same material from the original trees LOD.
Do you need more info to help me with this one?
Hello Chimp,
Because this material was originally made for a specific mesh, although it does seem logical that it would transfer over to your own. Its functionality might be dependent on the specific, size, shape, and other values tied to that mesh.
Within the material editor, try changing some of the parameters to see how this affects your own mesh. I hope this helps, but if you are still unable to properly have it show, let me know and we can try something different.
Thanks,
Thanks for the reply.
Is there perhaps vertex colours on the original mesh? I can’t export the lod or see if it has vertex colours in the properties as it disappears when I turn VC on.
I’ve also played around with everything in the instance and the parent with no camera facing luck I’m afraid.
There’s two exposed parameters ‘width’ and ‘Xwidth’. Xwidth moves the mesh off center until it stretches drastically but still never faces the camera. ‘Width’ which is plugged into ‘width tip’ and ‘Width base’ of the Spline Thicken node is doing nothing to my mesh but is effecting the original.
I’ve also tried exporting a version similar in size (guessing) but it didn’t help.
Hey again Chimp,
Instead of taking the trees material alone, you might need to migrate the entire asset and its dependencies to your own project folder and go from there. Because you are working with the mesh LODs of a particular mesh, it might have it’s own dependencies and custom parameters set to function how it does in the Landscape Mountains scene.
Try doing it this way and see if you can’t get the results you are looking for, but if you are still having issues let me know and we can try something else.
Thanks,
Hi Andrew,
Yeah that’s what I did. It’s the whole tree and dependencies migrated from the landscape project.
adding to my previous comment - In my screenshot I have the original tree on the right showing its lowest lod.
So I attempted to reproduce what you are experience, but with no luck. Maybe you can follow my steps and get the same results I am getting. Keep in mind I have not edited or even opened the material for the tree and just migrated the asset.
Steps to follow:
- Open the Landscape Mountains 4.6 project.
- Find the ‘SM_PineTree’ asset in the content browser.
- Right-click on the asset and choose the option “Asset Actions.”
- Within that menu find the, “Migrate” option.
- Migrate all of the default assets and dependencies to the ‘Content’ folder of your current project.
- Re-open your current project and find the asset you migrated.
- Pull the mesh into the world to see if you have any changes.
I also noticed that maybe you could be forcing, or changing, the LOD settings for the mesh under the ‘Rendering’ section for the object by accident. Check the image I have posted as a reference to see if your settings match up with mine.
Pine Tree LOD Settings
I hope this resolves your issue, but if you are still having problems let me know and we can further investigate!
Cheers,
Cheers Andrew,
when you say you attempted to reproduce what I’m experiencing, did you put the camera facing material from the landscape tree onto a custom quad?
I should reestablish what I’m trying to do here. sorry if it wasn’t clear enough in the original post.
The original migrated tree from Landscape and it’s lods works perfectly fine in my project. What I want, is a camera facing Lod on my own custom tree that works the same. So I have exported a quad from Maya to test this. I applied the camera facing material from the landscape tree to my quad and it does not face the camera.
What I really need is a camera facing material that works exactly the same way as the Landscape tree does.
That is something I did not try. If you would like I can test out the custom quad you are using on my end and apply the billboard material to see if I can get the same results you are seeing.
All you need to do is zip up your asset/mesh and attach it here on the AnswerHub. I can tell you, before doing this, there are some settings within the billboard material properties which could potentially resolve your issue.
Material Billboard Properties
Also the ‘Tangent Space Normal’ setting.
If you have exhausted these options already, feel free to share your ‘custom quad’ and I will take a further look.
Thanks,
Thanks Andrew. please find the quad I’m using attached. There’s a single quad and I’ve also tried 2 quads crossed, which is in the zip also.
I’ve noticed the original lod says it has 8 verts and 4 tris yet it doesn’t look like a crossed pair of quads. It looks more like a single quad but its hard to tell as wireframe view doesn’t show the shape properly.
Those material settings didn’t help the camera facing problem.
Hey again Chimp,
So I managed to look into this a bit further and discovered it is in fact a double quad overlapping one another. I also looked into the camera facing material itself and found that there are parameter values and specifics related directly with the model size and shape of those two quads.
Pine Billboard Mesh
So if you notice, there are a couple of quads intersecting, but they are extremely close to one another. If I were to zoom out, it would almost look like a line. This definitely has an effect on how the tree is rendered and adds to the camera facing effect.
I tested out your quads and was able to get the same results you were experiencing, but after all of this new information I am to the conclusion that this material is specific to the mesh they created.
You might be able to change the parameters so the material renders correctly, but I suggest using it as a guide to setting up your own custom material. This will not only ensure it works correctly, but you can learn the how and why to creating this type of camera facing material. Best of luck!
Cheers,
Ok thanks Andrew.
It’s a bit of a mystery as to why it’s set up that way. Hopefully I can get a material to work as well as it does. Thanks again for looking into it.
cheers.