1.4.0 beta discussion

Skatter General
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Dear @beta_testers, welcome to the new Skatter beta forums. I have started to work on version 2 of Skatter, so I will need you quite a lot in the upcoming months.

But for now, I need you to test version 1.4.0. You can learn about it and download here : http://forums.getskatter.com/t/release-1-4-0-beta/400

Please discuss it here (the other topic is closed anyway), report bugs, etc.

Thanks!
Thomas

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Oh wow, the Layer visiblity even works dynamically during interactive rendering (Thea). Pretty cool.

I also like using Shift to paint straight lines. Do you think we could have another modifier (ALT?) to temporarily change the paint tool to ERASE?

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That should be possible, I didn’t think about it :slight_smile:

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Layers!!! YES!!! Great news.

I am a Thea and VRay user. I find that Skatter grass works 100X faster in Thea as far as speed goes. Is there any way to speed up how VRay renders the grass? I also noticed that Skatter grass doesn’t render the materials in the latest Vray 3.0 beta. The proxies are looking for maps in C:/ProgramData/Skatter/Library/maps but that folder does not exist.

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The straight line painting looks like a great addition.

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I can reproduce this, thanks.
It’s not just grass actually, any object who’s material is not applied directly to the faces will be rendered blank.

It’s a Vray issue, not a Skatter issue. I’ll notify Chaos Group asap.

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Yeah! the shift-click for straight lines painting is really a time-saver for my use! Way faster than painting heavy scenes.
Alt for temporary erase is also a very cool idea! Can’t wait to test all these features in a diplodocus-scene :smiley:

REQUEST:

  • An option to purge all the unused skatter compos from the scene. Right now, I have to reveal all the hidden elements, go to 0,0,0 and delete them manually, with the risk of deleting actually used elements from the scene.

QUESTION:

  • I noticed exclamation point means “already present in the scene” component. Is Skatter using the same component or does it duplicate the component, causing memory footprint to grow? In previous builds, clicking on these excalamation points led to crashes. Is it a way to deal with them?
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The whole point of these components at the origin is to prevent them from being purged. Adding a purge option would not make much sense. Or am I missing your point?

Where are those exclamation points?

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Hi Thomas,

  1. Sometimes after having deleted some skatters from the list, and after having purged the unuseditems, I still have some ‘unpurgeable’ components, usually lurking around the origin and hidden. Of course I understand that you do that to keep the components in the scene as skatter needs them physically in the skp file. I just like my files clean and purged so having some unused components in my scene annoys me a lot. So far, I haven’t found any way of dealing with these apart from delete them manually, with a lot of care.

  2. you’re right, I meant the dreaded #1 next to the compo name issue, not the exclamation point (I’m playing a lot with Allegorithmic Substance Designer recently, hence the mistake). :smiley:

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  1. Ok so you want an option in Skatter that’ll go through the Skatter setups and delete only the components that are not in use anymore?

  2. Skatter uses the same component if it’s already in the model.

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  1. exactly.
  2. how can I avoid getting many #1, #2, etc. when using homemade presets that happen to use some identical components? I try to avoid clicking on #1 components in the list as that makes eventually crash Skatter (and sketchup).

Sorry to hijack the thread :wink:

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Thanks so much Thomas, i like this new beta forum! i really like what your are doing with skatter, it´s better every time.
Testing this new update i found a little issue (very little):

When you select a preset skatter gives you the option to select a surface to apply the preset to. This works fine the first time but when you immediately select for example cut grass 01 (border) after selecting cut grass 01 (large) skatter no longer gives you the option of selecting the surface automatically.

It´s not that it´s broken, you can manually select the surface to skatter and it all works fine, it´s just i remember it did that automatically and i liked it.

Thanks for the update. will keep testing.

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I can confirm that. Its doing the same on my machine…

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Just chiming in to say hi and I will be participating activelly on this, but atm I’m completelly sunk in work. I haven’t downloaded the beta yet, but I’ve no doubt it’s another fine improvement on an already superior plugin.

Thanks for getting me in again and good luck for v2!

2 Likes
15

Dear @beta_testers , I’ve just uploaded an updated version of 1.4.0 containing these few modifications :

  • Added ALT to invert the painting brush behavior (ALT+paint will erase, and vice-versa)
  • Fixed grass being too dark in Vray 3.4
  • Fixed switching back to the Selection Tool when loading several setups from the library in a row

Thanks for your feedback on this beta version :slight_smile:

Download in the same thread : [release] 1.4.0

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16

Excellent. Thanks for implementing the ALT modifier so quickly!
But of course no good deed goes unpunished… now we want more :relaxed:

1. Indicating Eraser Mode:
Could you introduce some indication of what the ALT key does? Like showing a little minus symbol next to the cursor?

2. Changing Brush Size:
In Photoshop, when you hold down the ALT button and simultaneously right-click-drag the mouse left and right, you can change the brush size. This way you can super easily change the brush size without changing the tool or typing in any numbers. Of course you’d need to stop the context menu from popping up…

[BUG] Brush Curser Freezing with ALT Click
When the brush tool is selected and you hit the ALT key without painting, the cursor freezes. When you hit ALT again, the curser is back to normal…

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17

Two very good ideas, thanks Jakob :slight_smile:

Regarding the ALT bug, I think that’s because when you hit ALT on Windows, the focus shifts to the menu bar. So the viewport stops registering the mouse movements (if not clicking). I don’t think I can do something about it.