Replica from Inagoni-- worth it for me?
AeonicB
Posts: 165
I'm just curious. I've got a job, since upgraded to 8.5 in a recent sale (woot woot), and generally in a spending mood, since it's not too long before my next paycheck and I came out far ahead.
I was thinking about expanding my terrain/landscape abilities a bit. I'm looking at DCG's Terrain Bundle (Terrain Tools and Ground Control), but I was also looking to throw in Inagoni's Replica as well.
Mostly, because I get fedup that Carrara does so few instances at a time with its surface replicator, and I'd like to do more than the 10,000. Plus, what are the real differences?
I mean, I'm in love with Valoute, SWAP, and Architools already-- so its not the company I'm worried about. I'm just wondering if Replica is a worthy replacement for the default Surface Replicator. :)
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Comments
If it is the number of replicants that is the only issue, you do know that multiple replicators can be applied to the same surface, or that you can replicate replicators?
Not saying you shouldn't get it, but I don't know all the features or the price. It also sounds like you haven't fully explored the included replicators which, if it were me, I would want to hit a limit before dropping coin on something I may not need. But then again, I'm a tightwad. ;-)
In the end, it's your money. Spend it as you see fit. If it helps, and offers expanded features, then it's money well spent.
I bought the Inagoni Advance Pack, which comes with Replica included.
I was mainly after Primivol, but after looking through Inagoni's other plugins, decided to get this, which got me almost all of them except Archi-Tools and Shaper.
I don't have a lot of experience in Replica yet but, yes, it is an advanced replicator. Have you seen the Replica Promo Page? That's a really good run down of it. The animated replications going on in the gif images are done through the use of the Replica Deformer, a modifier that can be added to an object to cause it to Replicate according to either your input or by following a target object.
The big huge change that I have been using, and why I've been using this instead of another replicator, is that what it replicates can then be manually moved about the scene. This makes it a very powerful way to get monsters swarms placed precisely where you want them. But the plugin has a lot more going for it than that. I just haven't messed with it enough yet. Definitely worth the few beans Inagoni's asking for it, that's for sure! :)
Suffice to say, I really like it - even though I haven't had the experience with it to really be sure of how best to describe it. By getting the advance pack as mentioned above, I actually ended up with a lot of extra functions, and it's going to take some time for me to adjust. Plus I've been working on products that I didn't want to have an extra plugin requirement for - even though using these extra plugins would certainly make them more powerful - but that's up to the individual. So when I'm working on my shaders, I really want to use some of these new functions - but I don't.
So I really am dying to get down and dirty with these, and my new DCG plugins. I bought Fenric's shortly after buying Carrara and, since I do a lot of character work and animations, they have just become an integral part of Carrara for me. Just using that as an example, as I add these plugins, I just keep feeling more and more functionality seeping into the interface. Every single plugin that I add becomes special, as it adds a lot that I didn't have before, in that easy-to-use, Carrara interface style, often with the added flare of the plugin engineer.
I often find myself wishing that I had more money that I could spend on more plugins - I have most everything I could find so far except for many of the DCG plugins and Archi-Tools. Like you, I am eager to try the DCG terrain tools you've mentioned. Working with landscapes quite a bit, it will be really nice to be able to add a frothy ripple in the water near every surface it contacts, just as one small piece of the puzzle.
I have Enhance C, Shader Ops, and Shader Ops 2 from DCG. They add so much that I have actually put off using them until I can find some time to actually sit down and study what I can do with them. I tried a few of his examples, and they are really cool.
All in all, I find major value in every plugin I've found so far.
If you haven't picked up Sparrowhawke's plugins, I recommend looking through those too.
Now if only I could find a good dose of free time to play and study!
Just an FYI, in case you didn't know, in the sticky: ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄ table of contents (first post), JAY_NOLA has put together a beautiful FAQ for Carrara plugins:
► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!
Lovelovelove Sparrowhawke's plugs, for starters. I've gotten my fair share of use out of them. :)
And I somehow missed the Sticky, thank you. Mostly because I'm a maroon who was posting when they should have been asleep (whoops). I saw the Replica promo page, but didn't answer any questions I had, like the above 10k in a single instance thing. I did see other nifty bits, like the pattern based distribution (given Carrara can technically do that on its own via shading domains), the repartition, and replicator array abilities.
My question still is: would Replica still create over 10,000 instances on any given terrain?
Perhaps I can check that later.
Another thing about using multiple replicators on the same surface is that neither replicator know where the other has place something, so you lose the placement gap control and risk (Really high risk when we're talking about this many replicants!) of objects landing directly onto one another.
As an aside - nothing to do with whether Replica will be worth your dime - another way to consider doing what you want (I think?) is a technique that I like a lot, simply because I'm constantly trying to optimize my scenes for faster, more efficient renders:
Use smaller terrain pieces, and replicate them full of stuff. Now replicate or duplicate that terrain. Terrains, when rotated, even slightly, create a different look altogether, so the same terrain piece can be used over and over - not just for efficiency either... in using this method I have actually had a lot of fun making scenes. Fun! And fun is good.
The fun factor was using duplicates instead of replications. I would duplicate the terrain with the replicator(s), and give it a spin and move it a ways - where I want it. Then Ctrl D again with the duplicated one still selected, and that rotation and movement (even scaling) is repeated. But that's still the 'work' of it. The fun comes in when I get to grab these individual terrains and run them into each other, layer them back and to the sides... basically 'painting' my scene with them.
We can run into problems Duplicating, if the replicated objects are figures that cannot be duplicated. This is where Replica is pure magic. It's replicated objects show up as a group that can be individually moved, rotated, and scaled after they have been placed by the replicator! I use that all the time because of how handy it is. For example, I like to have pilots in my spacecraft. Well those are figures that cannot be duplicated using Ctrl D. I could run them through a replicator and just "Create" real instance using the replicator, or I can use Replica and leave them as replicated instances, while still gaining the ability to move them individually afterwards. You can even make some shader changes to the Replica replicated stuff.
Anyways, I'll look into the 10k thing a little later, if I can.
Dart, I copied this tip over to the replicator thread. I hope you don't mind. I'll delete it if you do mind, but somehow I don't think you will.
I can have 100,000 thousand replications in Carrara 7.2 Pro. Are you sure you're not remembering back to C5 or C6 for the limitations?
And yet. when you're talking about the numbers the OP is talking about, he clearly wants density, so the overlap issue may not be a problem for a forest or grass, as in real life, branches and blades of grass tangle and intertwine one another.
Also, you can use distribution maps to control where the replicators replicate the objects.
You are absolutely correct and I shall consider myself spanked! Of course I knew that before I made my comment that you've quoted, and was just tossing out some food for thought on the subject ;)
Speaking of food for thought, here's my method of dealing with just that sort of thing:
After replication, I find that I need more sticks or stones, blades of grass... whatever.
Select the thing I want to make more dense and Ctrl D (Duplicate) to create a new instance of it. (working directly inside the replicator, usually)
Scale, rotate, translate that second instance to my liking - something that in effect makes the one become two that are near each other or even overlapping.
Repeat if necessary.
Select those instances and Ctrl G (group) them so that they appear to the replicator (no matter which you're using) as a single item.
Again, repeat if necessary either on the same subject, or anything else that I need to make more dense.
Here's a tip that can help to prevent a common problem with over-replicating:
Replicators are great. All of the different versions make our lives much easier for placing mass amounts of items.
Do keep in mind that the render engine has to calculate all of this stuff for each and every frame.
Density is often most important in the foreground. If the background is obscured, even just partially, it will not need as much density - and giving it more density anyways might be a simple and quick way to lay down a lot of stuff, it can have the effect of slowing your render to a crawl. This is how I thought up the idea of using multiple terrain pieces.
Here's how the EnvironKit method works, just as an example of how I do it, but the possibilities are not very limited in ways to deviate:
There's one super large piece of terrain specially made to bowl out in the center, so that it only shows in the very distance, while also encompassing the entire horizon of the scene, no matter the camera angle. I even keep the fidelity low on this piece, since we're only seeing larger details, and we're taking advantage of a special shader setup that makes the most of its appearance.
In the center of the scene there's a 100' x 100' (or similar) terrain which is relatively flat in the center, because that's where I like to load in my content for whatever final scene I'm after - be it a dragon, a house, or both and a whole lot more, etc., with nice terrain features all throughout, beyond that central radius. These features, however, are purposefully kept relatively small to work nicely with the next part.
Where I've really found magic and control is to introduce yet another terrain element. A smaller one that I can replicate stuff all over without stealing precious time and resources for my renders and my system memory. Sure, I have made many distribution maps for placing stuff onto the central piece of terrain I've made in the last step too. That's a great, and even fun technique to use. But using these new pieces, like I've said, allows for much more flexibility and user control over the actual, final appearance and placement.
For Woodlands I use three such new terrain pieces, small, medium, and large. The smallest one uses duplicated plants instead of replicated ones, because this gave me total control for a really natural look. The largest one has replication that works to huge advantage. I can turn the terrain one way for a really dense forest, or another way to show off more of the underlying terrain shader and topology, and other angles show somewhere in between - and all of these angles look great and render pretty fast. The medium size uses a combination of hand-placed duplicates and replication, focusing on having lots of detailed interest around the border in addition to the taller stuff in the middle, inter-mixed with other sizes for natural depth, filling the area to look like a natural piece of wooded land. During the whole process of making all three, I had worked very long and hard to keep resources to a minimum while going for a nice, dense, natural look and feel. It's always easy to add more, but not so easy to start with just what you need, where you need it, to help keep efficiency at a peek.
Time it takes to render isn't the only consideration when it comes to using masses. Carrara is a ray tracing renderer - and it's a pretty darned good one at that. If you're casting raytraced shadows, the raytracer has to store every single polygon to memory, because it sends rays, according to the ray depth setting, for each rendered pixel against every light that uses raytraced shadows, and against every other polygon that each ray intersects. This is not only a huge burden against render time, but it can easily cause today's most RAM-ridden computers to run out of memory - causing a failed render or, at best, one that takes forever as your system constantly tries to juggle all of these polygons, what they might block and what might be blocking them, from those lights. The problem increases massively if you're also using soft raytraced shadows, and distant lights, including the sun and moon lights, are even more taxing that other types.
So I have always been in mind to keep density where it is absolutely needed, and away from where it is not.
We do have the ability to isolate such problems by adding lights that don't raytrace shadows for those distant objects - another topic altogether.
Lately I have been experimenting with using shaders to help remove the need for intense replication of smaller objects with great success. I can hardly wait to show some of those results.
Wow Dart, long post :blank:
Mostly if 10,000 isn't plenty, perhaps try using the same replicator on a smaller sized surface.
C7 can do 100,000 replications.
I agree with Dart though, if you need more density, then maybe you need to think about how you're putting the scene together.
Sorry... RL took over my afternoon... and now it's family time. I'll see if I can test Replica limits tomorrow - but I can't promise anything...
Carrara's Replicator and Surface Replicator are for organic placement (trees, stones, clouds, birds in a tree, etc). It's a scene "object" onto which you drop other objects that randomly arrange themselves to fill up the available space.
Inagoni's Replica Array is a modifier and it is better suited for industrial placement (houses, airplanes, computer desks, banquet tables, soldiers in formation, birds flying south, ceiling lights, monorail track, etc) anything that stands "in a row". You add the modifier to the first instance of an object and then specify the number of instances and the general arrangement (grid, ball, circle, arc, line). Imagine a section of fence, use array to turn that fence piece into a wall or a circular pen.
There's also the command Replica (under the edit menu) that works sort of like the Replicator, but it isn't editable (you just delete and try again, it doesn't move or hide your source object) and within the "cell" there are random perterbations so (for instand) the airplaines are slightly off formation, or a soldier is rotated within a set percentage of variation....
Imo they are different enough to warrent having both. They aren't exactly interchangeable because the way you use them is so different...
So in summary, Carrara's Replicator is for "natural" random placement, Inagoni's Replica is for orderly or "intentional" placement.
Update:
Okay, first of all, I'm very sorry for not knowing more about this by now. I really need to play with this beautiful tool more - figure out more of its potential - because it is an very interesting compliment to the native feature replicators - quite different.
Wow is this thing cool.
We can talk about the other types of replication that this thing is capable of later. But since we're apparently working with surface replication (?), let's start there, shall we? Check this out:
In the image below, which I took from Inagoni's site, is missing a new option that is right next to the "Align Normals" check box called "Cube Mapping". I know that this came with documentation, or it's on the site... I'll find that when I get time... not sure right now. But in the meantime, look at the options in the image below for a second.
See the "Density" sliders? The value shown does not mean 1 object by 1 object, it means something more like 1 ft by 1 ft or some uniform distance determination. There is no value to enter for how many you want... this this is going to spray paint whatever you've selected prior to firing this up all over the surface you choose in the box that, in the image above simply says: "Terrain". We can choose to align normals and or to use cube mapping, whatever that is, and then there's this dual ended slider on the bottom for some form of adjustment.
Please keep in mind that I've never yet looked at the surface portion of this thing.
If you look on the promo page on his site, you'll see his image of gravel that he replicated and applied a shader variation across the whole replication, right? Well look now at the image below, also from his site:
Here is the current interface:
Yeah, you can mess with the shading alright. But that's not the half of it. As a matter of fact, is just the bottom sliver.
Go ahead... look at the image again, after knowing what we've just learned (not much, really) from what I've told you about the previous panel. Here we can dig into this replication and really define what we want it to do. See how he made that gravel look so real? I mean, check out his screen shot. He's got position percentages for each axis and a noise modifier applied to the positional percentage variance. What? Yeah... cool!
Those blue buttons over there to add total crazy wonderful attributes to placement, scale, rotation, and shading? Yeah man!
So getting back to the original question I have to say that I blindly tried to just test the thing to see if I could see a maximum placement number. Since it's been a while since I've played with it - even though I really do like using it for replicating monsters, starships, houses... I forgot that you don't Insert > Replica, you select what you want replicated and Edit > Replica.
That brings up the window you see in the first image I posted above, where you select the type of replication that you wish to perform. As you can see below, in the cube dialog we have an opportunity to to enter values for how many we make in x, y, and z axis and then apply how much spacing we want between them. Keep in mind that we still have access to the above window for any of our other three choices of replication. In using the sliders I could crank them wide open to 30 in each axis, which would make 27,000 replicants.
As you can see, the other choice being the cylinder replication, which is a little more limited in how many can be created in one shot.
No matter which method you use, the result is a folder in the instance tray filled with instance - each can be selected individually from within the folder. I know that, what you can do to one without changing every single instance is more limited that if these were all separate objects, but you can grab them and move them around, amongst other things.
Anyways, you could select one of these folders and Edit > Replica, giving you amazing opportunities to create some truly spectacularly accurate replications in enormous numbers.
Now... getting back to the surface replication part, I just wanted to see what was going on, like I said, looking for a maximum number. Not seeing any maximum, I just clicked okay to close the window and see what happens. I was expecting one thing to come up. Nope. It started crunching math and placing these things starting from one edge of the terrain working its way across the surface like a storm! This is how I found out that Esc stops the Replica from calculating, which was impressively responsive of a canceled operation. I am impressed with how quickly it quit. Afterwards, my system was still catching up with what was just going on. I have eight cores and 16GB RAM and she was cranked. I ended up ending the Carrara process and starting over.
As I type this I'm looking at it in Carrara and it has tooltips telling me that, in the two density sliders of the Surface replication dialog (upper image) "a density of 1 minimized the space between 2 duplicates". You can select any number two digits past the decimal between 0.00 and 2.00. I take it that it is the Perturbation window (above) that further helps you place them.
Like I say, more power than I have time to study at this point. I do think that there's a way to contact Inagoni vie his site, and I'm sure he would be happy to help answer you question further.
Okay, so check this out.
I kept having troubles replicating too many things on large surfaces. This would be great for tiny things like blades of grass, gravel pebbles... all sorts of things. Like anything else, it will just require some practice to get the combinations of calculations just right.
So I grabbed this little chunk of terrain and a large weed (small Carrara plant) that I made. When I went to set up the Replica, I forgot that Replica offers the opportunity to actually mix two shaders together for making varied shaders across your replication - more on that later - so I got out of Replica again so I could add one of my other plant shaders. I make all of my terrain shaders to work with all of my terrain - and the same with all of my plants and their shaders.
Back into Replica, I wanted a fairly dense population. So I left 1 and 1 for the Density sliders and I think I left the positioning alone in the Perturbation tab, but gave a small variety of scale and full variety of rotation randomness, and gave the Shading blender a second shader to play with in the bottom selection box, leaving the shader maker mixer in the default noise option, and left the maximum number of new shaders possible at 10 (see the image of the Perturbation Tab that Holly uploaded above, at the very bottom of the tab).
This is the result. Notice my footnotes. First of all on the very far right there's a vertical red line with and arrow on each end. This is showing that Replica indeed made a LOT of new plants, each individually selectable if you open the folder. If this doesn't sound like a big deal, it's only because you've never had the pleasure to work with the placement of individual replicated objects. Anyways, notice how small the scroll bar is. This is one l o n g list of new plants!
In the middle of the screenshot, I've stamped down the shader window of another screenshot that shows that I now have 10 new randomly mixed plant shaders, each of which derived from carefully made, fairly complex plant shader list shaders. While some might look very similar in this window, it's not telling the whole story, because the leaves and the bark may have blended differently. Regardless... very handy way to get instant, automated new shaders of any kind! Heck, we could replicate things just to make shader combinations and delete the actual replication and keep the shaders and store them to a library! Really, really sweet!
Not the best example for mixed shader comparison, being such a delicate non existent plant. Something with more prominent bark and leaves would show the range better. Still, you can easily see a nice, natural blend. Ten new shaders being randomly distributed to the replicated objects is nothing to sneeze at, and you may set the max new shaders level higher, too.
Quite impressed = me ;)
Just the concise and neutral info that I need to decide if I'm going to buy the Advanced pack on half price.
Thanks so much!
I just did a scene and one of my replicators has 100,000 objects in it using Carrara 8.5 Pro. I've only ever used this version so I don't know about previous ones, but 10,000 is clearly not the limit. :)
I just did a scene and one of my replicators has 100,000 objects in it using Carrara 8.5 Pro. I've only ever used this version so I don't know about previous ones, but 10,000 is clearly not the limit. :)
C7.2 Pro does 100,000 replications as well. I think it was C5 or C6 that was limited to 10,000. Sort of. What some folks forget, is that you can replicate replicators. ;-)
Filled up your replicator with 100,000 replications? Then stick it in a replicator and replicate it a few thousand more times. Only your RAM, Processor and patience while Carrara is filling its grid are the limit!