EDIT:
--------------------
Is the problem referenced in this post the reason for this "tree hell"? And if so, where is that function? I cannot find it because code analysis in Rider 2024 is broken on me now, lol, everything is breaking down lately ... :/
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/95033 [www.sidefx.com]
I've been searching so far and wide I forgot I'd already seen that when I was having trouble with detail scattering before this ...
Update:
I found it and applied the change, but it failed to work. I also tried adding log statements and setting debug breakpoints which never got hit ... and strange things began to happen (camera/scene view failures).
--------------------
I took the time to make an HDA that will set up the attributes listed in the documentation to bind tree instances to points, and much to my dismay it simply didn't work ... the one I made to add tree prototypes does work, but no amount of trial, error and finesse will ever get trees to show up on the terrain. I'm pretty much out of ideas at this point. I've tried setting `pscale` and the tree instance width/height attributes to small and large values, tried crazy ranges of values for different attributes, tried packing/merging things in different combinations, tried flipping output indices, tried splitting and merging/combining the HF and tree points, tried tags and grouping, tried giving it a tile number, nothing I do works ... I'm starting to wonder if it's just broken or something? I looked through the forum history and found some discussions from the past where folks had trouble with trees and helpful people posted .hip scenes and HDA/OTL files with a solution (which apparently worked at that time according to the replies) but when I download and try them they also don't work ... it's starting to feel impossible, and has had me blocked for nearly a week now, unable to progress, and I'm getting pretty desperate. I've followed the documentation closely and inspected my geometry spreadsheet and attribute values a million times over ... either the plugin is broken or I am so exhausted with it that I've made an error invisible to my own eyes and brain, lol.
Attaching the last saved version of the SOP-level HDA I'm trying to make to this post ... I've even tried just directly doing it with an attribute wrangle and attribute create nodes (with and without groups/tags and other combinations of things) and simple can't get anything to happen. Prototypes do show up from my other HDA to create prototypes, but never any trees on the points. If I manually select a tree prototype in Unity and click with the brush tool that does put down trees, but that's neither procedural nor efficient and I'm not good at hand-editing stuff (had hand surgery and major nerve damage, so my hands are shaky lol).
The only thing I can think of, at this point, is maybe I'm using a fundamentally incorrect workflow or something ... but this has already run way over the allotted time I had for it and has proven to be a fatal blocker. That being said, I could really
use some more information and explanation about things like what that "GlobalNodes" subnet is even for and why when I add an "Input" in Unity and feed it a terrain it creates 3 nodes like:
- merge
- input_
- heightfield_input_input
Two of them just have an "object merge" node feeding a "null" and some kind of HAPI strings or something ... I know they're doing something important related to the way the plugin works, but it's never mentioned in any documentation and I've never been able to get an answer about their function and purpose. And I sorta need to know, because if I can ever get out of pre-production I'm going to need to dig into the plugin and add some extensions. Anyhow, the main thing is just getting these trees to spawn properly at this point, it's thwarted me for far too long ... :-(