Forest planting - The Mystery and The Majesty

[Colin Jones]

We shouldn't be surprised so much time is dedicated to the issues of forest planting in this forum.

Firstly, I like forest planting. When its done well, you can create some amazingly realistic landscapes.

In my experience there is no way to completely eradicate the range of FP issues that have been described here over many years. Some lucky designers seem to avoid them, some of us don't. Through trial and error, I do know some techniques to avoid major and critical problems tho.

These tips may also work for others, but no guarantees there either.

1. I have less problems with a fresh installation of the APCD. I don't mean a new copy, I mean running the APCD1.5.exe installation file like we did back-in-the-day. For me, this is the biggest tip for FP success.

2. I have less problems when I don't ask too much of the APCD when forest planting. One reasonable-sized shape at a time and not too much density (e,g, do 30ft repeated 5 times, not 6ft once). If you try to plant an entire course of 2ft plants spaced 6 inches apart, you're probably just asking for problems. (look at me talking all American in feet and inches!)

3. Make sure that if a forest planting does not work, undo it. Don't try to FP again without undoing the unsuccessful plants. Sometimes making a few single plants of your object can seem to "free it up". This will work sometimes, not others. Could be just in my head.

4. Don't run the APCD as an Administrator.

5. "Validate and Save" as soon as you can after a FP (see below for reasons)

6. If you tend to have FP problems, then I suggest you get all your FP finished as early as you can in your design. Nothing worse than having the delete an entire area of FP object along with any of the cool hand-planted-stuff that can't be saved either.

7. Relax and enjoy the beautiful vagaries and mysteries of the APCD, where forest planting not working for no apparent reason (but then is working fine the net day) is just one of its many wonderful surprises.

Here is the process from another thread that Dorse and I came up with which will remove the FP-created problem of square-ish areas of the course becoming unplantable. This tends to happen when you do not undo unsuccessful FPs. Its also quite tricky, because the problem does not seem to appear until after you "Validate and Save". So you might have done 10 saves and noticed nothing apparent. Thankfully, this problem can now be remedied but you will need to redo the affected areas of FP. I tend to use this process below, before I V&S after planting.

- Make sure the entire course is visible in Top View (or similar)
- Go to your Plantings tab and select 2D
- From the menubar, click on Select then All
- Deselect your "invisible objects" by holding down the Control key, and then box-selecting your entire plot in Top View (at least covering all the areas that have been planted). Depending on the number of objects, this might take a few minutes.

Whilst it now may appear that there are no longer any 2D objects selected, hit the X (delete) button.

The "hidden 2D objects" will now be deleted. The course should be fine and be fully plantable again. You will need to replant affected areas, of course!


Hope this is helpful to some!