please note: this tutorial assumes that you have knowledge of Lightwave Layouts basic functions.
First of all load a ground mesh. Make sure it is selected. Now you can start Sumatra Layout. You should get the first
selection window, where you can decide whether to load previous settings or reset. Press "reset" and then "ok" to start from scratch.
Now you can see the main window of Sumatra Layout. You will notice the 6 tabs on top, we will come back to that later.
Go to the first row an press the "arrow". Select the palm tree object and click "open". Next to the line where you now can see the object path you can
set the number of clones you want to create. Set it to 250.
Note that Layouts preset has a maximum count of objects in scene (usually 2000). See the readme.rtf if you dont know how to change that.
Now go to the next tab "Rotation". There you can set the minimum/maximum random rotation for each object channel (Heading Pitch Bank according to Lightwave).
This means if you set Heading to 180, each clone will be randomly rotated between -180 and +180 degrees. So for now set it to H 360 P 10 B 0.
Now go to the "Scale/Offset" Tab.
The Size min/max works the same way. Set it to min 100% and max 300%.
The Offset parameter is for maintaining a minimum distance between the single clones of that channel. In our case, set it to 2m. This means, each palmtree will now be
at least 2m away from the others. Be aware, using this parameter must be considered well! As for an example, if you have a ground mesh which is in size 10x10 meters
and an offset of 5 meters, you can create a maximum of 9 objects on that ground, if you place them exactly in the corners, the edge middles and in the middle. As Sumatra Layout
calculates object positions randomly, this maximum hardly can be reached. So if you get less or no objects created by the plugin, this parameter is worth being checked.
Furthermore, if you select "Remember last object positions" under "Advanced" this parameter comes into play, too.
So to move on, we leave the Altitude&Weight as well as the Subpatch LOD and the Advanced settings for now. Just make shure, your Altitude is NOT set to 0/0!
Just press "Ok" and the plugin should start working.
You should get a result similliar to this:
