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Mine too. And I am using 4.12.1.117 too.
Well, the Create New Billboard is nowhere to be found in my DS 4.12.1.117. Even worse, if I select a New Crowd billboard and run the Now-Crowd Utility - Convert to Billboard.dse, it deletes the Now Crowd billboard from my scene entirely. I'll have to submit a help request.
@Fishtales would you post a screenshot of what your Create menu looks like so I can submit it along with a screenshot of mine in my help request, please?
Some of my billboards are showing as black in the textured preview. This is reminiscent of the reversed normals issue. However this time it seems related to selecting the option to allow duplicates as instances and mirroring. On first look, it appears that if the billboard object is mirrored, the unmirrored instance turns black in textured preview. It renders OK in Iray render, though.
If the mirrored versions are made by rotating them (rather than scaling -100%) then that'd be the case. Otherwise something funny's going on.
Edit: Hang on - the unmirrored instance turns black? That is odd - I've got a render going right now but I'll give it a look in a minute.
Mirroring is done by scaling X -100%.. If the original billboard object is X scaled -100%, and the instance of it is X scaled 100%, the instance is black. At least that seems to be the pattern I see. Thanks for taking a look.
Here is a screenshot of my menu
As you suspected, this is related to backface lighting (if you turn that on in options and your card supports it, they won't be black). Mirroring involves setting the X Scale to -100%
I have backface lighting on already.
Thanks for that screenshot. I've checked my husbands installation of DS 4.12.1.117 and he doesn't have the New Billboard on his menu either.
This is what my menu look like
Wow, I think I made a mistake. I have something called https://www.daz3d.com/billboard-nodes-plugin Maybe that is where it is coming from. I guess I need to add that as an optional prerequisite for Now-Crowd Utilities.
Yes! The product page for that product says:
The plugin adds two interface elements:
Neither my husband nor I own that product. The mystery is solved!
Whoops. Sorry about that. I feel stupid now
No need to feel stupid. It's hard to keep track of where all this stuff comes from when you have a few thousand products installed. Especially if you are like me and in the "senior moment" phase of your life!
The black mirrored billboards only happen to instances. They are black, even when backface lighting is on. Maybe it is a DS bug.
Word to the Wise: In Billboard Crowd Maker, don't accidently click at the right end of the Crowd Size control with Live Preview checked and generate close to 1000 billboard positions. You'll be waiting for a long time..... And then waiting again when you click on the other end to return to a small number.....
^Doing a simple test with one source billboard and creating one regular and one instanced, they're both showing normally. Will try with larger crowd in a few minutes.
Did you do any mirroring with X scale -100%?
Well, RTFM! I had only been watching the video, because I learn better with video with voice narration. Now I see there is a PDF manual, and so I looked at that. Guess what. It says:
"Mirror Strategy specifies when the script will create a mirror image of a billboard in the crowd.The billboard will be flipped on the horizontal axis, helping to make the generated crowd less homogenous. Mirrored billboards appear as black cutouts in the scene until rendered."
LOL
Sorry, that few minutes turned into a longer job. I got the same with a larger crowd.
Using mirrored and instanced they looked fine and were x-scale -100%.
Looks like you solved it though. Is rotated version for non-instanced or am I doing something different?
Edit: Yep, unchecking 'Make Duplicates Instances' gives the flipped normals look (though they're still in parameters as simply x-scale -100%)
I have that plugin installed too :)
So, It's a known issue and documented in the user guide. Here is a scene file that demonstrates the black billboard instances. At least they render OK in Iray.
Yes, they do render ok. Since the mirroring is somewhat of a hack but adds value, I deemed it an acceptable limitation.
Here is a scene with some people wandering the street (pre lockdown, LOL). I learned quite a bit about the tools while creating this. I took advantage of the filter to select "walking" poses and chose top to bottom selection (not random), because I didn't like getting duplicates.
It only happens with instances, too. Now that I understand what to expect, it doesn't bother me much.
I don't have that create menu (4.12.1.117, Macintosh version). How does one Update and Merge menus?