About Trees Techniques..

[Raffaello.S.]

Wich is the best way to simulate trees?...

Opacity maps..plugins...etc..

 

Thanks in advance

[Wojciech Klepacki]

Hi,

They told that geometry is better than flat bitmaps. Hmmm... I think that they are right. If u compare RPC with Bionatics, for example, real model are much more acurate, but... Bionatix is expensive and in some situations (GI techniques) requires much more time to render. But if u plan to add trees in PS flat trees give u same (or quite same) power. There are some techniques (being shared on this forum) and u only have to look at them. Some of us like flat (trees) some prefere the geometry. I think that the way u work it's up to u and the money u can spend of course!!!

rgds,

Wojciech Klepacki

[Jefferson Grigsby]

I am having great results with speed tree. Its editer will alow you to prune, clip, and adjust the form of the tree for infinite variations. They have good detail controls and look great in 3D. Did I mention that you can put thousands of them in a scene without Max crashing? The coolest part is you can make them blow in the wind with a wind space warp. I am not sure if it is available on platforms other than Maz/viz or not.

[Mark Nicholas Lazaro]

Well . . . frankly 3D trees are the best solution.

 

Cost being a factor>

 

Bionatics is an extreme case. you will be better of using SpeedTree as a low cost solution.

 

 

Other Alternatives>

 

Onyxtree and Xfrog are what I use. Onyx is lite in max viewports (it has a display toggle between the actual mesh and a proxy mesh) and has a TreeStorm Plugin for the windblown effect. Onyx comes with a tree editor so customisation is no problem.

http://www.onyxtree.com

 

Xfrog uses opacity mapped leaves causing a slowdown in GI renderers, but the trees are very realistic.

http://www.xfrogdownloads.com

 

Finally Time saving>

 

In the last 6 months I have been working on 2 large resorts and 3D trees have made the difference by allowing us to shoot multiple views of the project without the hassle of adding trees to each rendering.

[Jefferson Grigsby]

I have noticed the same slowdown in Speedtree with Vray. The leaves are essentially opacity mapped as well. I find that it is better to render them in a seperate pass for animation work. I use the Mat/shadow material and then re-render the trees in using the scanline render. It works pretty well and gives you better control over the look of the trees. You just don't get that same soft shadow around the base of the tree.