help needed

[marchitecture]

what is the best way to add trees to a rendering w/o making the rendering time long

[RAYMOND]

the fastest way is billboarding the trees.

 

however, having the skylite off, and using the the more easier shadows help also,

 

if you are using full 3d trees with thousands of faces, you have to expect some added time...

 

the 3d trees that come with viz/max are quite expensive on render times.

 

well, the basics anyway

would probably need to know how you are set up for more specifics.

[Tim Saunders]

Along with Ray's comment. 2d clip maps work great for stills. Check out got3d's collection. I use them all the time and love them. ww.got3d.com I just make a copy of the tree from top view, rotate it so it aligns perpendicular to the sun's angle, and make it not visible to the camera and se that copy as the shadow. I think it is a common technique.