Sawyer Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Ok, I got a couple of bucks set aside. About $250 and I really want to do something new better whatever with plants. I am always stumbling with trees and landscaping. I am thinking Marlin Studios plant cd but I could be persuaded another way. Anyone have some advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 I like the products I've gotten from Marlin, but I love the RPC files too. You can download there free plugin for Photoshop and place the plant/people images into your PS files. It's great because it lets you preview the RPC files in 360 degrees, thereby allowing you to place the same file numerous times, but slightly different. Much better that a standard TIFF file with an alpha chanel. On the downside, you don't get as many files. http://www.archvision.com/cgarchitect/ Also take a look at: http://www.realworldimagery.com/ for more TIFF/alpha images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Too bad Speedtree is $395, otherwise I would recommend that one so you could make your own. If you go with RPC, I would recommend either the Fall Collection #6 or the Young Deciduous #7. For 12x18 or smaller images, RPC content would work fine but if you do mostly high resolution images, Marlin's trees would probably be a better choice. John D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_A Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Is anyone here using the XFrogPlants ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 hi There Sawyer, i dont have 1st hand (or 2nd either) experience but here is a Link to a List of Links for Trees: etc, Landscape etc: http://www.viz2000.com/html/alfa/landscape.html if you have any other Links to other websites please, let me know i collect This kind of Info: Bionatics is cool: http://www.viz2000.com/html/soft/viz-softadds.html some Landscape Tutorials: http://www.viz2000.com/html/link/viz-linkland.html wasnt/isnt There a Thread here at cgarchitect about Trees/grass ?? **** i guess i didnt read That sign, keep off the grass (been so long i dont even remember when i was younger) Thanks vizwhiz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted January 3, 2003 Author Share Posted January 3, 2003 Thanks to everyone who posted. John you pointed out a little tid bit I hadn't thought up is this really try that for the big images 3'+ that I need to do RPC us the lame duck. Honestly I have looked at the site downloaded the free thingy that does RPC but I don't really get it. There seems to be so may prices on their site I am not sure what I need to look at for a final purchase price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 If your prints are 36 inches wide, the RPC content will not be as sharp as the rest of the image due to the original resolution of the RPC images. John D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Hi, I got some personal thoughts about trees and so. After reading Jeffs article I was a bit confused on the possibilities (not the article, which was good imho). Considering Bionatics I was shocked that for close-ups the models were not useful so I would prefer Speedtree for this. On the other hand I don't want to spent time modelling trees because it takes time to do so and these would not resemble it's real life counterparts after all. So in fact I just want accurate, low to high poly real life trees to drag and drop... Anyone knows such a program? How does the xfrog work on animation btw? Anyone got a clue on that? rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Cranium Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I'm looking for plants and trees too-- Dosch has a few collections, but they don't bother mentioning anything like polycount on them, and the example pictures are very small. As for this RPC thing... I'm going to have to do some more research on that myself, I fail to see how those things could look remotely at home with the lighting of a scene, much less anything like an animated flyaround or walkthrough. Maybe I just don't understand what they're really for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 i invested in marlin studios foliage cd. wonderfull stuff altho saying that, i also use the free d/l of RPC trees and folliage. also great stuff. he's an example of free downloadable RPC ppl and foliage i used in a golf club house model i produced 2 years back. pretty effective stuff. (teehee, the days before GI or even faked GI) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Cranium Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 Still not quite sure what to make of those RPC things... can you pan the camera around em? What about if you have fairly dramatic indoor lighting, or bright outdoor lighting with an obvious sun source-- wouldn't they look totally funny? Especially trees and plants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 just think of them as 3d objects. you can pan the camera all around them, use them in dramatic lit scences etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 RPC are really just a collection of 100's or 1000s of bitmaps taken from many camera angles in relatively flat lighting. You place a place holder in max and at rendertime the place holder is swapped out with the bitmap that matches the current camera location and perspective. There are vertical limitations of about 60 degrees above I think but horizontal is 360 degrees. The exception to this are the new automobiles as they are hybrid modles and textures so you can go above as well. Also be carefull with some of the smaller shrus packages as they are not true RPCs. You still place a placeholder but relagardless of the angle the same bitmap is swapped. These ones are used for stills and plants that are in the distance. Hope that helps, Jeff Originally posted by Gnarly Cranium: Still not quite sure what to make of those RPC things... can you pan the camera around em? What about if you have fairly dramatic indoor lighting, or bright outdoor lighting with an obvious sun source-- wouldn't they look totally funny? Especially trees and plants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Cranium Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 Ahah, that's more clear... I still think they'd look really superimposed depending on the lighting. I think maybe they have some samples, I'll check that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 well... some of us really don't like rpc... lol! strat: many things changed, except for the 'constipation' poses rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 What about if you have fairly dramatic indoor lighting, or bright outdoor lighting with an obvious sun source-- wouldn't they look totally funny? Especially trees and plants. To answer that question directly: Yes, they will look funny. However so would Marlin Studio's stuff or any other "bilboard" type effect. That's not to say I wouldn't recommend the use of those products because the only way around that is to have actual models of plants or people or whatever. Speed Tree from Digimation however is a model based system for creating plants. Here's a look at an example I found: This is by no means a great rendering but it does show proper shading for the plants. The obvious problem to me would seem to be rendering times especially with GI. If anyone has experience with Speed Tree I'd love to hear just how "speedy" it really is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Cranium Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 The full version of Speed Tree also costs $6000 smackeroos! You can get a wimpy version for $400, but you have to make all the trees yourself then, and I sure ain't no botanist. I'd rather go with a good library of tree models. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 Check out jeff's article on Bionatics vs Speedtree rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 Originally posted by Gnarly Cranium: The full version of Speed Tree also costs $6000 smackeroos! You can get a wimpy version for $400, but you have to make all the trees yourself then, and I sure ain't no botanist. I'd rather go with a good library of tree models. I think you mean Bionatics NatFX no? Speed Tree does not have a stand alone library. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Cranium Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 I was reading the pricing/licensing info sheet on the Speed Tree homepage. Guess I could be misinterpreting something... not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pidge Posted November 27, 2003 Share Posted November 27, 2003 a pulgin that i have found usefull is forest pro, it come with a library of trees and srubs and if you want to upgrade your library you can just edit some existing photo's in photoshop and add then to your library, it's a great program for doing people because it only works with image planes and opacity maps, goto itoosoftware for a trial version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted November 27, 2003 Share Posted November 27, 2003 hi There 2 other Links to check into: for Trees Onyx: http://www.onyxtree.com/ XFrog: http://www.xfrogdownloads.com/index.htm XFrog Free: http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/ST2/cg/downloads/publicplants/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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