Bugga_Guy Posted December 24, 2004 Share Posted December 24, 2004 Lately in my office we have been doing projects with alot of terrain and trees (and planting) which makes our scenes quite difficult to work with and render.. We have RPC trees but I have noticed after 50 or so RPC's in a scene takes a very long time to render (if at all) and not to mention they look alittle planar after a certain hieght. So I am given the holidays to think about what the company should invest into.. Anyone have any suggestions for a plugin/content for a good assortment of trees that are low poly's but look half decent? I have heard some positive things about ONYX tree's (http://www.onyxtree.com/index.html) the only bummer is there is no trial. So I am not sure if I want to invest $ for something that I cannot try. Has anyone used it with trees in excess of 1000 +? Is it easy to use? Thanks in advance and Season Greetings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colorID Posted December 24, 2004 Share Posted December 24, 2004 hi, we are working in a huge project that has lots and lots of trees ( like 4000 trees), tried rpc but as u said it is for sure no practical for such a number of trees. the best solution after trials was http://www.itoosoft.com a little bet old plugin the forest lite was tried and a really great results is happening,especially regarding the number of polygons and the look of the tree as trees are just plans that look at the camera. onyx trees are just lots of polygons but the result quality is very nice hope i helped Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oluv Posted December 25, 2004 Share Posted December 25, 2004 instead of onyxtree, which produces really good looking trees, you could also try xfrog which is very popular. the newest version only works with cinema4d, but the previous versions can also be used with max/viz. the trees are also great, but to tell the truth i don't know how it behaves with a large amound of trees. still another solution for good trees would be bionatics easynat, which is quite expensive though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted December 25, 2004 Share Posted December 25, 2004 we are using XFrogs, but having a hell of a time with XTune (that is the poly reduction program). XFrog (there is the models and there is the program, which allows you to 'grow' trees - pretty cool for large projects where you want the same kind of tree but with variation) can be used with anything. All the models come with a plugin to import .xfr files or the models come as .max files. XTune exports as .obj files and you have to install a free plugin to import .obj's into max, something we have been having difficulty with. The models are the best I've seen, though, and there are a bunch at reasonable prices. Speedtree might be worth looking at. Not the best models, but it may be faster to render (the xfrog models start at about 20000 polygons and go up from there, but if you buy XTune, you should be able to get them down to 20k per tree, still a lot). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernando Lino Posted December 25, 2004 Share Posted December 25, 2004 http://www.visenv.com/3dtrees/3dtrees.htm these really are not 3d trees but, the plans have the shape of the tree, so you can use shadow map for them. and another good option could be the new lowpolygon3d trees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiviz Posted December 26, 2004 Share Posted December 26, 2004 I'm going to have to agree with ColorID on this one. If you are dealing with large numbers of trees Forest Pro from Itoo Software is a life saver. I also use the textures from imagecels.com for mapping. The beauty of forest pro is that you can apply randomized textures and sizes to a forest in a snap. The trees also follow the camera if you are doing an animation. John Archiviz Studios Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skana Posted December 28, 2004 Share Posted December 28, 2004 if you are using either VIZ, ADT, or 3ds max, I would suggest the EASYnat plugin...great looking trees, low poly count, extremely easy to use (since it is a plugin) and the best part of it is: 50% OFF!! (until December 31st) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndela Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I think EASYnat is no more expensive, they have reduce their price and now indivual plant costs 30 Euro (39 $). With EASYnat plugin you can choose to use full 3D geometry or billboarding to lower polygon count or increase reality... http://www.easynat.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 hey wow, stop the press, these look pretty funky - http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/239910 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I would buy them, but I'm not so sure about this SJLeworthy character selling them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I would buy them, but I'm not so sure about this SJLeworthy character selling them. Haha, that and the fact that he was giving them away for free just a few months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 yup, since i realised i can make money from them i've turned mean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 we have onyx, but hardly use it. i have been most impressed by the stuff i have seen from xfrog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 So CHG- If cost wasn't an issue, you would go with xfrog over onyx? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndela Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 nice (not better than EASYnat in fact...).At the same prize I would prefer to generate as much tree of one specie I want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 So CHG- If cost wasn't an issue, you would go with xfrog over onyx? i would. ..but i have never used xfrog. i played with the demo a few times, but never tried to produce anythign with it. i personally think the trees look a lot nicer than what you would get with onyx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jow Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I highly recomend xfrog,been using it for a couple of years now.its fairly easy to use and if you can be bothered to have a trip to a couple of plant nurserys to photo/scan leafs/bark you need then you can get some lovely results.or you could just buy there readymade models which i understand are exellent quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I have XFrog+XFrogTune and some tree collections for some years now and recently got OnyxTree/Storm. XFrog is better for growing stuff and you have way more control over placing your elements. Actually it is more like a procedural modeler. It is a very nice product but it is very hard to get really realistic trees (unless you find the trees in their collections realistic, which I do NOT). I really would like to see a good tree with realistic last order twigs and their attached leaves from XFrog. Maybe you have scene very good trees from some users (Walli !?!), but that is more thanks to texturing and the artist himself, then the (technical) quality of the model. OnyxTree does a better job at the placing of these twigs and leaves, and it's all automatic. There also is an automatic wind generator that shows really good behaviour, which is nearly impossible to do in XFrog. The only thing I'm missing in OnyxTree is loopable wind parameters, so I can motionbake a tree with it's wind and export it to other applications. For Lightwave I have a neat TreeDesigner/Leavesgenerator plugin: not easy, but once you get the hang of it, you can make everything like hedges, plants, bushes, evergreens, broadleafs, palms, etc. Animation again, is not that easy. Be sure when using 3D trees your preferred renderer supports instancing, otherwise you will reach your precious 2GB RAM limit in no time. Hope this helps... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndela Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I highly recomend xfrog,been using it for a couple of years now.its fairly easy to use and if you can be bothered to have a trip to a couple of plant nurserys to photo/scan leafs/bark you need then you can get some lovely results.or you could just buy there readymade models which i understand are exellent quality. Good quality but not physically correct plants, that's why I prefer EASYnat (and natFX) plugins... Moreover I can get quite lighter 3D models from Bionatics plugins than with Xfrog (but this point is certainly more important for game dev than architectural rendering). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 i compiled a selection of links from each companies galleries to compare their product used in real world solutions. granted a lot depends on the artist.... tree gallery comparison ....probably wated time, but i enjoyed a couple of beers and some music while i was compiling it. i still think i like the xfrog ones the best, even though they may not be technically accurate. even though they don't have as much detail in the twig area, i think they give the best impression of trees. leaving out minute detail in 3d is common practice. leaving out detail in art to give the impression of an objectis common practice. i appreciate that onyx, can detail down to the twig, but when i export from their program, i often turn off the twigs to keep my file size managable. a couple of the images looked familiar. anyone on the board claim them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 i compiled a selection of links from each companies galleries to compare their product ....probably wated time, but i enjoyed a couple of beers and some music while i was compiling it. I think we owe you a couple'a beers! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 ...even though they don't have as much detail in the twig area, i think they give the best impression of trees. leaving out minute detail in 3d is common practice. leaving out detail in art to give the impression of an objectis common practice. i appreciate that onyx, can detail down to the twig, but when i export from their program, i often turn off the twigs to keep my file size managable... It's not the AMOUNT of details what I like in Onyx, it's more the natural behaviour in these "light" parts of the tree. You can also see what I mean when you put some wind on the tree. Onyx is a simulator and also puts weight on all the treeparts, which you'll have to do yourself in XFrog and makes realistic wind behaviour almost impossible. I would like to see some more opinions about EasyNat and Speedtree: especially automatic wind behaviour, low polygon quality, and close-up quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 CHG--That is exactly what was needed. Now if I could only get a demo version or even a demo tree from Onyx, I would be happy. I'm the kind of person who has to experience it for myself to decide whether I like it or not. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 Broke down and bought Xfrog. I will be sure to let everyone know what I think of it. Thanks for the help here. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telemachus Posted February 18, 2005 Share Posted February 18, 2005 After doing some research, I've decided on buyin xfrog in the near future. Their trees and plants look great and they have good bundle deals for purchase. In the meantime, I've decided on getting some quick plants, trees and rocks from Turbosquid.com. My question would be, when three download types are given (.3ds, .max, .obj), which is the easiest to work with? Which should I order? It seems like it would be easier to work with .max because you could just merge over the objects instead of importing them as .3ds, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Thanks, T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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