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Fractal Tree Maker for SketchUp - Free add-on

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  • D Offline
    david_h
    last edited by 24 Nov 2008, 22:34

    @stu said:

    Dave...youve got me confused now.....how did you explode the tree without seeing it? ๐Ÿ˜•
    But anyway, there is no point in exploding the tree unless you are using it in a renderer like Podium [in which case the square shadow turns into a realistic shadow after rendering]
    At the moment, the trees dont cast shadows in SU....unless exploded....and by doing that you also loose the 'face me' capability.

    Oh, and Id loose the roots....looks a bit like one of those plastic Xmas trees ๐Ÿ˜„

    Stu . . .I didn't see it in Podium, that 's what I meant. When I exploded for a Podium view, It didn't render shadows at all. I will keep playing with it. and that was my first tree with this program. you're abso. Right. the Roots are bad. Walmart Xmas tree was my first thought as well. But I was just seeing how to do it and what it offered.

    Thx,

    D

    If I make it look easy...It is probably easy

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    • G Offline
      gaganraj
      last edited by 24 Nov 2008, 23:50

      i'm unable to install. is anyone else having issues? it said i was missing a certain .dll file and to reinstall. I tried that a few times, to no avail. then all of a sudden my license for v7 says its expired?!

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      • A Offline
        Al Hart
        last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 02:21

        @gaganraj said:

        i'm unable to install. is anyone else having issues? it said i was missing a certain .dll file and to reinstall. I tried that a few times, to no avail. then all of a sudden my license for v7 says its expired?!

        We just posted a new version.

        Give it a try.

        If it says it is missing a DLL, try to note which one it is.

        Downloads are available from:

        Link Preview Image
        Download Request - Render Plus Systems

        favicon

        (www.renderplus.com)

        Al Hart

        http:wiki.renderplus.comimageseefRender_plus_colored30x30%29.PNG
        IRender nXt from Render Plus

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        • A Offline
          Al Hart
          last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 02:26

          We uploaded a new version which:

          1. Clips the roots at the ground - right now we make an image which includes roots below the ground. That is useful sometimes, but much too confusing.

          2. Creates the image (and component) so that the center of the bottom of the trunk is at the center of the image (and component)

          Downloads are available at: http://www.renderplus.com/pdf/download.htm

          Al Hart

          http:wiki.renderplus.comimageseefRender_plus_colored30x30%29.PNG
          IRender nXt from Render Plus

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          • A Offline
            Al Hart
            last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 02:34

            @earthmover said:

            This is exciting! The idea of changing seasons is great. What if there were some magical way to tie a dynamic component into sketchup's shadow date control, then hypothetically you could animate the changing of the seasons!

            Also, I'm still curious about flowering.......is it possible to add a feature for this?

            I chatted with the developer today. He plans to add seasons someday - but he isn't quite sure how he would do it. I suggested allowing 4 leaf images per tree and using one for each season. But he says you will also want to change leaf density, size, etc. So for now, we are going to take an approach were you create different .ArPlant definitions for each season and we will combine 2 or more into a single plant by layer.

            I also, didn't make much progress in implementing flowers or other items on a tree. One idea would be to create a leaf which is really two leaves and a flower and see if that offers any promise.

            Al Hart

            http:wiki.renderplus.comimageseefRender_plus_colored30x30%29.PNG
            IRender nXt from Render Plus

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            • S Offline
              Sushij
              last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 04:05

              Hi. I am running SU7 and can not get the shadows to work in SU Podium. They are just always black boxes. Is there something I am missing. I have done everything that was listed above, such as exploding them. But I can not get them to put correct shadows in a render. Thanks for your help. You are doing a great job.

              ~Jeff

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              • S Offline
                solo
                last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 07:40

                Jeff, I'm going to take a guess that the reason you are not seeing a shadow could be because you have not created a ground plane for the shadow to cast onto maybe?

                http://www.solos-art.com

                If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                • S Offline
                  Stu
                  last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 08:17

                  Jeff, Im not sure what the problem is....you seem to be having the same trouble as Dave.
                  What Im doing is exploding, and then for some reason exploding again until the component bounding box is gone and there is just a line outline left...I usually group the image for easier editing but it doesnt seem essential. At this stage you should be left with a square shadow.
                  With Podium 1.6, I work with the 'dark' shadow slider set to 8 or 10....PNGs seem to produce soft shadows when rendered but I have yet to see a square shadow after rendering.
                  Im using SU6, SU7, Win XP and Vista

                  EDIT:....This will ONLY work with Podium 1.6 beta

                  http://www.landesign.com.au

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                  • S Offline
                    steelers05
                    last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 14:28

                    OK i just downloaded this and tried it, but it is killing my computer. Do you have to have a beast of a computer to run this plugin? It literally took 5 minutes to start up and it was so slow running that is was practically unusable. I dont know if it is an installation issue, because it does work and pull up, it just doesnt work fast enough. Anyone had similar issues?

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                    • E Offline
                      EarthMover
                      last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 15:10

                      My attempt at some flowering Crape Myrtles. I photoshopped flowers in with some leaves. Worked out okay. As far as the Podium shadows....worked good for me. Took some playing with the Dark and Light sliders.....believe it or not, I got the best results from having the light slider set down to 10 and the dark slider up to 35 with "use sun for shading" checked. With the sliders the other way, I found the shadows too faint to really see. (using 1.6)


                      http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3808/2008112510142739szk4.th.jpg

                      http://img233.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif


                      http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/3554/crapemyrtleredbx3.th.png

                      http://img219.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif


                      http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/1971/crapemyrtleredalphawc9.th.png

                      http://img75.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif


                      http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4630/crapemyrtlewhitetd4.th.png

                      http://img219.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif


                      http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5710/crapemyrtlewhitealphaed7.th.png

                      http://img233.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif

                      3D Artist at Clearstory 3D Imaging
                      Guide Tool at Winning With Sketchup
                      Content Creator at Skapeup

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                      • D Offline
                        david_h
                        last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 16:04

                        so what is the upper limit of Tree-ness to this thing? I was doing a conifer shaped tree, with some foliage of course set it to Medium. SU and RP Bogs down and I have to restart. Anyone else having this trouble?

                        D

                        If I make it look easy...It is probably easy

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                        • A Offline
                          Alan Fraser
                          last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 16:15

                          Al, is there any way of having the final render dictated by the view you set the tree to in the first screen? I tested a sample tree with just a single root....so I could tell the orientation...and it seems that whichever way you rotate the tree in the first window, it always renders from the same fixed point, with the root pointing to about 5 o clock.

                          3D Figures
                          Were you required to walk 500 miles? Were you advised to walk 500 more?
                          You could be entitled to compensation. Call the Pro Claimers now!

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                          • A Offline
                            Al Hart
                            last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 16:17

                            Trees should take just about 5 minutes (or less) to create. But it is definitely related to the speed of your computer and what else is going on.

                            There is also a Render button in the Tree Editor (while you are defining the tree). It runs at about the same speed. It the render in the Tree Editor is much faster then the render in the final image maker, then let us know.

                            If they are both too slow, then it is probably time to consider getting a newer computer.

                            Al Hart

                            http:wiki.renderplus.comimageseefRender_plus_colored30x30%29.PNG
                            IRender nXt from Render Plus

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                            • A Offline
                              Al Hart
                              last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 16:20

                              @alan fraser said:

                              Al, is there any way of having the final render dictated by the view you set the tree to in the first screen? I tested a sample tree with just a single root....so I could tell the orientation...and it seems that whichever way you rotate the tree in the first window, it always renders from the same fixed point, with the root pointing to about 5 o clock.

                              We set up the view with the camera at 1/2 the height of the tree, and pointing at the center of the tree.

                              I presume you would like to be able to rotate the view (rather than raising or lowering the camera). We can add this. Also, we hope to add a re-render button so you can change things like the resolution or view and render again.

                              We can't read the view from the first window, but we can let you rotate it in the second window.

                              But give us a week or so to make the changes.

                              Al

                              Al Hart

                              http:wiki.renderplus.comimageseefRender_plus_colored30x30%29.PNG
                              IRender nXt from Render Plus

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                              • A Offline
                                Anssi
                                last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 19:56

                                About performance issues:

                                I tested on two computers.

                                1. P IV 2.8 GHz (non-HT), 1.5GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce FX Go 5200, XP Home Finnish SP3, opens and runs very slow (more than an hour for medium image)

                                2. P IV 2.66 GHz (HT), 2 GB RAM, old ATI 9200-based card, XP Pro English SP3, opens and runs a zillion times faster, about as fast as others have reported here, default conifer about 5 minutes medium size

                                So I am puzzled. I used the same file to install on both.

                                It might be the install: The first showed no progress at the "Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable" window, it just stayed there for a while and then vanished, the second showed a progress bar. It worked the same with the earlier and later version.

                                It might be the non-HT processor.

                                It might be the Windows or language version

                                It might be Norton security software: Norton 360 on the first, Norton Internet Security on the other.

                                Never run into this kind of behaviour before. Usually the performance between the two is indistinguishable, with the first maybe a bit faster.

                                Does this inspire any thoughts?

                                Anssi

                                securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset

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                                • thomthomT Offline
                                  thomthom
                                  last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 19:58

                                  Could be a graphic card issue if the app makes use of the card for the calculations... Just guessing here...

                                  Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                  List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                                  • A Offline
                                    Anssi
                                    last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 20:11

                                    @thomthom said:

                                    Could be a graphic card issue if the app makes use of the card for the calculations... Just guessing here...

                                    My Nvidia should be running circles around the ATI - in general SU use it is noticeably faster...

                                    Anssi

                                    securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset

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                                    • S Offline
                                      solo
                                      last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 21:39

                                      Anssi, try removing it completely and re-installing it after a restart, sometimes it can make a difference.... that's all I got so far.

                                      http://www.solos-art.com

                                      If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                                      • A Offline
                                        Alan Fraser
                                        last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 21:54

                                        Here's a neat trick. The bark will accept either a jpg or a png. So, if you make, say, a 64x64 completely transparent png and specify that, you get an invisible trunk and branches....just the canopy. The resulting skp and image are already cropped to just the foliage.
                                        You can make that into an angled 2D Face Me on top of a static, low-poly trunk.

                                        Here's a quick proof of concept, minus any shadow casting. Of course, you could always make them more sophisticated, with several such layers.
                                        You could probably also use just the canopy (with the right kind of leaves) as drapery/creepers on walls and balconies.


                                        test_tree.skp


                                        testtree_thumb.jpg

                                        3D Figures
                                        Were you required to walk 500 miles? Were you advised to walk 500 more?
                                        You could be entitled to compensation. Call the Pro Claimers now!

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                                        • S Offline
                                          Stu
                                          last edited by 25 Nov 2008, 23:58

                                          Al, just a thought.
                                          I understand your intention is to keep file sizes down but I wonder if a 'super high rez.' option would be possible?

                                          Im finding that trees produced using the 'Best' resolution are at the moment fine for the background and maybe the middleground but start to look blurred close up.

                                          Most of these are coming in at around 1.5-2.0 Mb.

                                          I currently use a lot Tiffs and Pngs that are around 4-6 Mbs each, in SU models that are, say, 80-100 Mbs, fairly comfortably. So I wouldnt see larger file size as an issue.

                                          Maybe you could add a warning about the Hi Rez option?....but it would certainly push the output closer to the 'photoreal' mark.

                                          Or maybe include this option in a 'Pro' version?

                                          I would certain look at paying good money for it.

                                          http://www.landesign.com.au

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