Fractal Tree Maker for SketchUp - Free add-on

Al Hart · 25 Nov 2008, 02:34

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.

Sushij · 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

solo · 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?

Stu · 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

steelers05 · 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?

EarthMover · 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)

david_h · 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

Alan Fraser · 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.

Al Hart · 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 · 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

Anssi · 25 Nov 2008, 19:56

About performance issues:

I tested on two computers.

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)
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

thomthom · 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...

Anssi · 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

solo · 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.

Alan Fraser · 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

Stu · 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.

Al Hart · 26 Nov 2008, 00:53

@anssi said:

About performance issues:

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

The TreeMaker threads run at a lower priority. It's possible something is stealing clock cycles.

Make sure the processor is idle before launching a TreeMaker. You can do this using Task Manager->Performance Tab.

Gaieus · 26 Nov 2008, 13:28

I also have nVidia (GForce 6800 GO) in my laptop but it seems to perfom "normally" (i.e. at around 4-6 minutes like most reported above depending on resolution).

rcossoli · 26 Nov 2008, 14:17

tanks!!! very good application, I did well in the machine, I just hang up the SketchUp open the program while, but after work, takes about 2 or 3 minutes in renderings as high or higher.
I have an Athlon 64x2 4800 with 2 GB of RAM and a video card GForce 7200 256.

Al Hart · 26 Nov 2008, 15:03

@unknownuser said:

I am getting the message: "TreeEditor.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close" when I run RpTreeMaker.

Any thoughts?

No we haven;t seen that before.

Does it happen all the time?

Try running TreeEditor.exe manually (from Explorer or a DOS Window) it is porbably in this path:

C:\Program Files\Render Plus Systems\RpTreeMaker\TreeEditor.exe

If it works manually, then there is probably something wrong with the default tree file.

This is stored in your temporary folder as RpArPlant.ArPlant. If possible rename RpArPlant.ArPlant to something else. If that fixes the problem, then send us the renamed RpArPlant.ArPlant so we can see if something is wrong with it.