Render test, please...tomsdesk 2.5d trees?
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A quick V-Ray test:
- I hid the fake SU shadow layers
- I exploded all Images using this plugin: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=17154
- Then added the alpha map to the diffuse layer for the leaf materials
- Since the textures are colourized in SU, V-Ray for Sketchup creates a Blend Map for the diffuse material. This will make the colours look a bit flat, so I change the blend ratio from 0.5 to 0.0.
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@jhagan421 said:
Tom
Glad to add what I can. I forgot the mention (it was a bit late last night) that the trees really look great (IMO)
The shadow thing bugs me because I saw test from Solo and from Sepo. There are shadows but very weak. You or someone else can correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the image explode plug that Thomthom posted supposed to correct the shadows of the pngs in SU as well??
@unknownuser said:
is there a way in podium to have the leaf-bunch faces not accept shadows?
In podium if you set an Omni light entity to have 0% opacity it will not CAST shadows - presumeably this would be the case for any object, but I've only used this (and only thought of it interms of eliminating double shadows - that said I don't think that is where you were going. If the endgame is to achieve results like the Vray image posted by Thomtom - that is what is suposed to happen with alpha pngs in Podium as well - I'm not sure why it did not work in my tests
.You might not see strong shadows if you got your sun set to around noon. You get that effect in V-Ray as well. The sun it straight over the model and doesn't cast very strong shadows. Try to adjust to an earlier or later time of day.
My plugin just explodes all Image elements into regular faces as V-Ray can't render Image elements.
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I think jhagan421 was rendering without sun on , only GI. There is no problem to render those trees after exploding.
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Hi all.
I did get the shadows to work, - see post of March 4.
I had the shadows turned off.
I didn't realize you could do that. i don't do much exterior especially rendering
Tom the new bunches look great
Josh -
Tom asked that I move this pm here:
I asked:
"In order to have the widest market appeal, shouldn't you cutout the transparent (alpha) surfaces so that all render software will easily cast shadows? Isn't this how most 2d trees and people are built?"
Tried your tree with su2pov3. The resulting render changed the colors and included the alpha rectangles (thought that pov had alpha support). IDX render also failed (alpha support slated for next release).
He said:
"The only reason, and a big one, is the poly-count...if I did what you suggest (and I did began that way) these trees (which are made up of several, some a bunch, of png images) would slow SU pretty fast (now you can pack a hundred of them in without slowing down too badly).
On the color render issues...I've noticed that too and haven't a clue? Maybe posting the question on this thread will attract some help from the others (which would serve to help me as well)."
My question:
OK, Just what consist of a poly-count? I thought it was just the number of surfaces. Are edges part of the poly-count? I have a 12" strip of 2d grass with about 300 edges, could that be a problem if I had say, 100 instances of it in a model?
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Lots of edges slows down SU a lot, so yes having many instances of your grass component would slow SU down.
Ive got a feeling welding all the edges together can help, though.
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Wes, sorry I wasn't too clear: yes indeed, as Remus says, edges do make a difference. Let's pick one of my trees that has 10 pngs (high average). Each png has approx 400 leaves (low average). Each leaf would need an edge made up of at least 10 segments to look as nice as the alpha cut. That's 44,000 more edges and faces per tree...plus, all are now casting shadows in SU. It gets to be a drag really fast...just like a 3D tree, and why the 2.5d was developed.
I too hope someone can post a solution for the color fade issue...?
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Remus, how do you weld edges?
Tom, I didn't realize your trees had that many entites.
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With weld.rb, you can find it on smustard.
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Remus, Thanks,
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i am having trouble rendering tom's trees in podium. i read everywhere that all i should do is explode them and i will be set, but i it does not seem that clear to me:
question 1: do i explode the whole component or the sub-component image with the leaves?
question 2: is it enough to explode one or should i select all and explode?even though i do have the sun on (see the image from the skippy) i get no shadows in podium. and when i got one to work by chance the shadow was solid, not as i see in some of the pictures above. not even in sketchup i get shadows that are not blocky.
i am surely doing something wrong, but what? any tips?
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I think you have to enable a setting in podium itself to make it render sun shadows. I believe it's like V-Ray, it doesn't automatically use the SU sun, you have to tell it to.
Also, if Podium is like V-Ray: I had to explode the Image elements in the tree. That's the planes with the leaves. I made a plugin which will find all Images in a model and explode them. Automating the process. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=17154
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Another thing regarding the shadows: Do you have a plane underneath the trees?
In SU you can set the sun to cast shadows on the "ground", which means you get a shadow on the ground plane even if there's no geometry there. For V-Ray for instance, that won't work, you have to place some real geometry underneath it. What You See Isn't Always What You Get. -
thomas,
thanks for the help. i had indeed forgotten to put a plane under the tree...
however, the sun is not enabled in podium but in SUp.
i had found your script some hours ago but was struggling with it (very useful!). in one of my firts attempts at exploding the tree it created a new bunch of leaves close to the ground, as you can see below.
question: should one just select the tree and run the script or should one get inside the component and select the leaf bunches?
regards.
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Hmm... that's odd. Does that happen every time?
You don't have to select anything, because the script will explode every Image in the model to make it render.
Could you send me that .skp you made the screenshot from so I could have a look? -
no, it did not happen every time. unfortunately, that was just a test skp. i did not even save it. should it occur again i will save it and PM it to you.
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Sorry about the confusion...hope these a few thousand words worth ( :`) on the subject clear things up a bit:
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I've been playing with these trees and found them to be great skeletons to map billboard trees to give them more volume.
I replaced the original leaf textures with photos of real trees. (really quick and dirty - only meant for birds eye view scenes)
Since each tree is only ~20-50 faces I can put loads out there. Perfect for birdseye views when you have lots of vegetation. Billboards just doesn't work in that perspective.
I'll do some more tests with more colour variations so it doesn't look so uniform.
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this looks great, thomas. will you make them available here?
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@edson said:
this looks great, thomas. will you make them available here?
I can't do that. It's tom's trees. From his commercial collection. http://solosplace.com/Tomsdesk.aspx
They are originally NPR - but I just wanted to demonstrate that they work with other textures as well. Though, I could post some replacement texture when I get around to make some proper ones. (Along with description of how to do the changes.)
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