Render test, please...tomsdesk 2.5d trees?
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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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I just used standard settings when I rendered and they turned out rather dark. Here's a lighter variant.
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WOW, they look great Tom! Those replacement textures would be very interesting.
Here is an Artlantis render I did to find out if I can use them. Had to disable the 2 shadow layers, fiddle with the shaders a bit to get the transparency working, that's it. 20 seconds when I knew what to do.
Great Trees. The bundles are on my personal wishlist now
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Kerkythea, 500x500. I had to explode everything to each individual face and delete the main vertical and horizontal face in the tree before exporting to Kerky. Once in Kerky, I used the alphas as clip maps, inverted them and rendered.
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To make the trees you see in my test renders I first exported the texture from the model:
I then opened it Photoshop and overlaid a photo of some leaf vegetation - ensuring to keep the original transparency.
A different replacement for TDleaf_Bs1-5
As you can see, it was done quick and dirty. Position and scale wasn't done much with.
With some more care taken to choose replacement texture and position and scale it - I'd think that you could get closer to the trees and they'd still look ok.
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