Fractal Tree Maker for SketchUp - Free add-on

Al Hart · 5 May 2009, 13:16

@6284732 said:

oh i can not understand

After creating a tree and placing it in SketchUp, click Window/Materials.

When the SketchUp Material Window comes up;

select the "In Model" icon
select the material for the tree, and
select the Edit tab

From the Edit tab:

Select the "Edit texture in an external editor" icon, which will load a photo or image editor program.

In the image editor, go to File/Save As.

In the Save As dialog, use the drop down to the right of the folder name to get the complete path of the folder.

AcesHigh · 6 May 2009, 16:17

Al, do you think its possible to create Paraná Pines (a type of Araucaria tree that is very common in my area) in RPTreeMaker?

Chris Fullmer · 6 May 2009, 16:24

(off topic) I spent some time in Itajuba (em Minas Gerais) and Campos do Jordao and there are lots of the parana arucaria there. Absoultely some of the most amazing trees I've ever seen! They are HUGE. Good request Aces,

Chris

Al Hart · 6 May 2009, 17:04

@aceshigh said:

Al, do you think its possible to create Paraná Pines (a type of Araucaria tree that is very common in my area) in RPTreeMaker?

I pass this on to Roy, who wrote RpTreeMaker, and see if he has any ideas.

Can you get something similar by overlapping two trees - one for the top branches, and one for the lower branches?

Tobobo · 7 May 2009, 12:53

Al,

If you look at the images below there is something weird happening around the edges of the trees/shrubs. Is this because I chose the medium quality processing?

Thanks

Al Hart · 8 May 2009, 15:23

@tobobo said:

Al,

If you look at the images below there is something weird happening around the edges of the trees/shrubs. Is this because I chose the medium quality processing?

Thanks

This is caused by the partial transparency at the edge of the tree image.

I will take a look at it.

Higher resolution images will make it less noticeable, but will not eliminate it.

Tobobo · 8 May 2009, 16:03

Thanks Al

juju · 24 Sept 2009, 19:55

@al hart said:

@tobobo said:

Al,

If you look at the images below there is something weird happening around the edges of the trees/shrubs. Is this because I chose the medium quality processing?

Thanks

This is caused by the partial transparency at the edge of the tree image.

I will take a look at it.

Higher resolution images will make it less noticeable, but will not eliminate it.

Just following up on this Al, any feedback?

RogerB · 24 Sept 2009, 21:29

Remove the edges around the trees by setting transparency quality to nicer under styles>edit>faces.

Al Hart · 24 Sept 2009, 21:35

@rogerb said:

Remove the edges around the trees by setting transparency quality to nicer under styles>edit>faces.

Wow! What a great trick to know.

Let me know if it works.

Al

EarthMover · 24 Sept 2009, 22:09

I never knew that either. It works like a charm...thanks for the tip Roger.

smokinbakin · 25 Sept 2009, 02:33

Thanks a lot Al

Tobobo · 25 Sept 2009, 08:28

@rogerb said:

Remove the edges around the trees by setting transparency quality to nicer under styles>edit>faces.

Thanks Roger!

RogerB · 25 Sept 2009, 17:20

Glad you found it useful. I have always believed this was common knowledge. I noticed the same problem way back when this plugin was released but I did not see it mentioned anywhere, so I thought there must be something I am doing wrong. After some googling I found this setting mentioned somewhere on the web.

phrimagination · 5 Nov 2009, 19:42

Hello Everybody, hello Al

I am new in Sketchucation...
I am a long time user of sketchup since v2 from france but never tried ruby plug before. But since I red Daniel Tal book Google sketchup for Site Design I am very in trying plug in where I learned about amazing and powerfull Fred tools and more. I went to Sketchucation to download extensions plug in, I would to thank Gaius to help me to register.

I loaded fractal Tree Maker it is a very nice and useful tools. For me it works on my laptop a Dell Inspirion 1720 with vista, but I did not succeed to make it work on my old desktop a gateway GT 5220 with XP pro. Here the message.
Error Loading File RpTreeMaker_loader.rb
126: The specified module could not be found. - H:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/Win32API.so

Gaieus · 5 Nov 2009, 19:55

Hi Phan - glad you made it finally.

Now as for the error - it doesn't seem to do anything with the plugin but there's some problem with your XP I guess.

Chris Fullmer · 5 Nov 2009, 20:39

it looks like it uses a file called win32API.so This is a sort of common script that other plugins use too. You can just copy it from your first computer onto your second computer. It will be located in the Plugins folder inside of SketchUp. Just copy it to the second computer, to the plugins folder, and then try the script again.

Chris

Al Hart · 5 Nov 2009, 21:21

@unknownuser said:

H:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/Win32API.so

Check to see if the file exists at that location on your machine.

windrockwater · 23 Nov 2009, 17:36

This is a very cool tool. Out of curiousity, what is the workflow of using Vray with this? I see the checkbox in options. But what does it do? Do you still have to assign the alpha map manually in Vray?
Otherwise, i tried this plugin with sketchup and its pretty cool!

thomthom · 23 Nov 2009, 17:46

@windrockwater said:

Do you still have to assign the alpha map manually in Vray?

With the current versions, yes.