Trouble rendering 2.5D trees

[clayc54]

i would probably use twilight if i could but im on a mac.

currently trying/tried:
Podium (like its simplicity but doesnt seem to render 2.5d trees without extra work)
Light-up (renders trees well but not shadows, crashes a lot on my computer)
Render-in (didnt like the interface as much)
Thea Render (looks really complicated for a newbie)

Im not sure why it seems so difficult to render 2.5d trees. ive rendered pngs and they look fine.

I also use tree components for bills of materials so i cant make each tree unique without a lot of extra work.

[clayc54]

here is the skp file. basically just dragged the tree component into a new file and changed some lighting. rendered in podium using exterior preview, nothing else. render attached.

something weird is going on!

maybe ive corrupted the component??

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render-tree.skp

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[clayc54]

here is a render from one of Toms Desk Oak Trees in Podium (bottom image) and in light-up (top image). just dragged in. no changes.

obviously im no expert renderer but something seems like its not working. leaves weird in podium, shadows weird in light-up. not sure what's going on.

can someone advise as to what the easiest rendering software for 2.5d components?

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[srx]

Twilight Kerkythea Thea

[tomsdesk]

Okay, couldn't stand this sittin' out there any longer...so I spent the morning downloading demo renders and testing the model Clay posted (Edson, I'll find the trees you were using and do some podium tests on them later today...but I'd sure like to have a copy of the model with the trees you exploded to see how you did it):

Clay's SU8 model was set with AA "on" and shadow settings set to "light 10" and "dark 8"...which I didn't change (appears a couple of the renderer's use SU's light settings by default, some don't...?).

I rendered all with the software's out of the box settings...except for adjusting size to about the same height (podium's demo would only allow 500 max...?).

First off, in all of these the render was unaffected by the "anti-alias textures" setting in SU8 (though the look in SU and direct 2D exports from SU are drastically affected...see below this post).

Second, I didn't get anything like what you were getting, Clay (except that my LightUp shadows are tinted green too), and don't understand why your images are as they are...???

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[tomsdesk]

TwilightRender

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[tomsdesk]

LightUp

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[tomsdesk]

Podium

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[tomsdesk]

RenderIn

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[tomsdesk]

Kerkythea

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[tomsdesk]

So...that's all I know about rendering programs: anybody out there able to help Clay, that's some really weird and consistant render result!?!

Podium guys?

[Edson]

tom,

I am sending you the file whose picture I posted above.

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's Várias 2.skp

[honoluludesktop]

Green shadows? Tom do your leaves have any degree of transparency? AdamB, is LightUp able to render colored light casting through colored (semi-transparent) glass?

[tomsdesk]

@honoluludesktop said:

Green shadows? Tom do your leaves have any degree of transparency?

Yes, the leaf-bunch pngs in the trees tested in LightUp are set at 98% to eliminate most of the "edge halo" in SU.

[tomsdesk]

Well, Edson, I tried but I just couldn't reproduce your problem...looks to me like this is a question for the podium gurus.

I took a look around your model and you had indeed exploded the images just as I would have. Then I reopened the model just as you sent it and started rendering (limited by the demo size):

Here's another view (podium first, twilight second):

Here's another reinforcement for not using SU's AA textures:

[Edson]

tom,

the whole thing is really weird. perhaps the problem shown in the second image I posted has to do with not having made each copy of the tree unique.

are you using podium 1.7 or 2?

I am patiently rendering each of your trees individually to see what happens. so far, no problems.

[tomsdesk]

Edson...podium 1.7: I didn't see a demo for V2

[notareal]

From Thea... what I seen 2.5D trees usually work fine. Just export and render.

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[FilipAGuy]

Hello guys.

I want to buy some of TOM´s tree packs, so I tryed to render samples posted
on this forum with Podium V2 (2.02). And I got very similar results as Edson.

Than I tryed to explode model. I exploded model completly, but wasnt working
also. Only option which left was "unhide".

Only problem now is that model is not rotating anymore. I gonna try other samples.

[Edson]

perhaps you are exploding the images incorrectly. I suggest you go to tom's page at Solo's Place, scroll down the page and read his instructions.