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    Tom's 2.5d trees + render apps...

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    • S Offline
      sepo
      last edited by

      Yes it renders in Podium as well but only after exploding it. The shadows are correct. Just a quick 16 second render to test.


      200902011813100_16s.jpg

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      • soloS Offline
        solo
        last edited by

        Tom

        Here is a typical low poly 3D tree, I used .png for the leaf structure, it has shadows in standard SU output and proper shadow in render.

        The SU standard;


        http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/1565/solocherrytreedn6.jpg

        Podium fast render:


        http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3594/200902011349062m14spq4.jpg

        And here is the model:

        Solo-Cherry tree.skp

        http://www.solos-art.com

        If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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        • EarthMoverE Offline
          EarthMover
          last edited by

          Thanks Pete & Tom.

          I was saying to Al the other day regarding his tree generator, that most deciduous trees, when not competing for light, will branch out starting at the crotch of the tree. This is especially true for cherries, which is what makes them so good for climbing when your a kid. Having a tall narrow central leader (trunk) is representative of forest trees, but is not so common in the landscape variety of trees.

          3D Artist at Clearstory 3D Imaging
          Guide Tool at Winning With Sketchup
          Content Creator at Skapeup

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          • T Offline
            tomsdesk
            last edited by

            Thank you very much for the quick response, Guys. This is very helpful...and encouraging so far! Forgive my lack of render language savvy...I really don't know a bump from a grind :`)

            Pete, I like the results too (though maybe a little light at the edges for my taste)...did you alter the transparency or did they come out that way on their own? What did you do to the shadow faces (made with a fully transparent png, just one pixel colored)? Did you need them? Do the pngs themselves cast those beautiful shadows? I see yours are transparent also...did you do something special to get that result? Did you explode the png to a material also? Would it be much of a problem if I used two or three (some of the more painterly trees want to have several hues)? I took the liberty of extracting your cherry png and substituting it into this tree...looking good, man! (I might add a few more of them here and there to thicken the middle...?) I note I'm not beating you on bytes...so not much reason to do it this way, huh?

            tn_solotesttree.jpg!solotesttree.skp

            Sepo, samesame on the cast shadows...I like! Did you have to turn off the shadow layers or do anything else to them? I forgot on the tree I posted (Drat!) but I normally set the image transparency to about 85% so the stacked pngs interact tonally then it is less obvious how the trees are constructed. Can the transparency of the exploded image material be set to get the same result in the render? Would you think it a problem to mess with more than one image png...hiding edges and all?

            I just notice the pngs cast shadows on each other: this could be a good thing sometimes...and a very bad thing sometimes. Is there an easy way to tell a face not to accept shadows?

            Adam, my brother (retired nurseyman and florist for KSU) said the same thing to me just a couple of hours ago. If not for comments from my clients (architects) that they compete for attention when used around their buildings I'd make many more like these:

            tn_Untitled.jpg

            More please...

            http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
            2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

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            • S Offline
              sepo
              last edited by

              I tried to rendered it as it came. It rendered the trunk only and than I just exploded it. Did not change anything to layers or transparency. Podium renders .png no problem. Can you tell me the sequence you did when making that tree (in respect of grouping/making component). Podium should just render it as it is. I am trying to work out why I needed to expode it.

              Same applied for the second tree. However if I explode it than shadows in SU do not look right.

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              • T Offline
                tomsdesk
                last edited by

                Sepo,
                I bring in one image png and make that a component (add a line, make component, then open and delete the line) so a color edit to the image affects all of them...plus, I don't think you can color edit an image without it being in a component: can't select it with the picker. Then I copy and rotate that component around to make the tree. I usually leave all these on layer 0, group them, and put the group on the image layer...so you can turn them off for a B/W export.
                Thanks again for fussing with this!

                http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
                2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

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                • soloS Offline
                  solo
                  last edited by

                  @unknownuser said:

                  Pete, I like the results too (though maybe a little light at the edges for my taste)...did you alter the transparency or did they come out that way on their own?

                  I never altered the transparency.

                  @unknownuser said:

                  What did you do to the shadow faces (made with a fully transparent png, just one pixel colored)? Did you need them? Do the pngs themselves cast those beautiful shadows? I see yours are transparent also...did you do something special to get that result?

                  Tom, the shadow plane looked a little strange if not viewed straight (at an agle the showed planes) so I used a transparency node in Vue and it worked great as it cast transparent shadows.

                  @unknownuser said:

                  Did you explode the png to a material also?

                  No

                  Nice looking trees by the way.

                  http://www.solos-art.com

                  If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                  • T Offline
                    tomsdesk
                    last edited by

                    Pete, thanks. Big difference then between render packages, huh, based on what I see between yours and Sepo's output? Here's the png I used to begin with: in case it can explain anything...?

                    leaf-bn2.png

                    These trees don't do the face-me thing in Vue, do they? Thus the shadow face problem, huh? This also limits the camera location to closely where the model was last saved in SU or the leaf pngs would be on edge too? Wish I understood better, but still, bottomline for me I guess is they do work well enough to be somewhat useful...?

                    Anyway, any suggestions how to make them mo' betta' for external apps?

                    http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
                    2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

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                    • GaieusG Offline
                      Gaieus
                      last edited by

                      @sepo said:

                      I tried to rendered it as it came. It rendered the trunk only and than I just exploded it. Did not change anything to layers or transparency. Podium renders .png no problem.

                      @tomsdesk said:

                      I bring in one image png and make that a component

                      I think this is the key as (AFAIK) Podium doesn't handle mere image entities well - only if the images are exploded and used as texture on geometry (well: a face).

                      The same as with Al's Tree generator; the tree png image entities had to be exploded first (to become face entities with geometry AND the image as texture)

                      Gai...

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                      • S Offline
                        sepo
                        last edited by

                        Yes Gaieus, correct. After exploding one can make it component and it should work fine.

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                        • soloS Offline
                          solo
                          last edited by

                          Tom

                          I deleted the shadow plane and played with the transparencies and textures.


                          http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/1264/modifiedtreenp0.jpg

                          http://www.solos-art.com

                          If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                          • T Offline
                            tomsdesk
                            last edited by

                            Beautiful, Pete, very painterly!

                            Sepo, Gai, I exploded the image png and the file jumps from 132k to 161k...how much that affects the drain in SU remains a puzzlement? I suppose making folks aware this needs to be done for some render programs isn't much hassle...?

                            http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
                            2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

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                            • S Offline
                              sepo
                              last edited by

                              I do not think it is biggy.

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                              • GaieusG Offline
                                Gaieus
                                last edited by

                                It'sobviously due to the geometry created. Rendering apps however can (generally) handle much more poly and file size (think of the heavy, high res images) than SU.

                                Gai...

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                                • T Offline
                                  tomsdesk
                                  last edited by

                                  Cool for me. Had another thought: do these apps render edges...ie. can I build branches with edges only, or do I need a skinny face out at the end?

                                  http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
                                  2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

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                                  • S Offline
                                    sepo
                                    last edited by

                                    No, edges are never rendered. I can firmly say that for Podium. Pretty sure the other do the same. You need skinny face.

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                                    • A Offline
                                      Aidus
                                      last edited by

                                      Copyright by Aiduss
                                      This is my latest work. After 2 or more weeks finally I found a normal way to create trees in sketchup and then render this in maxwell.

                                      This is not final render. Here you can see almost 3000 real geometry trees. All teritory will contain almost 14 000 real geometry trees. All trees are exported to maxwell as instances so actually used is only 8 types of trees.

                                      There is also 70 houses of 5 types and each type has 4 different facade types. Su model size almost 110 Mb.

                                      CPU: e6750 overclocked @ 3.2 GHz with 2Gb ram.

                                      CPU: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965
                                      RAM: OCZ Gold DDR3 1600MHz 12Gb
                                      Video: Asus Radeon HD4870 X2 2Gb
                                      Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe 1366 Intel X58

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                                      • GaieusG Offline
                                        Gaieus
                                        last edited by

                                        Aidus, that's a really impressive and beautiful model/render! I only lack one thing in fact; there are trees (and they are very convincing and look real) but there aren't any bushes/shrubs. It wouldn't even be striking in the foreground (as you look at that area more from above) but in the distance, the field is so "clean" from any other plant. Actually, I first didn't know what is bothering, it is so little strinking.

                                        Nevertheless, as I first said, it's a stunning picture for sure! πŸ‘ (and of course, much-much better than I could ever make πŸ˜‰ )

                                        Gai...

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                                        • A Offline
                                          Aidus
                                          last edited by

                                          Gaieus actually I'm working on this πŸ˜„ When I finish this work I'll publish it here.

                                          PS. Sorry about bad english πŸ˜„

                                          CPU: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965
                                          RAM: OCZ Gold DDR3 1600MHz 12Gb
                                          Video: Asus Radeon HD4870 X2 2Gb
                                          Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe 1366 Intel X58

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                                          • GaieusG Offline
                                            Gaieus
                                            last edited by

                                            Cool, looking forward to it!

                                            @aidus said:

                                            PS. Sorry about bad english πŸ˜„

                                            Many natives have worse πŸ˜‰

                                            Gai...

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