Birds eye views and massing

boofredlay

The last render you helped me with and one I am doing right now have bird's eye views. I would be interested yes.

Some trees that come to mind:

ACER BUERGERANUM -TRIDENT MAPLE
ACER RUBRUM "ARMSRONG" -COLUMNAR RED MAPLE
ACER RUBRUM 'OCTOBER GLORY' -OCTOBER GLORY RED MAPLE
ACER PALMATUM -RED JAPANESE MAPLE
ACER SACCHARUM -SUGAR MAPLE
BETULA NIGRA -RIVERBIRCH
CERCIS CANADENSIS -EASTERN REDBUD
GINKGO BILOBA -MAIDENHAIR TREE
CHAMAECYPARIS OBTUSA -HINOKI CYPRESS
ILEX OPACA "SAVANNAH" -SAVANNAH HOLLY
ILEX VOMITORIA -YAUPON HOLLY
ILEX X ATTENUATA "FOSTER #2" -FOSTER HOLLY
ILEX x NELLIE R. STEVENS -NELLIE R. STEVENS HOLLY
JUNIPERUS "HETZI COLUMNARIS" -COLUMNAR JUNIPER
LAGERSTROEMIA X INDICA var -CRAPE MYRTLE
LIQUIDAMBAR STYRACIFLUA -SWEET GUM
LIRIODENDRON TULIPIFERA -TULIP POPLAR
MAGNOLIA GRANDIFLORA "BROWN BEAUTY" -BROWN BEAUTY MAGNOLIA
MAGNOLIA GRANDIFLORA "LITTLE GEM" -LITTLE GEM MAGNOLIA
MAGNOLIA SOULANGIANA -SAUCER MAGNOLIA
MAGNOLIA STELLATA -STAR MAGNOLIA
MAGNOLIA VIRGINIANA "GREENBAY" -EVERGREEN SWEETBAY MAGNOLIA
MALUS BACCATA "CALLAWAY" -WHITE FLOWERING CRABAPPLE
PINUS TAEDA -LOBLOLLY PINE
PINUS THUNBERGIANA -JAPANESE BLACK PINE
PINUS VIRGINIANA -VIRGINIA PINE
PLATANUS OCCIDENTALIS -SYCAMORE
PRUNUS SERRULATA 'KWANSAN' -KWANEAN CHERRY
PRUNUS X "OKAME' -OKAME CHERRY
PRUNUS x YEDOENSIS -YOSHINO CHERRY
QUERCUS ACUTISSIMA -SAWTOOTH OAK
QUERCUS BOREALIA -NORTHERN RED OAK
QUERCUS PHELLOS -WILLOW OAK
QUESCUS SHUMARDII -SHUMARD OAK
SALIX BABYLONICA -WEEPING WILLOW
TAXODIUM DISTICTIUM -BALD CYPRESS
TSUGA CANADENSIS -CANADIAN HEMLOCK
ULMAS PARVIFOLIA -TRUE CHINESE ELM
ULMUS PARVIFOLIA -DRAKE ELM
X CUPRESSOCYPARIS LEYLANDI -LEYLAND CYPRESS

thomthom

I've used clip map trees many times for large sites. A few thousands on the largest. For the largest I've used four sided faces, face-me components to keep poly count down. Rendering in V-Ray with opacity map gives me proper shadows, while sacrificing SU shadows. (On that scale turning on shadows bogs down the computer anyway.) On smaller projects I some times do a very simple outline of the trees so I get ok SU shadows.

solo

Thanks for that list Eric, I will start making textures.

Thothom, thanks for the info, I will see what i can come up with, but if I'm using optimised jpg's you will get correct shadows with SU and with Vray, I will have more polys than a face-me 2D billboard but I will have a much smaller texture footprint.

Another quick test, added a Large Holly.

solo

I did a test for massing, I used 1006 trees with shadows on.

Seems pretty smooth.

[flash=600,293:1s06n09x]http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/DeT4e_EffUE[/flash:1s06n09x]

solo

White Oak.

Gaieus

Me personally could use these kind of trees big time. I don't really use top view ones (like landscape architects) that you mentioned in another post but some like the4se would definitely be great.

As for the species... Quirte "simple", (Middle-)European ones like oak (including big, fat, old oaks for some Robin Hood series ), birch, horse (ches)nut, maybe plane, ash, elm, some kind of semi-Mediterranean things similar to junipers, and pines... Nothing really special, I guess.

Edson

pete,

in all projects i do there is always at least one bird's eye view. if it consists of more than one building then a larger number of bird's eye views are needed. so your plan for a group of trees that could be used effectively for that is very, very handy.

could you include some tall and thin tree like a cypress, especially the italian variation?

cheers.

p.s.: the first pack is great.

Paul Russam

Hi Solo, Nice trees!

This is link to a Picasa album: http://tinyurl.com/aplypq
The images in here are typically how I use trees.
From our point of view getting a tree specifically right is not that important, just as long as it looks like a tree and looks like it would grow naturally in western europe.

Hope this helps.

solo

Paul that's exactly what I intend with these trees. I threw together a few trees from my next collection and massed them with an old scene that I used Vue to add trees as SU would crash otherwise. I am now able to add the trees as needed and easily navigate the scene with shadows on.

This is straight SU output with soft focus/bloom added in post edit.

Paul Russam

I'd buy that for a dollar! (or more)

How do they look low level?
In my images I've got the tree materials semi-transparent so that I can still see the buildings behind, how would your trees look semi-trans?

solo

Paul, I did a quick test, opacity at 75% on second image.

Paul Russam

You have a sale Mr Solo!
I assume that they are scaleable like all SU objects, I've found that by scaling some trees in only one direction (Up or Out) I can produce other tree types that look relativly convincing.

Paul Russam

As a quick note:
This is how I set about placing trees on a large site, bearing in mind that I'm not actually trying to create a planting plan, I'm just trying to enhance the model.

Take my 5,6,7 unique tree components and scale them to the size I want.

In plan view:

Make 2 or 3 copies and scale each set up or down a metre or so to get some variety in height.

Make 6 or 7 copies of the lot

Select half of them, rotate them through a random angle and place the copies over the top of the other half'

Keep doing the copy/select half/rotate until I have a load of them all jumbled up.

Randomly select trees from the pile and place them over the model in groups of 3 or more, along roads etc etc.

Use Drop.rb to drop them on to the surface.

Select them all and move them down a further 100mm to cover any occurrence of the flat bottomed trunk appearing over sloping ground.

Chris Fullmer

I agree Solo, these are very useful for what I need too. And the general species listed are exactly what I'm looking for too. I don't use too much tropical foliage, but european and mediterranean are big time on my list. And like Paul, I generally don't need anything that looks exactly like a species, but just an approximation is good enough for me.

And Paul, sounds like you should check out randor.rb. It does all minor rotates and scaling for you. I generally like it pretty good.

Chris

Gaieus

@chris fullmer said:

And Paul, sounds like you should check out randor.rb. It does all minor rotates and scaling for you. I generally like it pretty good.

Or Didier's Component Spray tool as it has a "click one to place one" option as well and you can pre-define random rotation, scale and (AFAIK) even tilt (is it tilt? like leaning sideways a bit).