The Awesome Tree Thread
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They look really good and detailed.
Thanks for sharing.
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True that looks nice and detailed however that is indeed a SU killer (and could be modelled better even with the same look and details).
There are a couple of issues here:
- The leaves are also modelled with high poly contours - this is unnecessary as it could be a couple of poly shapes if you desperately want to bend it or even just a simple rectangle if you do not make them bulged and if you apply a PNG image with transparency. Shadows should not be a problem as the leaves would cast individual shadows anyway.
- while during modelling (and populating the tree with leaves/branches), using such multilevel of nested components may be an advantage, when you are ready with modelling, you should explode several levels and have max 2- or maybe 3 (including the top parent). Otherwise it is again a SU killer.* The file size of the model (considering it is made up of components) is extremely high. There is a bmp image there (leaf) that is over 1 Mb (and which cannot have transparency anyway) and the trunk image is a 1.5 Mb tif - both should have been converted into something smaller.
- The leaf stems are all modelled with a bent tube - true that only 3 segments. This is also unnecessary as the leaf image has the stem already.
This tree could be about 1/4 of its poly count and under 500 Kb still looking as nicely as now (unless you zoom in to a single leave)
However indeed nicely looking tree.
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This post is not going the way I wanted it to. I meant for it to become a 'share your best tree model' resource and it's dying rather quickly. Anyone have any great tree models?
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Although not free, there are a lot of great looking 3d & 2d trees here. There are some free samples too.
http://sketch3d.dynascape.com/Components/Components.aspx?category=46 -
The most comprehensive collection of decent 3D plants (or anything else) for SketchUp is here.
But I have already posted several of various types to this forum. There's a higher poly model here and a semi-transparent one (so that architecture can be seen through it) here. There are quite a few others too, but you'll have to hunt for them.
Here's a free prototype of a series I'm working on at the moment...a dogwood in full blossom.
BTW. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but FormFonts does, in fact have quite a few free models. We don't have a freebies page as such, but if you type gratis in the search box it'll bring up several pages of free stuff (with the occasional one that isn't) The free stuff can be recognised by a faint orange border. We had to use 'gratis' because the search engine allows for illiterates, so typing free or freebie would bring up every free-standing light and kitchen unit on the site. Even gratis brings up tree grates etc.
If you download them, please don't post them to the Warehouse or anywhere else...it's against our Terms of Use.
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Thank you Alan!
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Here's one I made a long while back. Not as nice as some in the first link, but fairly decent res for a 2D tree: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=3c8cc2130679a053af69001ea6c73ec3&prevstart=0
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Formfonts rocks. Its the #1 resource for all of my models. I was just scouring around to see if there was any ultra high detail landscape out there. I found the Xfrog free set and converted a bunch to SKP and soon realized that these files are monsters. A 700k 3DS file turns into a 100MB SKP file, which is insane to me, but whatever. I converted a few to use for special projects and closeups. It was rather easy, once I found ThomThoms UV tools.
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Gaieus et al.,
I find the same problem with 3DS files or obj's when converted to skp. Is there any reasonable workaround to make these useable?
As an open source junkie, I can appreciate formfonts' and dynascape's collections, but would love a way to generate trees and shrubs without having to spend all day modelling them.
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@jokewalker said:
Gaieus et al.,
I find the same problem with 3DS files or obj's when converted to skp. Is there any reasonable workaround to make these useable?
As an open source junkie, I can appreciate formfonts' and dynascape's collections, but would love a way to generate trees and shrubs without having to spend all day modelling them.
Tree[D] is a free software that lets you do that
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I found that tree[d] is quite high poly...ok for saplings but not much else. If you want to go the free route, one of the best I've found is Baum3D. Yes, it's in German (it's down at the bottom of the page). It doesn't install, just runs directly out of its own folder. Although it's in German, there is a language.lan file which you can use to get the GUI to function in English.
If you go to the trouble of making your own bark jpegs and leaf pngs, you can get some really nice results from this. Used properly, it's even capable of producing not half-bad conifers...something which most other tree generators entirely shy away from, or produce a tree with half a million polys.
The thumbs above the link show some results imported to C4D. -
What's the workflow for import to SU? VRML to ?
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Rich, I use Deep Exploration, but I think Wings or Blender will do it...or at least get it to 3ds.
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A free one : Dryad
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Dryad is cr@p too.
Of course, the best thing to do is not scour the Net looking for such software...but scour the Net looking for sites that have already done it for you. Link
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