'turned' trees - re: memory
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The typical problem: I'd like to populate a large landscape with a lot of trees. No renderings contemplated, maybe some flybys, though. Site is 260 acres. I know that in whole site views, the trees will be insignificant no matter the type, but I want them to be passably schematic for closer views. Are 'turned' (lathed, follow-me round) forms an option, as far as memory goes? Any recommendations, otherwise?
A mushroom tree example:
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Make a simple 2d tree or download from warehouse and make it a face me component very low poly, move, copy that same instance will yield smaller file size.
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Thanks. I'm familiar with face-me entities, but wanted plan view, as well. I guess that is unreasonable. Do something else for the plan. Perhaps this kind of thing but not turned done as face-me for those non-plan views.
Checked the memory on the turned tree - ridiculous. Forgive me.
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You could still use 3d trees and either hide them on a separate layer so as you are working in your model the PC doesn't have to constantly redraw them and unhide the when you need to or try plugin Ghostcomp a really good plugin for lots of high poly components.
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Yes, I know. Thanks. Turns out the memory of the turned tree is not so bad relative to the good face-me trees. They are generally quite high.
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You could use trees like that, but if you are contemplating using a lot of them i'd seriously consider vastly reducing the number of segments in the circular lathe path to something like 6.
It doesn't matter if you manage to achieve a fairly small file size by having them all the same component. The thing that matters in terms of navigability is the total number of faces/edges, not the size of the file itself.
Something like this might work. It only has about 2 dozen faces per tree. That means you can have about a hundred of them for the same cost as a fairly low poly piece of furniture.
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I had looked at this issue a few years ago when I had different needs... for a house not a larger piece of land needing many many reps. Of course the other issue is variety. I guess I need to learn how to model these things myself. In this case the clear winner is 'tree'.
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Thanks very much, Alan, for the advice and the model.
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We have a new leader.
And if I understand you correctly (and to remind myself), in context display performance should be better than these numbers indicate. -
Yes, faces and edges are the killers of performance, not necessarily the number of Kb. I've navigated a model with 1000's of Face Me component trees in it without too much of a problem. If high vantage point is the problem, you could always have them at an angle or construct some out of, perhaps, half a dozen different angled planes of foliage. A decent graphics card will deal with the textures far more easily than the CPU will deal with a ton of geometry per tree...whatever the filesize of the component.
Some of the 2.5D trees posted by Tom in Components might well do the job.
The only problem with this method is that you either have to have the rectangular planes of foliage cast no shadow, put up with weird rectangular shadows...or trace around the foliage to vignette it....hugely increasing the number of edges in the process. No small matter if you intend having hundreds of trees.
Personally I think that a birds eye view with no tree shadows looks a little weird. -
I'll keep looking in that section. I can't believe sometimes what a slow learner I can be... smoothed, hidden, texture scales, etc..
Thanks very much for your help.
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