Trees

Hey...

 So this might seem like a stupid question, but how do you insert trees in your render?

 Du you just place your .png or .tif in the model and render or is there another approach?

 /Dalsgaard

Parents
  • I've used 3D Coat Trees to generate a few different trees and then imported them into a library. It has enough settings to keep you busy for hours tweaking settings.
  • I've managed to get some of the trees from Xfrog as FBX, textured them up and they render beautifully on their own, so thankful I found this thread as its single handedly quadrupled my tree library in a matter of minutes.

    My question now would be what's the best way to use these new found assets in a model.

    For example I have a scene that I used to just photoshop trees into in the past.

    I've referenced a tree in and it looks great (sure they take a while to render but hey) but now I need to have six more in the scene.

    If I duplicate the reference file of the single tree and rotate/scale will Luxology see the tree as just one instance and render it quicker or should I just use a separate reference file with 6 trees within it and pull them in that way?

    Or is there another way to get around this - Perhaps creating the tree as a cell (I did try this but I seem to lose all material attachments and I'm not clued up enough about palettes and how materials follow each other around to sort it out :-)

    Keep up the good work guys your advice has already helped me improve 200% :-)

  • We have been experimenting with Xfrog stuff. Brought in from OBJ and the saved as cells.

    I rendered a 3000x2000px exterior better shot with long fur grass as the base and 130 trees as shared cells in 1 hour 15 minutes.

    Also recently spoken to Stewart McSherry of Xfrog and put him in touch with Jerry. I brought him up to date on MS and Luxo which he wasn't aware of. He is keen to release Xfrog tree and plant libraries as MS cell libraries, possibly with Jerry's help.

    The more requests they get the higher up the list we will be. So if this interests you then get in touch with him.

    Rob

  • Xfrog is a fantastic tree creator and can be directly used in program's like Maya (As a plugin). I wish MicroStation could be compatible with a program like this.  

  • Hi guys, Having tried both my own RPC-trees (lighting is horrible), "real"-rpc trees (also odd-looking) fur-billboard-trees (oh the horror, my eyes.. my eyes.. they bleed), I really want to try 3D trees! I have the xfrog trials, and I can make a DGN. I can even make a DGN with "cells"...

    BUT, how do you make the cells keep the materials?

    Has anyone got a guide for making a cell library with materials that just works?

    (Babble: I can see my materials on the cells in the DGN when I make the multimodel DGN, but they are lost when reopening or using the cell. The materials are visible but not rendered if its through a reference file)

    System: Win7 64bit 16GB Ram - microStation V8i SS3 08.11.09.578. + PoinTools CONNECT. - Intel i7-4800MQ CPU@2.70GHz, 4 core / 8 Logic proc.

  • Hi Torben,

    You're problem looks familiar to me. I've got the following workflow with this kind of trees.

    In the tree dgn file be sure you attach (certainly not assign) you're materials. In theory the trees should keep their materials already. If not like at the project I had last, try the following:

    -Open the models dialog and import the tree model from the dgn file. Look if the materials are still attached;
    -If not add the materials on the location of the MS_PATTERN variable or in the same directory of the dgn file.

    Now attach the model in the cell library and the materials should stay.

    By the way, does the import palette window work for you at this file?

    I hope this works.


    Regards,

    Louis

Reply
  • Hi Torben,

    You're problem looks familiar to me. I've got the following workflow with this kind of trees.

    In the tree dgn file be sure you attach (certainly not assign) you're materials. In theory the trees should keep their materials already. If not like at the project I had last, try the following:

    -Open the models dialog and import the tree model from the dgn file. Look if the materials are still attached;
    -If not add the materials on the location of the MS_PATTERN variable or in the same directory of the dgn file.

    Now attach the model in the cell library and the materials should stay.

    By the way, does the import palette window work for you at this file?

    I hope this works.


    Regards,

    Louis

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