#Good Plant Material
7 messages in this thread
Nicolas Hower wrote on Sept 30:
>I am looking for any good looking (not corny) vegetation to be used for
exterior renderings. Shreiber >Nursery does not impress me (I own it) and so I
am searching for new ways to create realistic scenes. >This may be in the form
of .3ds files, but more than likely be mapped images. Any response will be
>greatly appreciated.
>Thanks.
>Nick Hower
>Phoenix, AZ
Likewise, I am also interested in finding good techniques for creating
realistic plant and tree materials for architectural animations. Any tips for
creating realistic looking trees & plants, without the use of specialized IPAS
plug-ins, would be appreciated.
Tim Fairbanks
Minneapolis, MN
Hi Tim
One way I have used to good effect in petrol station drive ins we have done
has been to use 'cardboard' cutouts using a scanned photo of the plant mapped
onto a flat mesh using a black and white version as an opacity map.
This is very good for middle and far distant foliage. Not so good close up.
Hope this helps.
Tim Coupland, Field of Vision, London, England
Thanks for the response on Plant Materials, Tim.
I have tried using the "cardboard" technique in animation I'm presently working
on, but some of the scenes involve a fly-by of a building with several plants
and trees located right next to it, so this technique doesn't hold up very
well. I was curious as to whether there were any other techniques, short of
buying "Fractal Garden" or similar plugin, which look good, but would increase
the vertex count of my scenes.
So you want good looking trees, but a low vertex count, too, eh?
Beelzebub's got a devil put aside for you! <bg>
Seriously, the look of x-ed cutouts is significantly improved if, in Editor
from top vpt, you shift-rotate each one 45 degrees, giving you an additional
two planes for each tree. Don't knock it until you've tried it; it looks
surprisingly good, with minimal impact on vertex count and rendering time.
Hope this helps,
SCL
Stephen,
'Been there, done that' with the "x" trees. The problem lies with trying to
find a soft, realistic look. I've even bought Gallery Effects for Photoshop to
apply different techniques like watercolor and charcoal to the finished
renderings- to no avail. All the criticisms come form comparing my hand drawn
exterior renderings to the computer illustrations. Everyone is fine with
everything except for "those funny looking plants (ie. Shreiber Nursery, or
opacity mapped trees). I guess, untill the hardware can realistically ($)
catch up to the software, there will always be a problem.
Thanks for the input.
Nick
P.S. Are these photos of trees or computer generated renderings of trees that
you use for your maps?
Nicolas,
The project I was referring to, the co. had Silicon Garden, I used its Forest
setting, individually shift-rotated about 3 doz. trees.
It was for 640×480, 8-bit color flythru at apparent speed of a car doing about
35 mph. The extra planes worked to really improve the "3D-ness" of the trunks.
Most foliage was high enough to be peripheral.
SCL
You might also look at "Inside 3DS" in which a sample script (written, I think,
by Jonas) rotates the flat planes of a whole group of objects so they keep
their faces toward the camera. This technique is mentioned specifically for
using tree "planes".