Talu Swamp Development

[Koniption]

Originally posted by morcroft
I made the tree below as a test using blender and a freeware called ngplant as described in this tutorial. It's a procedural generator, so you define the characteristics of the plant and it sort-of grows it.
[...pictures...]
Clearly, it's no speedtree; and there's an awful lot wrong with it at the moment - especially the textures, but is it anywhere near the right track? It's around 4000 tri's - a bit big, I know, but there's probably scope to decimate it down a bit.
The key thing is that if this is usable then I can make variations on the theme by varying the parameters and seed value in ngplant and get it to do the heavy lifting. And it doesn't add to Koniption's workload!
By the way, there are some really nice trees made with ngplant but I tried importing the eucalyptus and it was 30,000+ polys! I have made compromises...!

Whoa! Blender can do that with ngplant!? Yeah, it could use retexturing and other tweaks, but so far what has been done saves a lot of work and time from the start.

I have not started the tupelo tree yet, so feel free to do what you can on this tree. If you need or want me to finalize the tree by me adding certain features (moss, etc), then I can do that.

Koniption

EDIT: Hey! Look what I fond for Max!:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/tree-maker

I have not installed it yet, and I don't know if it works with my 3D program version, but it's worth a shot. I'll install it soon and tell you guys what happens. Not now though.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

@ Koniption - I wonder if that program can help to create speedtree-like trees (ones that are animated like the speedtree ones)...that would be cool!

Yes, it's definitely more like a water tupelo and I guess if that's what it is then the leaves should match. I wouldn't want to argue with nature after all...

@ Xae - Yes, if I decide to go with the swampier option then I'll lower the height map accordingly. As I mentioned earlier, I had planned to perhaps try not using the region generator for this region and simply copying and pasting the trees close together with very, very few rocks but perhaps some knee clusters instead so that it gets dense, wet and bewildering. The result could be a little featureless but potentially highly original.

@ morcroft - Great start, morcroft! But yes, the texture is absolutely pants!

I'd reduce the scale a fair bit and bring the branches further down though. The idea that .nif model trees aren't animated doesn't bother me too much but what does bother me is the lack of a proper canopy as there is a need to use flat textures. I believe someone managed to merge speedtree tops of trees with .nif model trunks but I can't remember who that was. Anyway, I think it turned out to be glitchy even though they partially succeeded in achieving a blend.

Provided it's bushy and mossy enough then we should be fine with this model.

[morcroft]

Yes, well - the textures are just what I threw in to make it vaguely visible. Probably needs a better texture artist than me for the final job.

The leaves are large-ish flat planes with a bunch of maple-type leaves. That's how I kept the polycount down. If you look up then the canopy is almost complete - it just disappears from the side as the planes are zero-thickness. I varied the angle to make it show up more from the sides but have to compromise that with leaves that vanish as you walk towards the tree.

So to get away with this design it seems best to keep the canopy as high as possible. I could put some dead branches low down and we could drape moss off them - that might break up the lower levels nicely.

I think those pics make it look bigger than it is - the nearby speedtrees are a way off.

I don't think animation would be possible from ngplant - don't know about KP's script.

Can anyone give me a poly budget for this thing? At a guess I can't do it in under 2000 and can make it nice with 5000. I appreciate there need to be lots of them!

I'll play some more and post screenies in a few days - I'll start a new thread under "models & textures" where this belongs.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Cheers, morcroft. Np with the textures, of course. I realise they were just there for show. Yes, some shortish lower-level branches would be good. Have you got a copy of Koniption's mossy tree model? It's in the archive but I guess I could send it to you separately if needs be. Koniption has offered to finish off with the final touches which is good. Her technique with the Spanish moss is a wonderful addition and it's just what I'm after!

To make things denser, I'm thinking it wouldn't affect things too badly if I mix up some snowgumtrees in there just to thicken it up a bit.

I'm afraid I'm crap at poly budgets. I rely on the divine intervention of Koniption for that.

[morcroft]

Actually downloaded the main archive yesterday afternoon - evening - last night - this morning.... alright I'm exaggerating but humyo's pretty slow!

Who knows, maybe I'll actually go look at Black Marsh sometime soon!

[Koniption]

Originally posted by morcroft
Can anyone give me a poly budget for this thing? At a guess I can't do it in under 2000 and can make it nice with 5000. I appreciate there need to be lots of them!

I'll play some more and post screenies in a few days - I'll start a new thread under "models & textures" where this belongs.

My HugeMossyTree with the big roots that extend out along the ground is 3616 triangles big, with everything that is modeled on it, included.

My second mossy tree, the one that is MossyTreeAngled01 (or some such name in the archive), is only 2280 triangles big, including all the moss and stuff modeled on it.

These figures do not include the polycount of my collision I used on each of them, but your collision for your tupelo trees will end up being minimal anyway, due to shape of the tree you're working on.

I'd say stick with 2850 triangles or less for your tupelo tree. The less, the better. Since Ibsen will need to use a lot of these together in the exterior worldspace of the swamp, to achieve the canopy effect he needs, we don't want these trees to have too much polycount.

If need be, I can go over your finalized tree, and see if there are areas I know can be optimized, or cut down in size. I can do the changes myself, then send you what I worked on, so you see what I did. I'm pretty good at optimizing by now, since I've done it a lot.

Lastly, can you add some vertical ridges to the trunk base of some of your tupelo trees? Like this:

http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relye...itemno=595

... but without the large gap in the tree...Older tupelo trees get those ridges, while younger ones are smoother. Actually, the photo gives me the idea that some tupelo's might actually be small houses for some NPC's.

Also, when in water, the base of the tupelo is textured with dark brown, which gradually lightens as you go up the trunk, until a certain point:

http://naturalsciences.org/microsites/ed...upelo.html

I have not installed that Tree Maker plugin yet, to test it. Hopefully I can do that tonight. I don't think the trees it makes are animated, though, else the description of the plugin/script probably would have mentioned that feature.

Koniption

EDIT:

I found some more tree making apps:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/to...collision/

It requires use of two, free programs - tree[d] and gile[s]; one being used for converting to obj format:

http://www.frecle.net/index.php?show=projects

[Koniption]

Tree Making Applications - Update:

I tried out the Tree Maker script in 3DS Max 9 (32 bit version), and it does work...

but...I also tried out the freeware "tree[d]" program, and I liked it a WHOLE LOT better. Also, apparently tree[d] does export directly in obj format as well, so you won't need gile[s] at all to convert to obj. Besides, the gile[s] application is only free for 30 days, whereas the tree[d] application doesn't seem to have a time limit for using it.

With tree[d], I can make a tree as close to what i envisioned as possible (and tree[d] allows very fine control over polygon count and it's leaves line up much better to the branches, more so than TreeMaker for Max does), then export the tree as obj, then import the obj into my modeling program, and tweak the tree more precisely from there.

I like my new-found toy!

Koniption

[morcroft]

I've started a new thread in Models and Textures - StillTree development so we can leave this thread to get on with Talu Swamp.

[Deeza]

I'm glad that we've finally got some alternatives to speedtree under discussion now. I'm afraid I find the technical discussion a bit hard to follow though! Which option do you currently think is the best?

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Deeza
I'm glad that we've finally got some alternatives to speedtree under discussion now. I'm afraid I find the technical discussion a bit hard to follow though! Which option do you currently think is the best?

Yeah, sorry, the technical babble is my fault, mostly.

Basically, since we don't have speedtree on any of our ends, and since swamps can be relatively low in wind gusts anyway (we assume), we are sticking with "still trees" or trees that don't have animated leaves.

Koniption