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3D trees?


Christiaan

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Also...

Image Props are less memory intensive than 3D trees, can be easily scaled (proportioned or not) for variation in size, and once done properly, may even be a better photorealistic representation.

With a 3D tree you get a different look from different angles, hence no repetition in look in a scene. This can however be fixed by using various image (at different angles) of the same tree, and creating image props out of them. This would still be less memory intensive.

Only disadvantage I can think of, is if you are animating. But Image props work wonders for renders, even creating shadows using 'Crossed Planes'.

Hope this helps!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Shame VB Visual don't have more trees. We're after a European Hornbeam (Carpinus Betulus), a common European street tree.

Edit: will this work in Vectorworks?

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/545690

You can import an Xfrog plant into VW using the .3ds files they provide. But Xfrog plants are high detail models. A mature tree usually has about 100,000 polygons. Using the .3ds format doubles this (due to triangulation), and in my experience VW simply cannot handle a model with that many polys. I?ve tried to import several Xfrog trees into VW and it always brings VW to its knees. So you are pretty much stuck with the billboard images they provide. You can use them to make Image Props inside VW. Which in my opinion is pseudo 3D, more like 2 1/2D. The biggest drawback is shadows. They can cast one, but they can?t receive shadows if Constant Reflectivity is on (which is the default ? so the crossed plane that gives it a nice full shadow doesn?t throw a shadow across the face of the Image Prop itself). Also you won?t get the canopy throwing shadows down onto the trunk. Plus the shadows that are part of the original billboard texture often don?t match the exact angle or intensity or lighting of your scene. But they do have their place. And can be used effectively in backgrounds, or like Farookey says, by making a bunch from different angles so they aren't carbon copies of each other. And they do cut down rendering time. A lot. Sometimes they are the only way to get a scene rendered.

Luckily, Xfrog has a lot of free models on their site. I would test some out and see how it works for you. Use the 3ds files. And try one of a comparable size/species, like the Sweet Birch tree.

I'm in the process of developing some 3d plant models using Xfrog inside C4D and have been experimenting with creating medium polygon plants with enough detail to look good, but not so much they crash VW. Similar to the VB Visual trees. Getting them into VW is a challenge, since for some unknown reason, VW doesn't import C4D files (there really should be a "Send To Vectorworks" command from inside C4D) and 3ds is a very old, limiting format (huge models). Plus once inside VW they can't be scaled due to VW's lack of support for UV Mapping.

I?ll post a model of a European Hornbeam on Turbosquid you can play around with and see how it works inside VW. I'd consider it market research. It may also give me valuable feedback on if there is even a market or enough demand to warrant making plant models for VW.

I?ll create a separate post with the link to Turbosquid.

Monadnoc

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But Xfrog plants are high detail models. A mature tree usually has about 100,000 polygons. Using the .3ds format doubles this (due to triangulation)

I take that back. I just checked some models on the Xfrog site and the number of ploys for a large adult tree is closer to 200,000. In 3ds format that would be 400,000 ploys. Quite a large model.

Monadnoc

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