How can I generate an old tree with a canopy

tdrdtdrd Posts: 0
edited October 2012 in Bryce Discussion

I am trying to createa woodland which has old trees with moss on the side of them.
The trees should mostly have empty branches low down and fan out to provide a canopy over the road - whereas the ones created in Bryce tree generator do not seem to do this and the leaves can be a little unrealistic.

I did not notice whilst in Wales what type of trees grew in the woods around there - has anyone else any knowledge of what trees would be in a wooded area?

I found out by the way that the out of memory message appears whilst designing trees - if you generate too many branches or sub branches then it bombs out without chance of recovery - so you need to save before you create a new tree....

Post edited by tdrd on

Comments

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Basically we have most of the native deciduous trees, Oak, Ash, sycamore, field maple, alder, willow, hazel,beech. A lot of pine plantations as a lot of land was taken over by the forestry commission.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    BTW addint to that, I have a habit of making composite trees by using several bryce trees.

    I show here a tree, and how I made it up from several trees, and also another one I tired to get a "pollarded" tree. I build the roots up with metaballs.

    tree_again_pollard_oak.jpg
    576 x 768 - 69K
    tree_1f_no_leaves.jpg
    576 x 768 - 96K
    tree_1f_finis.jpg
    576 x 768 - 93K
  • tdrdtdrd Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Is there a way of making the trunk longer or the roots shorter?

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Not really. I did used to know a way of cutting off the roots, but I can't for the life of me remember how I did it.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,056
    edited December 1969

    There is a tutorial how to make trees in Bryce: http://www.horo.ch/raytracing/tuts/pdf/minitut20_en.pdf perhaps it helps.

    There are other tutorials if you go on the homepage (see sig) go to Rayracing > Turorials.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Am I misremembering here or did one of the earlier version of the tree lab allow you to set the "age" of the tree?

    I'm sure I remember having some software about 15 years ago that one of the inputs was tree age, which meant you could easily create anything from a sapling to a knarly old giant tree. If it wasn't the Tree Lab it was something remarkably similar.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    I don't recall that at all in bryce.

  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited October 2012

    If you have a Picture of a Tree you would like to have(Beta test)I would be more then Happy to use the PM(Plant Manager aka Preset Manager) that I have for Bryce...

    The tree will be included in a package that I am compiling for the Bryce Content Bundle 2...Daz has first Dibs on the Pack...

    Post edited by foleypro on
  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited October 2012

    Am I misremembering here or did one of the earlier version of the tree lab allow you to set the "age" of the tree?

    I'm sure I remember having some software about 15 years ago that one of the inputs was tree age, which meant you could easily create anything from a sapling to a knarly old giant tree. If it wasn't the Tree Lab it was something remarkably similar.

    Yes its still in the old code..Plant manager/Preset Manager is a crude Plugin but has potential and in the up and coming beta cycle I will push for more options....

    Post edited by foleypro on
  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    tdrd said:
    Is there a way of making the trunk longer or the roots shorter?


    yes...

    As for the trunk longer you use the edit buttons to stretch the Mesh...

    Roots shorter can be done in the tree lab....

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,056
    edited December 1969

    The Bryce tree lab came with version 5.0 from Corel. Possibly there was code included to grow, but it was never available to the user. PlantStudio2 can grow plants and IvyGenerator can. Neither Arbaro nor Dryad can, if I got it right.

    Foleypro us our Bryce tree guru. I have experimented with the Preset Manager and it is a great tool - though still limited and not exactly straight forward. I'll certainly support it's improvement when the next dev cycle on Bryce starts.

    @foleypro - good to hear that Content Bundle 2 reached DAZ 3D QA. Looking forward to its release.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Do any of you remember the tutorial about making a transparency that you could use to hide the tree roots altogether on Bryce trees. It used to be in the Bryce tuts that were held at Artzone, and od course this has now disappeared.

    I know I have done this in the past, but can't remember how it worked.

  • Electro-ElvisElectro-Elvis Posts: 842
    edited December 1969

    @chohole: I am afraid, a cannot tell you anything about the transparancy tutorial, but as far I can remember me correctly I cut of the roots of with a negativ cube (of course the tree has to be positiv). But unfortunately I can not try this out just in the moment.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    I don't think that is possible with trees.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2012

    foleypro said:
    tdrd said:
    Is there a way of making the trunk longer or the roots shorter?


    yes...

    As for the trunk longer you use the edit buttons to stretch the Mesh...

    Roots shorter can be done in the tree lab....

    OK Brian, I am not finding this, and I thought I knew the tree lab. Where can I find the control to make roots shorter ?

    BTW I think Terry wants trees that will overhang his lane, as this one does

    Overhanging_trees_below_Tyn_Ffynnon_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_937811_.jpg
    640 x 480 - 102K
    Post edited by Chohole on
  • tdrdtdrd Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    @chohole - spot on with that picture....

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2012

    I thought that was what you were after. I love old lanes with trees like that, and the ones where they actually make a tunnel. not easy to do with Bryce trees, One reason why I build the trees up, just need to get rid of those stupid roots.

    BTW, at the moment, if you are a PC member there are a few tree realted items on sale at 70% off, and some other Bryce stuff.

    http://www.daz3d.com/shop/environments-props?compat_software=29&vendor=469

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited October 2012

    chohole said:
    I thought that was what you were after. I love old lanes with trees like that, and the ones where they actually make a tunnel. not easy to do with Bryce trees, One reason why I build the trees up, just need to get rid of those stupid roots.

    I usually get rid of the roots by burying them under the ground. :lol:
    Post edited by Dave Savage on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    I do as well, but when I want to build a complicated tree up, by using other trees as branches the roots do tend to be a nuisance.

    THe pollarded tree I showed on the other page is bade from about 6 trees, but as the "branches" are small I could hide the roots. But with other conformations that won't work

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,056
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    I thought that was what you were after. I love old lanes with trees like that, and the ones where they actually make a tunnel. not easy to do with Bryce trees, One reason why I build the trees up, just need to get rid of those stupid roots.

    I usually get rid of the roots by burying them under the ground. :lol:
    And leaving just the part where the roots come out of the trunk above ground.
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    This is what I mean by building trees up. You can see why I need to get rid of the roots.

    tree_again_pollard_oak.jpg
    576 x 768 - 69K
    oak_pollarded_untex.jpg
    576 x 768 - 56K
  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,056
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    This is what I mean by building trees up. You can see why I need to get rid of the roots.

    Oh, I see. That's a cool idea to build trees. Never thought of that - though I did combine trees at the trunk level to make them more realistic. Boolean the roots off doesn't work, at least not for me. Trees are made of metaballs, but they cannot be separated, which would be helpful.
  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    @Chohole: I know, I was only kidding. Your trees are great and it's a great idea to build your own.

    @Horo: I've made booleans out of metaballs in the past, I don't think I've tried it with trees, but will have a quick look this evening.

    Meanwhile taking the photo Chohole posted of the country lane with overhanging trees, I knocked this quick scene up (it took an hour to set up and 30 minutes to render using Premium, TA and soft shadows at 4RPP and Max Ray Depth at 1 hence the noise).

    It's only rough, I only did it to give an impression of what can be relatively easily set up. Given more time (and I may work on it more because I think it's looking good[ish]!) I could look a lot more realistic. But if anyone wants or needs to know how it's done, I can go into details. :)

    Tree-Lane.jpg
    1000 x 500 - 293K
  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    Horo said:

    @foleypro - good to hear that Content Bundle 2 reached DAZ 3D QA. Looking forward to its release.

    Nope it hasnt reached that final stage yet...
    A few more weeks and I feel all will be surprised...

  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    The nice thing about Bryce and Tree's and the Tree lab is the Possibilities....

    I was the one who updated the Original Bryce supplied Tree's in .bto format for Version 5.5+ and I also added the winter Version of the tree's in the Tree Library...

    I Know I need to do a Tutorial for the tree lab....Maybe sooner then you think...

    Another nice option of course can be seen in the Library named "Special Tree's"...In that library I grouped Bryce tree's just like you all are showing here....

  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    foleypro said:
    tdrd said:
    Is there a way of making the trunk longer or the roots shorter?


    yes...

    As for the trunk longer you use the edit buttons to stretch the Mesh...

    Roots shorter can be done in the tree lab....



    OK Brian, I am not finding this, and I thought I knew the tree lab. Where can I find the control to make roots shorter ?

    BTW I think Terry wants trees that will overhang his lane, as this one does


    Nice...If thats what they want then they can do this themselves...Make sure when you setup the Sun data you set the sun to 100-180 with a light orangish/yellow...Render...at sometime set soft shadows with a Gradient alpha map set to object mapping and shadows set at 33% then there ya go...

    Remember folks you can also use imported Objects to enhance your tree's....

  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    When I am done doing the tutorials for ParticleFX....And prior commitments like the B7CB2....

    I will show some of my Preset settings....also the Positive and Negative does work but I found that sometimes a Bryce Primitive works and does'nt work usally a .OBP file format saved and then I import a Primitive in OBJ and it works....

    The PM is an awesome tool and like I said and with Horo and the others backing I can hopefully say that the PM could be available to the user in Bryce 7.++...

    It is all about YOUR imagination...You can add as many trees that you want,You can setup your scene anyway you want its all in your eye's...

    Bryce is your Paper,pencil and Pen...

  • foleyprofoleypro Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    "OK Brian, I am not finding this, and I thought I knew the tree lab. Where can I find the control to make roots shorter ?"

    Let me look and I will get back to you...
    I have'nt worked in the tree lab in a few months let alone the PM even tho its easier to do it in the PM and then you save...

  • IceScribeIceScribe Posts: 690
    edited December 1969

    @Chohole

    I remembered a tutorial mentioned specifically about how to remove the roots from a Bryce tree. It's in a nice overall tutorial at

    http://brycetech.daz3d.com/tutor/bryce/tree4.html


    snip "If you want to remove the roots, you will have to apply a transparency map to it."

    But there are no instructions exactly how to do that. I guess one could draw a white trunk silhouette on a black backrgounn, or more accurately export the bare trunk image and alter it to loade in Bryce as a mask with "Blend transparency".

    The rest of the tutorial is available to download from there as a pdf http://brycetech.daz3d.com/tutor/bryce/tree1.html
    The online version has 4 pages

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