I bet that I can guess the answer to this, but here goes anyway. Is there a way that I could sort of "seed" terrains with trees or vegetation? For instance, instead of having to create a few trees, then copy and paste the hell out of them...is there a way to make a terrain prepopulated with trees/plants/grass? Something I wonder after reading thomas's alpha map tutorial on this site. If not that way, can anyone think of a way to create an image in photoshop or other program, that when pulles into the terrain editor would result in a forested/plant-infested terrain? I am guessing that I will see many NO's from this question.....HAD to ask though. Thansk, Akenaton

No but Alpha forests will work just fine. The answer is not actually no it actually can be done but the resulting effect is difficult to acheave and imossible to edit. Alpha trees work just so much better off in the distance and there only two polys per plain. Thousands of trees and plants can be on one plain. It's the best most effecient way to do it. This is how World Builder does it and we can do the same thing in Vue just as easy.

Well.. here is what I do.. I personally don't use alpha plains becuase Im a big stickler for realism. FirstI have just a bare scence with a ground plane. The first thing I decide on when I do a scene is the vegatation, then terrain in that order. I start with my lowest veg. So I place about 20 to 100 grass patches on the ground plane. I do not individually place each one. WhatI do is go into top down view, select grassand click click click the veg button until I get the desired number of grass patches. At this point they will all be in the same exact spot. I then move the grass patches to layer 8. Then I select all grass patches then EDIT->SCATTER objects. I then check -Move Objects Between-. For its settings I put something like 0,0,0 for the top line then 400,400,0 for the second line. This tells the scatter routine to scattter the selected grass 400 places on the X and Y plane but to not scatter them on the Z plane (this will come later) I also check -Use Selected Objects- which causes it to only do it to the 40 or so grass patches I have selected. Once this is executed you should have a nice square patch of randomly placed grass. Next I manually move this grass up higher than my terrain is going to be. Now I hide the layer 8. Do NOT group the grass at this point as the drop to floor will not work right. Then I move on to my next veg like weeds. I do this each on a seperate layer unti l I have all the veg I want. On Layer 1 I now create my terrain.. Once you have finished the terrain, put any water planes in. Now, go to layer 8, Unhide just layer 8 and layer 1 with the terrain. Now select all the grass objects(make sure they are all above the terrain) and click the -Drop to Floor- button (on left hand side) All your grass should properly drop onto the terrain. DO a quick render andadjustany grass that either A:looks like it is hanging off a cliff or B: in the way of a path you may want. Once my grass is just as I want, then I group all the grass patches into one group and hide that layer again. Two things. ThereasonI say dont group the grass before dropping to floor is for some reason when I group objects then drop them they dont drop correctly. Also the reason you hide each layer is two fold. One it keeps your memory down, but most importantly it keeps other unhidden objects from failing to drop onto them. For example. Say layer 3 has oak trees and layer 4 has pines. Some of these trees may overlap branches or parts of trunks and so forth. But if say both layers are unhidden and you want to drop layer 3 onto the terrain and layer 4 has already been dropped the layer 3 will stop dropping when it runs into the "visable" layer 4. In other words, some of your oaks will drop onto the next lowest objects which in this case would be pines. To stop thisI would hide my layer 4 pines, then drop the oaks which would ignore the pines and drop completely to the terrain. Do that above for all veg layers. Once you get all veg like you wantthem, you can place them all on the same layer, group them then hide them. The above is how I work and by no means the only way you can doso.But it gives me randomly filled terrains with 100% 3D trees and objects. I hope this helps. PS: Sorry for any spelling errors,when I get going I just type ;)

Well maybe I was not clear enough. I'm talking about rendering Vue plants and trees first for alpha plains. Realism? You cannot tell the difference between a tree that is on a alpha plain and one that is "real" if it's off in the distance in the scene. There is just to few pixels to give you a clue that it's flat. It still has shadows. It's the best way to make a entire forest and make it so it will render in a reasonable amount of time. It works very well. You still need "real" stuff up close to the camera. JDWohlever don't ever buy World Builder it only has alpha trees period. Oh BTW I got news for you IT'S ALL FAKE!

I agree with MP. You cannot see the difference from far. And it's just useless to have thousands of polygons for one tree (over 360,000 for a cherry tree) insteed of only 2!!! with an alpha. And I'm the first one who wants realisme. :-)Guitta

Roflmao I actually have World Builder.. and don't use it ;) What I meant by real was that even if a tree is far away the raytracer takes into account its Z-Depth, light tracing and so forth.I use the Z-Depth render to do Depth-of-field in Paint Shop Pro. If you use an alpha plane it doesn't have Z-Depth (well flat) and for some stinking reason my alpha plane trees are always too dark. But yes I agree, for far off trees alpha planes can't hurt, I just have not found a convincing way to use them.

A point for you:-) As I never do postwork, I don't need the depth:-) Guitta

Ya there is also one draw back with using alpha plains. If you need the alpha channel for later work you can't use alpha plains. It don't render properly on the alpha channel. Actually it does render properly and your dirty deed shows up for all to see. The plains show up. What ever is on them don't. ya that's the thing z and a don't work but all is not lost cause you can do it if your missing those channels with Defocus. If your missing those channels it is possible to recreate them with this program.

Do any of you use the bryce5 tree generator for variety?

Defocus? What and where is that?

Attached Link: http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/defocus/main.asp

Defocus is a plugin for photoshop or it has a stand alone part to. With it you can make alpha channels and z channels if there missing or use them if you got them to create effects with them. I don't know if this is there site or not but I'm sure you can find it from here.

Do any of you use the bryce5 tree generator for variety? Why would you want to do that? Can you export them? I don't like the quality of them personallty. All the trees are different in Vue just keep clicking the button but I'm sure you know that. It's really easy to make new plants and trees right inside Vue. Just edit the leaves and barks. Just with what is in Vue and the few nice extra meshes that are around on the web you pretty much have unlimited variety.

I think he was referring to the option of making alpha planes in Bryce 5. ie rendering a bryce tree, saving the textures and applying them to alpha plane in Vue. (Forgive me if I am wrong donhakman) For variety. With Bryce 5 the tree builder is very powerful. I only wish Vue 4 had the tree builder like Bryce's. I do agree the over all quality of Vue 4 trees are better but you either have to download new ones, or make new ones in an outside program.

Is there a reason why nobody is pointing to the "distant forest" tutorial in the manual? Is it too simple or not good enough? Maybe thats something Akenaton is looking for as well?

From the existing plants in Vue, you can create hundreds of new trees and plants. Just scan a leaf from your garden or from any tree or plant and go ahead. I have plenty of tutorials for it on my homepage. Just click the link.

Yes, wabe is right. And in Vue (see in the objectssamples) you have a ready made distant forest. Just load it and place it far away:-) Guitta

s there a reason why nobody is pointing to the "distant forest" tutorial in the manual? Is it too simple or not good enough? I didn't point him to it cause I think it's a dead end. I thought I said that. Well I said yes it's possible but it's difficult to edit. Why I said that and why I'll never go down that road again is it sucks. You can tell that them there trees are rock. You cannot get a convincing looking forest that way without tons of work. Even the sample that is there is so so. Alpha forests work way better easier and you get excellent results. So not good enough plus it's heavy on polys.

WOW....ROUND 2.....DING DING <<boxing reference. I didn't expect this many posts. LOL In defense of myself, and my novice abilities thus far, I have tried the fir trees effect in the editor, but I agree with Pete, the ydon't look very realistic. I know that the approach that I am trying will cause HUGE render times....ask Gebe about the last pic I uploaded..LOL. I just really would like to see if there is another way to randomly seed terrains. JD's idea is a good one, and I'll try that. I see the PROS in BOTH types, alpha and scatter, I just like to make things difficult I think. Thanks ALL, Akenaton

You can use scatter on alpha too. What you do is make a clump of about 10 or 20 alpha plains that work then scatter them. Doing that way though there is a posibiblity that you'll be wasting some. Like ones behind that will never be seen. I find it's far easier to place by hand but I sure don't do it one plain at a time. That's silly. I make a clump of about 20 plains then group them and then make a different clump and do that till I got 4 or more clumps. Then I group those clumps into groups. I grab whole clumps. move drag up in the air then drop them and then hit the down arrow once so they are firmly planted. On to the next clump. Doing it this way it takes about 1/2 hour to place thousands of trees perfectly. None are wasted.

Ok, forgive me for being an idiot. <-- Stop laughing Pete I have tried using alpha planes, have read and followed the tuts but I run into a problem. When I place an alpha plane down and put it in my scene (with the textures applied of course)my alpha planes never render correctly. The way I work I usually turn off all ambiant light on materials and use on the actually scene lighting to light something. The problem I have run into with alpha planes is that if the sun/light source is not shining on the alpha plane then the alpha plane renders very dark. That is my major gripe with alpha planes. I dont like having to turn up the ambiance or lum settings to compensate because to me that destroys the whole point of trying to use real light. So what am I doing incorrectly?

Here's what I do. I set up a plant stage in Vue. Death Valley makes a good one. I delete the ground plane. I then generate whatever plant I want on two or three levels and rows....ie 3 rows of 4. Disable shadows or move them so no plant's shadow falls on another. I then arrange the lighting. Usually I do one render with light from the left, one from the right and one from above. Make sure that the ambience and shadows are set correctly. Then I render and save the color image and alpha image. Then I make Paint Shop Pro tubes out of them. I then go back to my Vue image and spray plants and trees wherever I want them and as many as I want. If done patiently and correctly, you cannot tell the difference between the sprayed tree and an actual mesh in the scene. Of course, you have to know how to use layers and color adjustments, painted shadows and other keys of postwork. I use this technique often in work for architects and landscaping clients. It save me billions in polygon weight and render times. Just another option. Monsoon

I've got some already made and ready for download at my texture site. Please. Help yourself. monsoon.topcities.com

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=132276&Start=1&Artist=gebe&ByArtist=Yes

...or 4706 poppies. Only about 200 are "true". The others all alpha planes:-)

Then I make Paint Shop Pro tubes out of them. ha ha LMAO. Thst's a good one, I like it. It works. Um the lighting. Your doing somthing wrong. I don't know what. I don't play with the ambient to compinsate. Oh Maybe turn the ambiant of the actual textures up. That will cure it. Remember this is way off in the distance trees you still have to use real trees up close. Remember your faking it you prbibly have to use some ambiant light on the plain textures or you'll have to burn the images when you render them in the first place. I personally thing you got it backwads. I'm sitting in a room right now that is totally lit with ambiant light. The light source is somewhere in the south my room faces north. You need more ambiant IMHO than direct light.

I am talking about turning the ambience of the textures down when making tree renders to make into tubes. If you don't, you will get a flatness like a magazine cutout when sprayed into your render. The ambient light in your final pic is up to you or what's needed for the image. I am mainly talking about adjusting things so that the 2D and 3D match. These not only work for real far away things but I've used them for relatively close up stuff as well. Here is an example. There are no real vegetation meshes in this image. Just sprayed renders. It's not great but it's not bad either.

Oh I get it. I though that comment was posted by JDWohlever I wasn't paying attention. Yes what your saying is the only way to do it with tubes for sure. I was thinking how do you expect to render a scene with no ambiant light? But ya for alpha planes or tubes you got to do all kind of tricks to get them to look proper.

A nice addition to Vue in the future would be a "level of detail" (LOD) option where different models are used for the same object based on their distance from the camera. That way a tree when in the distance can be made with less detailed meshes than when it is close up. Ideally there would be a way of having Vue's plant's LOD configurable. This is especially useful if you want to build a scene that you want to render from several view points or are building animations.