Sigh! I wanted a Joshua Tree (you know the way you do, sometimes) and searched the web for reference pics, and modelled the trunk in Wings, and wondered what kind of Bryce foliage would most closely match the Joshua Tree foliage, settled for can't-remember-what. Now, you'd think that when I was searching for a material for the trunk, and found to my surprise that there was Joshua Tree bark.......well, you'd think that might have been a clue, wouldn't you? But no. Only when I'd finished the blasted thing, and saved it to my library, did it occur to me to re-examine the list of preset trees. :insert banging head on wall smiley:

pog i have found the tree/bark in the tree lab is only a reference to what the trees really lok like. Take for instance the Ecalyptus bark in bryce looks nothing like the bark on any Ecalyptus trees here in Australia. So i think you did an excellent job on the Joshua tree, i'm just annoyed my scanner doesn't work any more because i have a U2(the group) poster of their album the Joshua tree with a nice image of the tree on it that you could have used for a reference pic.

But Pog, you did an amazing job on your tree as compared to the treelabs. You do know you can change the foliage to every tree in treelab and that you can even make your own, right (user defined)? But that good work!

Attached Link: http://users.cihost.com/ata/jt/82zoom.jpg

just couldn't get the foliage to look right unless I modelled it, which would have driven up the polys a lot. You can see how fine the spiky leaves are in the attached pic

Pog: I tried playing around in Wings to make the spiky balls. These are about 732 polys each. I just extruded (normals) a default sphere in point mode and then changed to poly mode and deleted all the non-spike polys. Then I moved (normals) the large ends (already selected after deleting the non-spike polys) to the center of the ball. Might work; you could alter the shape in Wings by deforming in point mode to look more organic. Hope this helps. John

I used the Joshua tree shape and thickened the trunk and altered the distribution. I tried to fix the bark texture, it'll do to demonstrate, I guess :^)

That tree shape is very good. Yeah, you're right, it'd be better to do the leaves in Wings.

Heres my Joshua tree right from TreeLab. I choose the Joshua tree preset, then I made sure that the Foliage was set to Joshua tree, set scale=6, number of leaves=2, distribution=bunched. Set tree shape gravity=0 and branch trunk distribution=5. In the Foliage; texture; material; edit I made sure that the leave image was also set in the transparency dent. In the Branch/Trunk; texture; material; edit I upped the middle component scale to 320 (Basic Triangle texture).

randomness=30

Message edited on: 02/08/2005 14:08

One taco shy of a combination platter ? One chop short of a mixed grill ? Actually, there's a decent Joshua Tree on the content CD that came with Bryce 5, isn't there ?

I have the download version, don't think there's much extra content....I'll just check....No, not much useful in the Content folder, a few sample scenes, light gels, terrains.

How about one neuron short of a synapse?

no, but my elevator doesn't go all the way to the top..;) Look at the bright side, at least we're not selling tree presets in the Marketplace like some other programs do for pos(woops)...are we?..;)

This is my take, with TreeLab. It's not a Joshua Tree, but it looks _like_ it. And if the eucalyptus bark from the preview stayed the same, it would be perfect for this. :-) BTW, isn't it called a yucca?

Yes, Erlik they belong to the same family/species/whatever, yucca.

Yucca's are a different plant....that's lookin awful close to a true Joshua tree...didn't 3DPlants have a Joshua tree in their collection, I could have sworn they did....hmmmm

Message edited on: 02/08/2005 16:45

Attached Link: http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/desbiome/yuccas.htm

According to this, the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is the largest in the yucca species. Ahhhh...yes, I see, it needs to be stumpy.

Message edited on: 02/08/2005 16:57

Well here's me thinking Joshua Tree was nothing more than an album by U2. ;-) Phil (One book short of a library.)

What's U2? A submarine? :-) Erlik (three oars in the water!) :-))) PS But I still like pog's phrase most. PPS Aaaah! They've got soaptree yuccas as decorative plants in my hometown! But with a very short trunk.

How about,.........All the lights are on but no one's at home ?

I think there was a good one on the bryce 4 goodies cd. Will look later.

trying to remember a few more 'not the sharpest knife in the drawer' 'not the full shilling' 'a few bricks short of a load' The foliage from the lab looks pretty good - and tjohns gnarly trunk is particularly effective! I haven't messed much with the tree lab, didn't realise you could get such contorted branch shapes.

U2- an spyplane named after a popular Irish band...;)

"Not the sharpest tool in the shed" "Thick as a brick" "Dumber than a sack of hammers"

Here's my take on it. I think you need to postwork to make that shaggy lookin bark.

Message edited on: 02/09/2005 12:49

Those are very nice, Alvin. I'll have to archive those settings and make a .bto

Where the heck did my post go :^( I posted about how great all those Joshua Trees looked, and that it seems like the TreeLab was maligned.

My current favorite is "dumb as a box of rocks".

Or,......."Doesn't have the good sense God gave a toaster".

"A day late and a dollar short"