Is there a good way of making a LOT of trees other than one by one? I want to make a big forest of them.

Method one: Multireplicating. Take one tree, multireplicate it so that each new tree will be positioned an X amount of units further on the X or Y axis then the last one. Then select the resulting row of trees and multireplicate the row so that each row will be positioned an X amount units further on the the X or Y axis (if you used X first, use Y. If you used Y first, use X) then the last one. Result: a square or rectangle of evenly distributed trees Method two: Randomizing Take one tree, multireplicate it to the amount of trees you need, but don't have the duplicates move, rotate or change size. Then 2D randomize the trees (randomize rotation too if you like for more variety) and voila, a rough patch or randomly positioned trees. Method three: Combination Execute method 1, then use the randomizer from method 2 to randomize the tree distribution, again rotating can help a lot for giving some visual variety.

Attached Link: 3 types of trees

A lot of detailed trees can quickly tax your computer's memory if you don't have huge amounts of RAM. This is especially true if you have several Poly-heavy models or terrains in your scene. I tend to use detailed 3D trees (Bryce treelab, or otherwise), only in the foreground, or sometimes midground of my picture. For trees in the background 2D clipmap trees or terrain trees can work very well, and save you a ton of rendering time. I used all three methods for this pic I did some time ago for a Forum challenge.

yes I want to do what you did there, a few regular trees then a huge forest in the back ground. So the Clipmap is free? where do you get that? On the 2d Disperse...not sure if I did this correct. I placed a tree. I clicked multi-replicate, and chose 30 but had 0 in the first 2 rows, and 100 in the bottom row (default). I then clicked ok and it looked like 1 tree. I clicked on 2d disperse and it did nothing. I thought above you said to not put anything in for an x movement. I did just to see and I got 30 trees.

Oopps I didnt drage the lil ball left and right...I got it now I think :)

Aye, and if you want to randomize their rotation, but not have them skew all over like crazy, Vulcan... Do your Randomize, then click the little "A" for Attributes, then change the X and Z rotations to Zero. Leave the Y alone, and you'll have random rotations! Woo hoo! If you want to "plant" them on a terrains, do all the above, an position the whole bunch over your terrain. Slide them UP (Y-axis) a bit, then click the drop-down arrow, or "Drop to Terrain". Now, move them all DOWN (Y-axis) only a bit, to hide the roots. Nothing screams "Newbie" like too-visible roots in Bryce... (For Treelab trees, anyway)

That's one thing I hate about the treelab in Bryce. You can't control the roots; if I want roots to behave in a certain way (like conform to my terrain, for instance), I have to either use memory-intensive metaballs or model the roots in Wings. Very annoying. One more thing you may not have thought of: if you can't find a tree photo that suits you, make a tree and then go to one of the side views. Render it fully and at a fairly high resolution (maybe 700x700 or some such, and make it square). Now don't move anything, but set the render mode to "object mask". Render again, now it's white. Now all you have to do is make a 2d face, and use your rendered tree with the white mask that you made for the image. You can have the face point at the camera for maximum effect and realism. Just a thought! =)

As far as clip-maps; I usually make my own. Foleypro makes some great freebie tree clip-maps and there may be more in free stuff. Here's one I made some time back to get you started. If anyone wants to use it feel free. Just click on "Leo" to create a 2D pic object and import the color jpeg into the first box, and the B&W jpeg into the second box and you're good to go. Here's the color pic...

Here's the Alpha mask. You can adjust the ambience very easily, but background trees tend to be very dark. I move the pic object down to hide the roots, or add brush, logs, or stone to hide them.

hmmm not sure if my last post went through, but here is what I ended up with. Not really a forest but I made 2 different kinds of trees, I multi-replicated them, then 2D dispersed them. I tried my hand at making a pond. I hope I did ok on Perspective and balance. I have never taken an art class but have taken some photography classes and done some photography. Either way I am really loving bryce and poser 6 and trying to get thru the tutorials and learn what I can.

If you're doing a bunch of trees in a background, then yes it is better to do a whole bunch of 2D alpha-masked tree images. Just make sure to fill in the gaps with green somehow. Please refer to the background of Flak's awesome "Siege".

Yeah, I remember that one. Though to tell you the truth, I was concentrating more on the EXTREME multitude of Poser figures in the foreground. Good thing Flak made the trees 2D; I bet it used up an ungodly amount of memory even as it was! =)

Soon Folks... There will be more... Thats all I can say right now... But Imagine setting up a huge Forest scene in less then 10 Minutes....... That would be Sweet Huh..? Its going to Happen...Just keep an Eye out...

Yeah, it's called "Vue Infinite", or whatever... (smirks)

Hahahahahaaaaaa

Depending on the scene, Vulcan, you can use primitve objects for simple trees as well. These objects are merely spikes on a terrain poking through another, landmass terrain. Random placement, nearly. But you can control their height (distance from the top edge of the "trees" terrain and the top edge of the "land" terrain). You can also control where they start vertically with both the scale and the clipping bracket in the Terrain Editor, which lops off the bottom so they start higher "up" on the land-terrain... Just some ideas for you!

LOL LSD I thought that was part of the texture when I saw it in your gallery... =) I love that water is it just a reflective terrain? Or some texture I don't know about (i.e. you made it yourself)? Using "noise" can also make very tolerable grass. For my next image with grass I'm going to experiment with low-poly models in Wings, though--try to make it look more realistic than 2D planes or noise terrains.

The water is a terrain. I'm just never satisfied with presets anymore, and spend a lot of time devloping materials these days. The trees : a spikey 2048 terrain, based on the main landmass terrain. Simple, with almost a cartoony-illustrative kinda feel to it, as opposed to raw realism.

Yup, same here about the default textures. You have to modify them to get them to look decent; some of the preset waters have built-in distortion that wasn't used very well, I like to make the water clearer and then use fog and/or haze for depth effects. Old tricks, but hey, they work, right? Although some of the new presents that came with Bryce5 look pretty good. I still use a few of the terrain textures and the volumetric clouds (those were the only really good textures in Bryce4) are simply awesome. Also the "Plasma Fire" texture in complex fx. LSD, just out of curiosity, which fractal pattern did you use? Looks basically like Classic Fractal to me.

(grins) Nope, I don't use those anymore much, except erosion on occasion. Most of my fractals come from KPT5 Noize, Apophysis, or KPT5 and 7 FraxxFlame. There are others... But those are the main four.

(shrugs) Huh. Interesting. I've always gotten satisfactory results from the default Bryce fractals (in particular Classic Fractal for large-waved oceans), but each to their own, I guess. =)