how can you create .veg objects? is it possible to make plants from scratch or do you have to modify one using the plant editor? also I've downloaded a nice mushroom pack I found in the free section and the files are in .vob format I would like to have these in my plant library. back in the old days of Bryce (ick) this would not be a problem ( just like scaling on only 1 axis) any ideas? thanks J

You can modify the plants in the plant collections, but you can't create one from scratch in the plant editor. You can do quite a lot with the plant editor, though. And you can use vob objects, but you can't turn them into veg files.

why not?

Veg files are E-On's "Solid Growth TM" format. Veg plants can become VOBS, but not the other way. VOBS are basically "static" files while VEG's remain a "dynamic" format that can be reshaped (to a degree) in the Plant Editor. Nobody but E-on can make an original VEG- but people have been asking for more flexability in Vue 6- like being able to tweak the leaf angles. This would certainly help make plants look more real and get away from those "flat plane" leaves that you see at certain angles on Solid Growth trees.

Well that sux!!! There's one up for Bryce at least you can import created obj plants and save them in the plant library. What I don't get is when you click to load a plant the menu opens and you get catagories of plants, alien plants, personal plants (which I guess are "Edited plants") then down at the bottom it has the option of new collection and browse file, however Vue don't give you an option to save veg files or at least I can't find a way. so what is the point of giving us these options to load a plant or make it look like we can save one if Vue actually does not allow it? J

"so what is the point of giving us these options to load a plant or make it look like we can save one if Vue actually does not allow it?" You save the "new" veg plant from the editor. In fact, even though the plant editor may seem limited, once you start editing a plant and adding new textures you are really only limited by your imagination once you consider the whole library. You may be able to save it in Bryce, but does bryce allow you to make whole forests out of them with individuality? I'll think you will find that all programs have their strengths and weaknesses...it's just a matter of finding the one that fits your needs best. Cheers

I do think that e-on is a little too protective of formats tho. Hopefully they will get more flexible.

I tried saving a plant in the editor it only allowed me to save it in a vob format making it useless (for me anyways) takes 3 years to render a simple garden cause I have 100 vob files open and that just made a small batch of flowers. Then again maybe once I get more RAM that will fix the render or out of memory problems when heavily importing objects. thanks guys, J

You all should simply go to Dreampaints site and see what can be done by editing existing species. The idea behind this is that a new saved species - from an edited plant - keeps its attributes but will be modified with SolidGrowth technique slightly so that each plant looks different to the others you have created before. This even works in Ecosystems with 10,000s of plants. All are different. Can Bryce do that as well? If you wnat to see what is possible in an image, go to my last two posts in the gallery here. The Lighthouse and the one before. Fire and water splash are modified dry bushes from the default plants. Just to give you an impression what is possible. You of course can import XFRog, TreePro etc plants and save them as vobs. But they stay what they are - "fixed" plants. BTW, with TreePro - probably the best tree creator out there, especially the first on the market - you can not create any plant from scratch, you always start with an existing one and modify that. So this method is not soooo uncommon. One last thing. Do you really think that, if it is so easy to do, that e-on would not open this option for users? It would bring them a lot of money if that feature would exist. I am sure there is a reason behind why this has not happened. Probably because the technique is too complex.

ninahlo5: Which version of Vue do you use? You only have access to the plant editor with Vue 5 with Botanica, 5 Pro studio and Infinite. You say you can save any plant in the Bryce plant editor, but when you load that plant, is it always the same, or do you get variations of your plant each time you load one? In Vue, each time you load a plant, it is a different plant, the SolidGrowth format makes this possible. And I agree, we should have more flexibility in editing our plants.

"Well that sux!!!
There's one up for Bryce at least you can import created obj plants and save them in the plant library."

Whoohoo, go Bryce....hmmm, hang on a sec.

Actually, in all versions of Vue you can import created obj plants and save them in the plant library. Just that the 'plant library' will have to be a folder in your 'Objects' folder.

Probably because the technique is too complex?, if people here can make complete poser characters with morphs and all, they surely can do plants. Its a nice feature but needs to be more open for home build.

Billion of people can make babies within nine months. What does this mean to science and medicine? You have overseen the point maybe. It is the technique that gives you the option that each plant of a species is different to all others. If it is so easy, why can't the wizzards from Bryce do that too?

bruno21 - interesting question about bryce and whether it makes random instances each time you click the plant button and choose a plant type - one I didn't know the answer to, so I went looking.

I loaded 4 generic date palms as supplied in bryce's tree library as a part of the installed program ... i.e. click and load 4 times and I got 4 different plants (image above showing front on and top down view of the plants in all their brycean default techno coloured glory) - they're obviously the same species, but the shape is randomized in a small way so they are in fact all unique). That was available 4 years ago in bryce 5, so I guess thats when the programming wizards of bryce got around to it ;)

(I also hunted down a bryce tree thing someone else had made in the bryce tree editor and put that into the bryce tree library and did the same thing with it and the same randomizing thing happens with it when you load it a few times)

The thing that bryce can't do however (as far as I know) is multireplicate a single tree up into a forest of slightly varying trees (of the same species) the way that the Vue ecosystems can. edit - and I would also like to see a more editable Vue plant builder :)

Message edited on: 11/12/2005 00:14

The other thing I noticed is how well default bryce tree leaves hold their shape up in close ups - ignore the bland texture - I was investigating the shape of the leaves here. I'm not sure how they do that and keep tree file sizes down to a reasonable size (the smooth leaf edges mean its unlikely to be an alpha mapped leaf ... maybe somehting based on bryces metaball technology.... in which case (I'd think) that they'd be pretty much impossible to export to say an .obj format thing (like Vue plants can be).

If we could combine the best of both tree types/formats, life'd be great :)

Message edited on: 11/12/2005 00:23

Hard to tell here because this is openGL, but I'm pretty sure the leaves are alpha maps, the only way to keep a reasonable poly count. So your tests show that when you import an obj/3ds/... plant, save it as a Bryce plant, and load a few of them, they will be all a bit different? Even if they are not native Bryce geometry? That's very interesting.

That image above is just a flat render of a default native bryce tree - no opengl (Bryce's opengl seems about as problematic as Vue's can be at times so I never really used it that much apart from as a curiosity to look and laugh at). If the leaves were alpha mapped, I'd expect the edges to become jagged (due to limited pixel numbers in the alpha map) or blurry (due to antialiased alpha maps) as you get real close to the leaf. I could be wrong, but thats how I'd think it'd work with alpha maps.

My tree tests were done on bryce native trees (.bto format... not a 3ds or obj format model that's been imported). Only .bto files can be loaded into bryce's plant editor. I'm quite sure you can't save an imported 3ds/obj as a bryce native .bto plant (pretty much the same deal as with Vue and its veg files). Sorry for not being clearer on that.

Some confusion seems to have crept into some of the above answers and discussion from Bryce having two tree/plant "libraries" - one library is full of bryce native trees (.bto files) and there's a second separate library where you'd put imported 3ds/obj plants (i.e its just one of the model libraries thats named trees or plants or something like that).

Its only the bryce native format trees that behave as I describe in my answer. Basically in bryce you can modify a native bryce plant (i.e. changing branch numbers, thicknesses, branching numbers, trunk lengths, leaf types, leaf sizes, etc etc) and save that modified plant and still have it behave like a bryce native plant (in pretty much the same way that a Vue veg plant works (ignoring ecosystems at the moment) - i.e. you can modify it, save it, and have it perform as a veg plant on reloading). That being said, Vue's default leaf textures seem a little more sensible than bryce's default leaf textures lol.

I think it'd be a damn impressive bit of code (no matter what program it was in) that could randomly modify an arbitrary .obj/3ds file and still have it make sense after the modification. That would be very interesting indeed :)

Message edited on: 11/12/2005 08:05

The leaves could be procedural in Bryce. Just a thought. I must admit, from the close up shot of the leaves, they look like geometry to me...especially where you can see the gaps at the beginning of the leaves, where they are connected to the stem running up the leaf. Looks very good close up...are you able to add bump maps to them, to give them a little more detail Flak? Cheers

Ok Flak, I understand better now. Bryce is exactly like Vue then when it comes to plants. Imported geometry can't be saved as a Bryce plant file, and can't be edited, as ninhalo5 led us to think. I still think your coconut leaves are alpha maps, chech the Vue coconut tree, the leaves are alpha, and they have no jagged edges.

"You say you can save any plant in the Bryce plant editor, but when you load that plant, is it always the same, or do you get variations of your plant each time you load one?" "Imported geometry can't be saved as a Bryce plant file, and can't be edited, as ninhalo5 led us to think" HUH?, that's interesting I didn't know I led anyone to beleve anything except the fact I can import an obj plant into the plant library and save it there so when I create a picture it's there if needed :o) sorry if I did. No, If I remember correctly the only thing you can import in Bryce is an obj file or a mat file. which I can save in a certian library wether it's a plant or a door, car, what have you. As for editing an Obj plant in Bryce you have limited options such as ungrouping the object applying different colours/textures and resizing that is about the extent of it. but the basic shape is going to stay the same nothing random. I think that my actuall question got lost in the confusion they say a picture can speak a thousand words so maybe I post 1 or 2 lol J

Maybe I didn't understand you in the 1st place, ninhalo5, I thought you said you could save imported geometry as a plant file in Bryce, and since they seem to be generated differently just as in Vue, this made me think that imported geometry in Bryce,if saved as plant, would be different each time they are loaded. But you are saying they are loaded exactly the same now? Well, does Bryce behave differently for every user? lol!

Does bryce behave differently for every user - Heheh... it sure crashes more often for some people than others - another thing it shares with Vue lol :D Cheers - I'll have to get back to you (and this thread) on that about the bumpmapping - surprisingly (or perhaps not so), I've done very little with the bryce tree lab.

Ok I figured out my answer. In the plant editor there are 2 ways to save 1st is: "save plant" which gives you a VOB file and the other is to "save plant species" which I did not see on the toolbar and that way you can save as a VEG file. So to create a plant in Vue you must use the editor and adjust this and that and save the file using plant species that way you can pull the plant from the library instead of going on a guessing hunt on what plant you want. as for the wavefront obj type plants I guess there is no way to convert them to a veg file. J

No way at all, ninhalo.