Im working on doing some jungle scene tests. I wanted to see how easy it was to reproduce some of those jungle shots from Pirates of the Carrabean....

I didnt like the Mexican Palm tree or the coconut....(which didnt have a beleivable jungle canope)

I bought the bananna tree which was a good  start and I got a tropical canope with variation in it. I just need a few more tree sugestions...

Problem: Banana is 30-50K polys...and can max out a scene instantly......by the time I get to adding an atmosphere Im crashing all over the place.

Does anybody have recipes for decent Jungle plants?

You could try the Lush bucaneer palms at Corn, they're really cheap and of top quality for those that don't use the Vue coconut branch material ( looks awful in close up)

Yeah I saw that...they kinda looked cheap...Ill give em a try.....

I started splurging for some of the $15 palms...(hopefully they wont be too high polyy count)(I been maxing out my scenes lately)

Tanx for help!

This date palm is excellent from mid to backgroud, but it uses the same leaf material as the default coconut, so it will look terrible in foreground.

I bought like a 15$ senegal palm and the coconut palm $15 (which had a nice spread out top)

Are those lush series worth it? They look so video game card quality...(Ill give them a try in the distance id they save me memory population)

I downloaded those more expensive palm plants...Im trying to figure out how to install them (I guess they were created in Xfrog) (lot of tiffs etc)

Has anyone encouneter plants with this type of instalation?

You have 2 options: getting a zip file, or a self executable file. If you chose zip, simply unzip and add to your objects folder.

Here's a link for someone who creates amazing stuff:
http://www.thomaskrahn.com/Tutorials.The_making_of_Curaya.htm
His tutorials are worth a look.

Yeah didnt work. I think it might be an outdated file......everything in the zip folder is....a bunch of tifs a couple MPEG files and couple XFR (xfrog files)

Great reference website! What great website for Thomas Krahn (a real gold mine)

Noticed he uses X-frog.....(I actually keep gravating to there models over lush pak)

Does anybody else prefer X-frog vegetation?

Im starting to make headway with Date Palm ($15) purchased throught the Vue in menue which atuomatically installs......(in conjunction with Banna tree and eucaliptus)

Already making headway. Its 30-50K palm but it looks great...(beast to render) but it blows away the 2 free palms they give you (the coconut and the mexican palm)

Advice buy the good ones ! (which is my evaluation) will post results soon!

.....Thanks for all help trying to get the x-frog stock trees working....really appreciate it....

Quote - Problem: Banana is 30-50K polys...and can max out a scene instantly......by the time I get to adding an atmosphere Im crashing all over the place.

Are you using ecosystems? I can build ecosystems with the Scots Pine (100-150K polygons) on a 5 years old 1GB computer!

Yes, Im using ecosystems. Basically its a pretty wide shot.  Imagine a tropical valley (Im up to 23,000,000,000 polygons) with mountain range in background (I will post image soon)...

Im using very small scale....and its using alot of instances to fill the jungle canopy...(93% coverage)

Quote - > Quote - Problem: Banana is 30-50K polys...and can max out a scene instantly......by the time I get to adding an atmosphere Im crashing all over the place.

Are you using ecosystems? I can build ecosystems with the Scots Pine (100-150K polygons) on a 5 years old 1GB computer!

Have you tried rendering 3 separate areas of the whole screen and take them into photoshop, Vue caches the rest to harddrive, which will slow everything down, but you can get massive polygon counts that way.

Im using a fractal map from terragen........(from chips Terrapak)......(its all one big land mass)

Im trying to do an evlauation of V6 for professional matte painting purposes.....(im really trying to take it out for a test ride)

The full render for a 4K with ultra/renderosity settings is 23 hours lol.....

also I want to put stuff in the valley...so Im trying to get all atmosphere...haze and shadow all included

By the way love your work Chris

Quote - Are those lush series worth it? They look so video game card quality...(Ill give them a try in the distance id they save me memory population)

Yes - Lush plants are worth every penny.  They look great, even close up. 

Probably need to see the full screen version to check the quality but the lush series is great, in my image, linked below, its all lush plants.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1545544

Jon

Lush palms can be seen in close up, no problems. As for the Lush bucanner palms, only those not using the default Vue coconut material for the leaves can be rendered in close-ups.
All other Lush products are great for close-ups. The quality of  Linda's plants is the finest of all plant creators in my opinion. But this is of course only my opinion.

This works great for me...

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=3092&sid=37b720f0105bd2c86e950292159f5794&synch_f=1&sid=1cfh3hi7i2ku9dalusgbsu51s0

Hi checkthegate

Firstly:  thank you very much, I'm glad you like my gallery.

Secondly:  Wow! at 23,000,000,000 polys I don't think the poly count could go much higher, that's some zero's.

Thirdly: The eco system isn't my strongest point, so I can't offer any other advice,  I did find some plants in my folders the other day that look wonderful considering they are very resource friendly, I've been working on a way to increase resolution of textures procedurally without altering the bitmap. I'll look at them again at home and see if they might suit your needs.

All the best
Chris

I have had a client asking if you could build an entire scene in Vue...light it...populate it ....and render it 360 degrees LOL....

the 23,000,000,000 polys was from the above image......it was however solid growth plants...

I am not a long time vue artist....so I just found out that solid growth plants are "special" and can only be run in Vue with counts that high...

on another note....

I bought "static" x-frog plants....one looks killer but thats all you can put into your scene...I did a test where I populated that same scene of 23,000,000,000 with static x-frog plants....

a preview render for solid growth took about 2 minutes..
a preview render for X-frog static....(I stopped it after it read 14 hours)

Render times and limits are huge problem in post today. Many post houses still use Renderman because it easily slice and dice displacement and push through scenes...

Maya has had a limitation Max poly count of 2 milllion polys......for a total scene...programs like Z-brush can model a head with 30 million polys in the "z-brush world"...and then transfer that info to a displacement map.......where you can work with it in Maya's limitations....

Its important to note Solid growth plants kind of work the same way.......(you gain the ability to break poly limitations in scenes)

does anyone know the max poly count or max instance  count that Vue has ever been able to handle?

Quote - Hi checkthegate

Firstly:  thank you very much, I'm glad you like my gallery.

Secondly:  Wow! at 23,000,000,000 polys I don't think the poly count could go much higher, that's some zero's.

When using ecosystems you have several options available to you to control plant count. 
1.  If you reduce the density just a single percentage or two sometimes it has a huge decrease in plant count WITHOUT affecting the overall quality of the image---the land still looks heavily populated.
2.  After you use the populate command, use your erasure brush and delete the plants that are over the horizon and those that are out of the boundary lines of the camera---if you cant see them, why plant them?

1. If you increase the scale size of the trees by just a single percentage or two, it doesn't make a noticeable diffence in visuals, but it decreases plant numbers and therefore drops your poly count down considerably.  You can use this in conjunction with tip #1

These tips might help you control your poly count and still furnish acceptable results.

Very good advice...Im actually doing it that way...(I didnt know about erasing stuff on opposite sides of moutains etc)

1. I start with my terrain..frame up my shot with just a simple shader.....

2. Then I populate ......checking for size ratios on all plants involved...(I use 3-4 species)
   (I have to try your trick of deleting behind mountains and outside camera)(I havent been painting eco systems....I have been just clicking populate)

3. At this point I save a copy

4. Then I pick an atmosphere.....(usually its spectral and radiosity)

5. I dial down settings....to do test renders for lighting and atmosphere.....(I know that I cant repopulate ecosystems at this point.....because I maxed out the population already)

6. Then I kick off a radiosity render at 4K.....

PS Love your work!

Quote - When using ecosystems you have several options available to you to control plant count. 
1.  If you reduce the density just a single percentage or two sometimes it has a huge decrease in plant count WITHOUT affecting the overall quality of the image---the land still looks heavily populated.
2.  After you use the populate command, use your erasure brush and delete the plants that are over the horizon and those that are out of the boundary lines of the camera---if you cant see them, why plant them?

1. If you increase the scale size of the trees by just a single percentage or two, it doesn't make a noticeable diffence in visuals, but it decreases plant numbers and therefore drops your poly count down considerably.  You can use this in conjunction with tip #1

These tips might help you control your poly count and still furnish acceptable results.

So far Im up to 800,000 instances and 35,000,000,000 polygons....ROLF

and Im rendering out a 4K

There is no Vue maximum, the only limit is your system's hardware. 23 billion polys is crazy, unless you have unlimited ram.

I think I have a quad core....with like 1 gig of RAM just in my graphics card...

The drive is ready for a hot swapable 64 bit Vista......(Ithink I got about 8 gigs)(but Im too lazy to get the 2nd drive upgrade) (I bought it January last year for conducting hi-rez texture tests)

I really think these tests are important especially the whole ILM matte painting crew is using Vue.....with their render farm.....we have to match that to see what we can expect from this crazy little program called Vue....especially doing images at professional grade sizes (8-4K) if this program is ready for prime time.

Im doing a test image....(which I will post when rendered)

...which is a standard forest element that a matte painter would need lets say from a houdini artist......... (which means 3-4 types of vegetation to prevent recognizable patterns and high render stettings)

(I will post my lighting model as well with final image) (currently my render is at 24 hours and counting.....but she is nice....full spectral haze and sun...with 33,724,458,665 polys.....with like 800,000 instances...at 4K) muhahahahhaha

I wish I could upload the highrez of this....

A 64bit system with 8 gigs of ram would indeed make a huge difference.
If you are in need of a render farm for Vue, check this link:
http://www.ranchcomputing.com/

Have you tried it yet? Ill bite.....(I definitely give it a try)

Im just getting the handle on lighting with V6. One of my friends who is a famous matte artist hates vue because it does get slow....(im trying to invent a work flow that is at least producer friendly)

You start popping in trees....and spot cards of mist......just test render times can get up to 20 minutes.....not alone a 4-8K that you have to paint on....

the ranch looks good especially with 4K final renders....(good stuff)

Quote - A 64bit system with 8 gigs of ram would indeed make a huge difference.
If you are in need of a render farm for Vue, check this link:
http://www.ranchcomputing.com/

Jon thanks for posting it...I love Linda's lush stuff (except the palm bucaneer series) ......the test renders looked shockingly bad till I saw your reference link...

I purchased realms dessert forest (which had some palms in it) makes me wonder if I should added some Linda stuff.....(everyone has said incredible things about her stuff)

thanks for posting!

Quote - Probably need to see the full screen version to check the quality but the lush series is great, in my image, linked below, its all lush plants.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1545544

Jon

Your welcome :) I am sure you won't be dissapointed with Lush plants :)

Jon

Hi,

I just remembered something which compliments garyandcatherine idea.

"2.  After you use the populate command, use your erasure brush and delete the plants that are over the horizon and those that are out of the boundary lines of the camera---if you cant see them, why plant them?"

I use cubes/shapes and stretch to cover the area you don't wont trees, below the ground as well, in your case the back of the mountains and populate with the eco system.

You have to leave/turn on 'Decay near foreign objects'  Under the density tab, then use the paint facility to tidy up if needed.
 
Then make the cubes invisible/transparent with shadow casting off etc. 

Hope that helps.

Chris

Edit:

Don't forget you can create your own billboards as well.

Attached Link: Render settings

I had to give it a try....
Here is 1024X467
108,826,805,123 Polygons
1,140,070 Instances
About 71/2 hrs rendering
DEM of Oahu
All Incredibly Lush Banyon, Mango and Kentia
i26.tinypic.com/2wdvaiv.jpg

Very good idea about the cubes...I guess you can do a boolean delete (which is what your talking about)...

its very clever idea...

thanks for the help (this is the kind of stuff that should be in those Aisle DVD)

Frank....thanks for the Peggy tutorial...I will definitely study it

Yeah! Thats what Im talking about......!

My render is similar...I have hazy.....spectral sun in there.....and the haze is getting grainy..so I jumped the quality boost to 8-12....which jumped my render times to 20+ hours

What was your lighting model?

Quote - I had to give it a try....
Here is 1024X467
108,826,805,123 Polygons
1,140,070 Instances
About 71/2 hrs rendering
DEM of Oahu
All Incredibly Lush Banyon, Mango and Kentia
i26.tinypic.com/2wdvaiv.jpg

Very good idea about the cubes...I guess you can do a boolean delete (which is what your talking about)...

Actually, what he's talking about is putting a stretched cube in the scene BEFORE you hit Populate (and have Decay checked) and what will happen is that Vue will not put trees where the cube is. If you basically cover the entire back half of your mountain with a cube, and hit Populate, you will likely have just over half the instances - probably cutting your 800,000 down to maybe 500,000.

Then you just delete the cube - leaving a treeless back half of the mountain, which you won't see anyway, so why bother taking up the resources?

Great idea - hadn't thought of that one!

Just checking - about to get a new computer - how's Vista handling Vue?

-Lew ;-)

Something else you might wanna try - you were saying it's hard to break this kind of thing up. The below link is to an image that was made by creating 5-6 planes of trees (on small mountains), brought into Photoshop for some tweaking, then After Effects for final composite and atmo effects.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1449188&member

Since they're broken up, I can even do a slight animation keeping them perpendicular to the camera. Too much and you'll really see that they're flat, but a little movement works just great!

Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)

Good idea indeed, but sometimes camera moves are getting more and more severe..... I was hoping Vue could go further.....as in the master matte painter Deak Ferrand from HatchFX....check out some of the moving plates that had to be projected from SHooter....(make sure to check out the QT of the river fly over)

http://www.hatchfx.com/matte-paintings.php?dir=15_shooter&year=2007

Imagine doing a shot like that with Vue.

Quote - Something else you might wanna try - you were saying it's hard to break this kind of thing up. The below link is to an image that was made by creating 5-6 planes of trees (on small mountains), brought into Photoshop for some tweaking, then After Effects for final composite and atmo effects.
Since they're broken up, I can even do a slight animation keeping them perpendicular to the camera. Too much and you'll really see that they're flat, but a little movement works just great!

Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)

And just to expand on the idea, you can have the cubes/shapes to the rear and at the sides of the camera just outside the cameras PoV, but make it so you have a slight space betwen the edges so shadows are still cast from the vegetation into view.

See the attachment,: green = ground; grey = mountains; red=cubes/shapes.

Cheers
Chris.

*but sometimes camera moves are getting more and more severe.....

Yeah, a fly-over would be impossible for what I described. And that river fly-over is fantastic! What a PITA that must have been to track and add elements! Gotta check out the rest of their site, now.

The trick with Vue plants - and I only have the ones that came with Vue, not the good ones, or X-Frog - is that they look good from a distance, but don't let the viewer look too long. Just like any other FX, given just a little time,  people will start to see the imperfections and pick the shot apart.

Basically, the flyover would need to have some decent speed or you'll get too good a view of the trees - and stop paying attention to the focus of the matte.

-Lew ;-)

I did some projects for clients. Large scale jungles.
Couple tips for reducing poligon count.

• Use paint insted ecosystem population, paint tree only on serfices that visible by camera.
• Do not create one universal terrain for all camera paths, create one , and save as different instances for different camera path, adjust your plants to that path.
• Create additional layers and place distant terrain in that layer, make it layer invisible in preview window. this will speed up your prieview.
• Prerender distant terrain and use alpha planes if posible.
• Bake models.
• For distant terrain use very bumpy material, or simple objects, insted complex plants. when render with motion blur they will be out of focus any way.
• Increase quality in atmosphere to reduce flicering in ecosystem.