Hello folks. It seems every so often that someone will post here looking for a good tree, or plantmaker, hopefully free. I stumbled across this app by chance in another forum due to an offhand comment by one poster discussing an unrelated topic, and I thought I would share it here. The rendered output looks very good and the interface looks nice. On the site it says-

"tree[d] is an easy to use tree generator!
An accessible user interface allows you to create nearly any type of tree within minutes. Use the included media to try out the many options, to create realtime trees for your games or visualizations.

Once you have created your perfect tree, make an infinite number of variations by clicking a single button. And export the tree as a 3D model or as a billboard texture.

Best of all tree[d] is free to use, and the trees you make you can include in your own projects, commercial or free, as long as they are not model packs, texture packs, 3D model generators, or texture generators".

http://www.frecle.net/index.php?show=treed.about

Yeah, unfortunately Bryce is not (correctly) importing either of the formats that tree[d] creates (x, b3d)

It's a neat little tree generator though. Now if we can find a way to convert the files to something that Bryce will correctly import.

AS

A file converter like Deep Exploror will be able to view the DirectX (*.x) format and you may therefore be able to export it to another file format. You might have to reapply the textures tho.

Nice find!

Put the first one on a plane maybe?Put farther away from cam to save polys.Off to dnload a converter for X.

Sorry 'bout that! I had it installed and posted about it before I had a chance to take it for a twirl. I assumed(and we all know what happens when we assume) it had an object, or 3ds exporter built-in, as those are so universal. I have converted the POV output of Arbaro and POVTree tree-making apps though, so it's perhaps not so bad.

Hey Wildman, those look great! If at least one person found a useful tool from my post, it was worth it. :)

Oh, found a now free-ware renderer on the same site that can use tree[d] as a plugin, and then export the tree in other file formats, such as .obj. and 3ds.
what is gile[s]?

"gile[s] is a global illumination / radiosity lightmapper, capable of rendering high resolution lightmaps fast and efficiently.

gile[s] features an easy to use editor, that allows you to place models and lights without fuss.

gile[s] handles models of arbitrary complexity keeping smoothing groups intact, and rendering perfect results every time.

With gile[s] you can even paint directly to the lightmap, and mix and match vertex lighting and lightmaps as you please.

*In short: gile[s] lights up your worlds". 

• This in itself might be useful for some folks here.

It exports to obj, have not figured out how to separate the leaves from the trunk yet.

even though it doesn't save to .obj u can still make 2d objects with it which is probably best due to memory concerns anyhow.

Anyone find a way to convert these meshes for true 3D use in Bryce?
(Other than BUYING a wildly expensive converting program?)

AS

Ah, good news/bad news.

I just now tried Blender which normally imports .x files, no problem. But...it will not import these .x files from tree[d], for some reason.

BUT...

Just download this companys other program gile[s], and you can use that to open the b3d or x file made from tree[d] and export it as an .obj.

BUT...

It imports with the leaves completely in the wrong position. (looks really bad)

I'll keep experimenting, see if I can get it to work.

AS

Well, that didn't take long, lol.

In tree[d], save your tree as a .b3d, NOT a .x

Then open the .b3d in ** gile[s]** and export as a .obj

Looks like you'll need to fix the textures (the leaves' transparency) but, IT WORKS.

AS

AS

ur right. awesome. i was wondering why when i was making tree(d) it wanted me to save it as a gile(s) plugin.

i was playing with it some and if when u create your tree(d) program and create ur folder within your giles plugin folder. giles will let u load .trd files. tree(d)'s native format.

I thought I read something like that that in one of their forums. Thanks.

AS

Help?  Anyone know what to do about this?

Just tried this program and it's not bad, but if you're using Bryce or Vue or Carrara why bother? They all have tree labs which are faster than this and produce better trees.

Why not?  The Bryce tree lab is terrible and the trees are metaballs not meshes.  If you could get this to work it would be quite nice to have.

u need to fiddle with the materials editor. u also need to select the correct mesh to edit leaves or trunk. the probhlem is mostly with the leaves and transparency. the materials should be there. they just need to be tweeked. agent smith did a better job with his example than i did with mine when i fooled with it. so u should probably check with him. i know it seemed like when i worked with .trd files the foliage on my trees seemed fuller.

Fran, the metaball trees in Bryce are the ones in the import object menu, not the ones created in the tree lab.  Tree[d] is just a standalone version of what Bryce has had for many years.

to sepearate the leaves and mesh u may have to ungroup the two. there is a little arrow at the lower right hand of the app that lets u choose the meshes with which u want to work.

Can these trees - or any trees come to that - be imported into other 3D programs, like..... Cinema4D?

Um... cmcc - which app do you mean?  Giles or TreeD?

Attached Image;
So, after I imported the .obj into Bryce, I press down Ctrl+Alt and make a Left Mouse Click in the area of the leaves and in the  contextual menu that pops up, I choose the leaves. (leaf_1)

AS

thanx agentsmith

Can these trees - or any trees come to that - be imported into other 3D programs, like..... Cinema4D?

Um... cmcc - which app do you mean?  Giles or TreeD?

after importing either tree(d) files or b3d files into giles i was exporting them as object files and then importing them into bryce.

i was able to render some trees using agentsmith's advice but never anything to my satisfaction. i really only found it was useful to create bryce 2d files which i think u need to do if u r going to use bryce as an effective tool that can compete with the detail that u get with vue,

Ah, I just found out what the problem was - it doesn't work if you are importing into Bryce5.5

But the exact same trees work just fine in Bryce6.

In 5.5 you just get one material for the entire tree called usemtl_# - where "#" is a number relating to the number of imports you have tried.

But in Bryce6 you get helpful things like "wood_1" for the trunk and branches, and leaf_1 for the leaves.

Doesn't work for 5.5? That's lame, lol.

You could try exporting out of giles in .3ds instead of .obj....but I've got a feeling the textures might be stripped out altogether and each leaf would be its own separate mesh. (bleh)

AS

AS,

Yeah that was going to be my next try if B6 didn't work.

I thought B5.5 would be better to try first simply because of B6's busted Object import - where you get an all black obj.

I just tried importing .3ds and I don't think it'll work.

On export from Giles I got a "filenames are too long" error and this occurs whether you say "strip textures" or "collect textures" on export.

And in Bryce both attempts come up as "a file error occured.  i/o bad media"

And I can see no way to stop the model - either in TreeD or in Giles - from using textures.

It may even be that this particular .3ds file being a scene file and not just a model file - is therefore not importable to Bryce anyway, textures or not.  There are 2 different types of .3ds file aren't there?

Again it's looking closer to a copper beech than a cherry tree.

fran ur results r pretty much the same as mine.

Yeah, it's probably just practice needed to get the Bryce version to look right.