Forum: Bryce

Subject: @ wits end with Tree Lab!

bandolin opened this issue on Apr 20, 2005 · 27 posts

bandolin posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 10:24 AM

Bryce trees are great as long as you don't want a specific type of tree. I've tried and tried to get a Weeping Willow tree, but the more I fiddle around with tree lab the more it confuses me. I've downloaded all the appropriate textures including the leaf texture and Willow bark. I've chosen the Willow presets in the tree lab. I've read the Bryce Manual on the Tree Lab. I've searched through the Free stuff; there's no Weeping Willow. I've found a beautiful willow in the market place but it costs $50. But now I know it can be done in Bryce, but how? The more complex I make my tree, the longer Tree Lab takes to update my changes, to the point that every change I make in Tree Lab takes 20-40 minutes to update. Am I doing something wrong? Or am I doomed to buy me a $50 virtual Bryce tree. Ironically, I used to have a Weeping willow in my backyard, but I cut it down because it was in the way of where I wanted to build my shed. 

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
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Rayraz posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 10:57 AM

I'd say $50 for a few dials in the treelab is a scandal... However I must admit I truely suck at the treelab also.

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Kemal posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 11:10 AM

Attached Link: http://arbaro.sourceforge.net/

This software is making excellent Weeping willow tree, bit high poly, but very nice, hope this helped !:D

draculaz posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 11:24 AM

ROFLMAO nice kemal

bandolin posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 12:11 PM

Thanks for the link, I'll try it out. Why is drac laughing? Am I missing something. At any rate, why does Bryce create a method for creating any type of tree you want, when said procedure is tediously long and convoluted? I've lost about 5% of my life expentancy due to frustration with this thing. Really, I'm curious as to why Drac is laughing... :-


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Rayraz posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 12:13 PM

he's prolly laughing about the rediculous price for that tree pack :P

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Rayraz posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 12:16 PM

wow just checked that arbaro thingy, I can't even find how to start the program! :|

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Kathye posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 12:57 PM

I've been working with Arboro a bit recently too. Had the same problem as Rayraz originally because I'd never worked with Java applications.

First thing to check is whether you have the most up to date version of Java which you will find out from www.java.com

The second is to find on your hard drive the file called arboro_gui.jar and double click it.

It's quite hard going. I've made a Word document with many of the settings of the example trees printed out so that I could try and work it out. As I'm struggling to work out the basics myself I'll happily share what I've got with anyone else who wants to learn and hopefully improve along the way :)

I'll get back to you on the Willow settings in the tree lab because I made quite a nice one a year or two ago and will have the file stored around here somewhere, I'll upload a screenshot of that too.

It does make fantastic trees, including a fantastic willow though you have to tweak the settings to get it to export as an obj within your own lifespan ;)

Message edited on: 04/20/2005 12:59

danamo posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 1:32 PM

This is a willow I made in Arbaro. I fiddled with the default settings a bit and exported it as an object file then rendered it in a default Bryce scene. I'll make sure to up the quantity of leaves on the next one as this one looks a Winter willow. It'd be great for a haunted house scene as is,lol. Arbaro can make some seriously nice trees. :-)

ysvry posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 2:35 PM

does it work without other programs? i thought you needed to install povray too?

for some free stuff i made
and for almost daily fotos

Kathye posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 2:40 PM

Only if you want to render in POV-ray. I tried it but as often as not wasn't able to get it to work well. But I'm totally new to POVray so I'm sure that was me not the program.

Kathye posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 2:47 PM

Here we go, this is roughly the settings I had on the tree in the following picture. Don't laugh, the picture was one of my first Bryce attempts back in Oct '03 and I was dead proud of it at the time. But I'd put on some complex metal mats (it was inspired by a metal willow sculpture I'd seen) and I didn't realise it was going to take forever to render so I ended up reducing the leaves on that significantly, hence it's rather bald state. These are after I've tweaked it upwards again to a more normal tree.

Rayraz posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 2:51 PM

the .jar file is the executable? hmm.. here it gets opened in winrar lol and it'll extract some files.

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danamo posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 2:54 PM

@ysvry-Luckily you do not have to install povray, Arbaro will also export to either .dxf or .obj formats, but I have found that .dxf exports are easier and faster. Either way, it exports the mesh in two parts, trunk/branches, and leaves so you can texture them separately. You may have to add .dxf, or .obj to the file name when you export so it will show up as an object that you can import into bryce. This willow is the result of some further tweaking from the default willow which is practically naked. The only prob is the file size is pretty huge, almost 24MB! I would be happy to send my settings to anyone interested however.

sackrat posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 3:03 PM

@bandolin, I can try making one in MECN Tree Factory If you would like. It would be in .dxf format and probably around 12 MB's, with trunk and leaves as seperate meshes for easy texturing. Might take a day or so,.......I've never tried making one. Lemme' know.

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bandolin posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 6:40 PM

Kathye, your Willow looks awesome. I'll try that. Thx
arboro isn't for the faint of heart. I'm still trying to get anything out of Texture Maker. OK, I've tried Kathye's settings and they worked like a charm. I guess I just don't get the Tree Lab, but I'm starting to understand.

Message edited on: 04/20/2005 18:55


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Dann-O posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 8:53 PM

Generally I have a few favorites because of render times and file size. I like bambo (which looks nothing like bamboo　but still looks cool)　and palms. Looks liek today is tree lab workshop day.

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ysvry posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 9:14 PM

danamo that weeping willow is great how do you get the jar to run?

for some free stuff i made
and for almost daily fotos

ysvry posted Wed, 20 April 2005 at 10:51 PM

just installed and run arbaro and made this weeping palm (2,8mb)this is great value. kathye your new weeping willow is great too i love those plumes.

for some free stuff i made
and for almost daily fotos

danamo posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 1:24 AM

@ysvry- thanks! Maybe I can send you the modified preset file- it's in XML and it's only 4kb! I think that's all you'd need to generate a copy you could tweak further to your liking. I like your palm. :-)

Kathye posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 3:19 AM

Thanks for the compliments on the tree. I couldn't remember yesterday where I would have got the settings for that willow (I'm sure as a beginner I never came up with those myself). Now I have remembered and it's the now missing Brycelab Tree Database. I still have a copy of the page and settings on my hard drive though I saved the trees and forgot the source obviously (blush).

I have a bit of a tree obsession, love foliage in my pictures so I've got a mass of links to places I've learned about the tree lab over the last couple of years, I'll check out which are still live and paste them in:

The best most detailed tree lab tutorials are:

Brycetech
http://www.brycetech.com/tutor/bryce/tree1.html

Robinwood as part of Lesson 3 in her Beginning Bryce tutorial

http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/BryceTuts/BryceClasses/BBryce3/BBryceLesson3-2.html

Those two cover the basic settings in the most detail but I have to be honest, there is still so much I don't understand about how those parameters work.

The best tree settings I know, I use and modify these all the time when I'm filling a scene with trees. Think the guy's name is Androo but don't know much more than that.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rodv/leaf/tree.htm

This site also has great resources in -

a pdf of all the preset trees with the 5.01 patch
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rodv/leaf/b5point1trees/index.htm

a pdf of leafshapes that come with Bryce
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rodv/leaf/index.htm

Both really useful for working on variety in your trees.

Lynn Dee's treelab secrets
http://www.artistree.us/tutorials/treelab/index.html

Danamo, love your Arboro willow and Ysvry, that palm is great.
I'm wondering if you Arboro users have ever found that you export a tree, it reaches 100 per cent but fails to complete in that the obj file remains at 0kb? I was trying to get a decent willow on it last night and got some good looking modifications such as setting the levels of splitting at level three to make shorter fronds... only to find that the obj would just stay empty so I never got a proper look at it. I'll try it with DXF today now I've read your comments on that.

Raylaz, have you tried using right click on the arboro_gui.jar and 'Open with' in order to get it to open with Java rather than WinRar? I hate the way some programs hijack filetypes like that. Sadly it looks like most of my other links are dead now.

Message edited on: 04/21/2005 03:22

Bea posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 6:33 AM

I don't know what I am doing wrong I can't get arboro to open it keeps taking me into winrar. I am sure I have jave on the computer. How do I find if I have and how do I get the file to open?

Rayraz posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 6:38 AM

oh bummer, I just forgot Java refuses to download to my computer :(

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Kathye posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 6:43 AM

Bea, if you right click on the arboro_gui.jar do you see anything like this?

bandolin posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 8:59 AM

My earlier frustrations with the Tree Lab have been alleviated. I thank you all. Gee, I wonder if Bryce Forum members could alleviate my job frustrations?


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Rayraz posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 2:07 PM

maybe? I'd say it's worth a shot ;)

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Dann-O posted Thu, 21 April 2005 at 8:34 PM

Learned a lto about tree lab these past few days. Thsi is what the forums are all about.

The wit of a misplaced ex-patriot.
I cheated on my metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the person next to me.