Rather than perpetually bemoan the dearth of a simple yet flexible tree macro,
I'm having a bash at writing one myself. The results are starting to actually
look like trees now rather than bad lumberjacking accidents, so I thought I'd
post something.

Parsed in 15 seconds, rendered in 10 minutes but that's mostly the radiosity and
area light - it renders in under a minute if I use basic lighting.

Next, I need to build the branches from continuous sweeps (currently strings of
mesh cones) to improve realism and reduce the triangle count. Then I'll have a
good play with the parameters to see what variety of forms can be generated
without excessive tinkering ;)

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Rather than perpetually bemoan the dearth of a simple yet flexible tree macro,
> I'm having a bash at writing one myself. The results are starting to actually
> look like trees now rather than bad lumberjacking accidents, so I thought I'd
> post something.
>
> Parsed in 15 seconds, rendered in 10 minutes but that's mostly the radiosity and
> area light - it renders in under a minute if I use basic lighting.
>
> Next, I need to build the branches from continuous sweeps (currently strings of
> mesh cones) to improve realism and reduce the triangle count. Then I'll have a
> good play with the parameters to see what variety of forms can be generated
> without excessive tinkering ;)

It's looking great already! I'd certainly love an easy to use, flexible tree
generation macro.

Can I humbly suggest a feature? I think the ability to pass a function (maths
function, pigment function, etc) to modify key parameters of the algorithm
(branching rates, branching direction, foliage generation, foliage colour etc)
would give users an incredible powerful way of tweaking the output.

E.g. wind-swept trees - no problem, just pass a function to influence the branch
generation in a particular direction...

Oh, and a mesh (or maybe mixed SDL primitive) output mode to skip the generation
time in subsequent renders?

Cheers,
Edouard.

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Rather than perpetually bemoan the dearth of a simple yet flexible tree macro,

http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austtx.html
http://www.oyonale.com/modeles.php?lang=en&page=1

even bonsais here:
http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Sources_map

> Parsed in 15 seconds, rendered in 10 minutes but that's mostly the radiosity and
> area light - it renders in under a minute if I use basic lighting.

why would anyone in this day and age use only basic lighting?

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Starting to look good, Bill.

Are you aiming for a new POVtree application, to succeed Gena's?

Thomas

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"Edouard" <pov### [at] edouardinfo> wrote:
> Can I humbly suggest a feature? I think the ability to pass a function (maths
> function, pigment function, etc) to modify key parameters of the algorithm
> (branching rates, branching direction, foliage generation, foliage colour etc)
> would give users an incredible powerful way of tweaking the output.
>
> E.g. wind-swept trees - no problem, just pass a function to influence the branch
> generation in a particular direction...

Wind-swept/drooping effects already on my list. It strikes me that branching
directions/rates would need to be governed by very different functions... I
shall bear the suggestion in mind!

> Oh, and a mesh (or maybe mixed SDL primitive) output mode to skip the generation
> time in subsequent renders?

It's currently a regular mesh. I can't see an easy way to make it a mesh2 but
I'll see how the parsing times evolve. Maybe it won't be necessary :)

Bill

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austtx.html

Aha, I wasn't aware of this, I thought this turned into POV-tree. I have played
with POV-tree, and it looks really powerful, but I could only ever make the
example trees steadily less convincing the more I fiddled.

> http://www.oyonale.com/modeles.php?lang=en&page=1

Should have known ;)

> why would anyone in this day and age use only basic lighting?

Wow, you get all your renders 100% the way you wanted them the first time you
fire up the renderer?

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"Thomas de Groot" <tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:
> Are you aiming for a new POVtree application, to succeed Gena's?

No, I'm after something a little simpler. I've been meaning to try my own trees
ever since I first tried to use POV-tree - I found POV-tree difficult to use and
quite slow. Powerful features, but I never managed to create a tree that I'd be
happy using. I wanted to keep my trees simple; I was originally after low-detail
trees without the need for external mesh includes that I could use in landscapes
etc. It's already more complex than I was aiming for!

I'm just having fun with the DIY at the moment.

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4c3d7273b291e1346dd25f0b0@news.povray.org...
> "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austtx.html
>
> Aha, I wasn't aware of this, I thought this turned into POV-tree. I have 
> played
> with POV-tree, and it looks really powerful, but I could only ever make 
> the
> example trees steadily less convincing the more I fiddled.

Correct. TomTree is the basis for POV-Tree. TomTree is SDL while POV-Tree is 
also mesh. Indeed POV-Tree is not too easy and has a couple of disturbing 
things, but in the end one can make convincing trees after some 
experimenting.

Thomas

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message >
> even bonsais here:
> http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Sources_map
>

Gee, I never realized that Jaime released his bonsai source.  I might have 
to start playing with it.  :-)

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