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From: Mr
Subject: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 14 Feb 2010 07:10:01
Message: <web.4b77e7a870e1eed37b7aad0a0@news.povray.org>
Hello, to all, I'm browsing and searching for free solutions to generate
landscapes, preferably easy to use. I currently found:
-Genesis Toolkit
http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
-tierra project
http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en


For the trees:
-Tom Tree
http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austt.html


Is there anything else really uefull?


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From: Alain
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 14 Feb 2010 14:04:11
Message: <4b78492b$1@news.povray.org>

> Hello, to all, I'm browsing and searching for free solutions to generate
> landscapes, preferably easy to use. I currently found:
> -Genesis Toolkit
> http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
It looks like the last version dates back to 1998.

> -tierra project
> http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
Wrong url...
>
>
> For the trees:
> -Tom Tree
> http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austt.html
>
>
> Is there anything else really uefull?
>
>

Tom trees is arguably one of the best tree maker you can find. Great to 
crate individual trees.

For the terrains, you can try Terragen. Both versions, 1 and 2, are free 
for personal, non-comercial, use. You can get it here:
http://www.planetside.co.uk


Alain


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From: Mr
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 14 Feb 2010 18:20:00
Message: <web.4b78843993a56a007b7aad0a0@news.povray.org>
Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

> > Hello, to all, I'm browsing and searching for free solutions to generate
> > landscapes, preferably easy to use. I currently found:
> > -Genesis Toolkit
> > http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
> It looks like the last version dates back to 1998.
>
> > -tierra project
> > http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
> Wrong url...
> >
> >
> > For the trees:
> > -Tom Tree
> > http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austt.html
> >
> >
> > Is there anything else really uefull?
> >
> >
>
> Tom trees is arguably one of the best tree maker you can find. Great to
> crate individual trees.
>
> For the terrains, you can try Terragen. Both versions, 1 and 2, are free
> for personal, non-comercial, use. You can get it here:
> http://www.planetside.co.uk
>
>
> Alain

Thanks for answering, and sorry about the wrong link: Project Tierra is indeed
at:
http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra

By "arguably[...]individual trees" do you mean that they will be too heavy for
big forests? and should be complemented with another software for background
trees? any idea which one?

Arbaro seemed good but doesn't generate textures.

about the terrain, I searched for European DEM (Digital Elevation Models)  files
and the best site I could find so far was this:

http://geoengine.nima.mil/geospatial/SW_TOOLS/NIMAMUSE/webinter/rast_roam.html
If using DEM alone isn't precise enough, I might tweak it with Blender sculpt
tools and generate the heightfield out of that. But I would love to have a more
procedural approach.


About Terragen, I'm trying to stay in the free for commercial use realm, if I
can first. Geomorph seemed good for that but has no windows version.

I forgot to mention, Plant Studio for smaller plants:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/


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From: Alain
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 15 Feb 2010 10:54:05
Message: <4b796e1d@news.povray.org>

> Alain<aze### [at] qwertyorg>  wrote:

>>> Hello, to all, I'm browsing and searching for free solutions to generate
>>> landscapes, preferably easy to use. I currently found:
>>> -Genesis Toolkit
>>> http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
>> It looks like the last version dates back to 1998.
>>
>>> -tierra project
>>> http://www.schrammel.org/genesis.php?l=en
>> Wrong url...
>>>
>>>
>>> For the trees:
>>> -Tom Tree
>>> http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austt.html
>>>
>>>
>>> Is there anything else really uefull?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Tom trees is arguably one of the best tree maker you can find. Great to
>> crate individual trees.
>>
>> For the terrains, you can try Terragen. Both versions, 1 and 2, are free
>> for personal, non-comercial, use. You can get it here:
>> http://www.planetside.co.uk
>>
>>
>> Alain
>
> Thanks for answering, and sorry about the wrong link: Project Tierra is indeed
> at:
> http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra
>
> By "arguably[...]individual trees" do you mean that they will be too heavy for
> big forests? and should be complemented with another software for background
> trees? any idea which one?

Each tree is created as a mesh, and, depending on the quality and detail 
of that mesh, it can get very large.
There is no problem using the same mesh 1000's of times in a scene, but 
1000 identical trees together is not realistic.

One thing you can do is to use the same tree several times, but to 
scale, slightly and unevenly, and rotate it randomly. Use 2 or 3 trees 
will do an even beter job while keeping the memory load reasonable.

Then, you can use very low quality ones behind. The "bilboard" technic 
can be used advangageously in that case.

>
> Arbaro seemed good but doesn't generate textures.
>
> about the terrain, I searched for European DEM (Digital Elevation Models)  files
> and the best site I could find so far was this:
>
> http://geoengine.nima.mil/geospatial/SW_TOOLS/NIMAMUSE/webinter/rast_roam.html
> If using DEM alone isn't precise enough, I might tweak it with Blender sculpt
> tools and generate the heightfield out of that. But I would love to have a more
> procedural approach.
>
>
> About Terragen, I'm trying to stay in the free for commercial use realm, if I
> can first. Geomorph seemed good for that but has no windows version.
>
> I forgot to mention, Plant Studio for smaller plants:
> http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/
>
>
>
Alain


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From: Mr
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 15 Feb 2010 15:10:01
Message: <web.4b79a8dc93a56a007c139aae0@news.povray.org>
> There is no problem using the same mesh 1000's of times in a scene, but
> 1000 identical trees together is not realistic.

Yes, that's why I turned to Povray in the first place to have some random seeds
anywhere I can with the same definitions. One thing that would be nice would be
if the generated trees can be used to grow other plants upon them like what the
following ivy generator sofware does:
http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

Only, it would be so much better if it could work without the need of finished
meshes but take advantage of Povray syntax and be generated at render time only
over procedurally generated trees without intersecting them.

Has there been any experiment with such growth algorythms in Povray?


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From: Alain
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 15 Feb 2010 16:32:52
Message: <4b79bd84$1@news.povray.org>

>
>
>> There is no problem using the same mesh 1000's of times in a scene, but
>> 1000 identical trees together is not realistic.
>
> Yes, that's why I turned to Povray in the first place to have some random seeds
> anywhere I can with the same definitions. One thing that would be nice would be
> if the generated trees can be used to grow other plants upon them like what the
> following ivy generator sofware does:
> http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

Ivy Generator can, and have been used to, do exactly that.

>
> Only, it would be so much better if it could work without the need of finished
> meshes but take advantage of Povray syntax and be generated at render time only
> over procedurally generated trees without intersecting them.
>
> Has there been any experiment with such growth algorythms in Povray?
>
>
>
>

Generating some object/entity at render time only? Not doable. I realy 
don't think that any renderer, anywhere, can do such a thing without 
cheating a lot.
Everything visible is created at parse time.
Any thing that interact with any object will need that object defined 
beforehand.

There is the way of postprocessing, but that poses other problems, like 
having concistent shadows and illumination, not to mention the case of 
reflections or refractions.

For a growth algorythm, you mentioned Ivy Generator that is exactly 
that. And, as you said, it relies on having predefined object(s) defined 
as mesh to interact with.



Alain


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 16 Feb 2010 04:13:03
Message: <4b7a619f$1@news.povray.org>
"Mr" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4b78843993a56a007b7aad0a0@news.povray.org...
> Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

>> Tom trees is arguably one of the best tree maker you can find. Great to
>> crate individual trees.
>
> By "arguably[...]individual trees" do you mean that they will be too heavy 
> for
> big forests? and should be complemented with another software for 
> background
> trees? any idea which one?

TomTree makes trees out of blobs. If you want to use meshes, POVTree is what 
you need. It uses TomTree for generating the trees and exports to POV-Ray 
either as blobs or as meshes. However, Gena Obukov's site (the creator of 
POVTree) seems to have disappeared and I wonder if the application is still 
available....

You might be interested to try out also World Machine: 
http://www.world-machine.com/index.html and GeoControl 
http://www.geocontrol2.com/e_index.htm

Thomas


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From: Mr
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 16 Feb 2010 09:00:01
Message: <web.4b7aa47193a56a007c139aae0@news.povray.org>
"Thomas de Groot" <tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:
> "Mr" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> news:web.4b78843993a56a007b7aad0a0@news.povray.org...
> > Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
>
> >> Tom trees is arguably one of the best tree maker you can find. Great to
> >> crate individual trees.
> >
> > By "arguably[...]individual trees" do you mean that they will be too heavy
> > for
> > big forests? and should be complemented with another software for
> > background
> > trees? any idea which one?
>
> TomTree makes trees out of blobs. If you want to use meshes, POVTree is what
> you need. It uses TomTree for generating the trees and exports to POV-Ray
> either as blobs or as meshes. However, Gena Obukov's site (the creator of
> POVTree) seems to have disappeared and I wonder if the application is still
> available....
>
> You might be interested to try out also World Machine:
> http://www.world-machine.com/index.html and GeoControl
> http://www.geocontrol2.com/e_index.htm
>
> Thomas
Thanks Alain, I won't search too much for that (im)possibile feature and rather
will focus on use of Mesh then. which of course leaves Ivy generator as the best
candidate for generating plants growing over tree meshes. I still need to find
the best free tree mesh generator.

Yes, Thomas, I have tried PovTree, but the only version (1.5) I could find (on
the internet archive)
http://web.archive.org/web/20051101175949/propro.ru/go/Wshop/povtree/povtree.html
....has greyed out export possibilities. That's too bad because it would have
alowed me to generate a dummy mesh for the purpose of growing Ivy and a higher
res blob based tree for rendering.
And as to the other two programs, their free versions have limitations. Thanks
anyway.


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From: Mr
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 16 Feb 2010 13:15:01
Message: <web.4b7ae04693a56a007c139aae0@news.povray.org>
This program seems fun to work with:

http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~jslayton/wilbur.html


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Most up to date landscape generator ?
Date: 17 Feb 2010 04:16:40
Message: <4b7bb3f8$1@news.povray.org>
"Mr" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4b7aa47193a56a007c139aae0@news.povray.org...
>
> Yes, Thomas, I have tried PovTree, but the only version (1.5) I could find 
> (on
> the internet archive)
> http://web.archive.org/web/20051101175949/propro.ru/go/Wshop/povtree/povtree.html
> ....has greyed out export possibilities. That's too bad because it would 
> have
> alowed me to generate a dummy mesh for the purpose of growing Ivy and a 
> higher
> res blob based tree for rendering.

That is strange, because my copy of 1.5b (1) saves to blobs and (2) exports 
to POV-Ray mesh (mesh2 and obj are greyed out; they were supposed to be 
further implementations by Gena, which he never found time apparently to 
complete).


> And as to the other two programs, their free versions have limitations. 
> Thanks
> anyway.

Limitations indeed in maximum size. However, you can overcome that 
limitation by using the height_fields as functions and applying a little 
warp to them. Trick offered to us by Kirk Andrews IIRC. Example:
#declare F_HF =
function {
  pigment {
    image_map {
      png "My_hf_map.png"
      map_type 0
      interpolate 2
    }
    warp {repeat x}
    warp {repeat y}
    scale 50
    warp {
      turbulence 0.2
      octaves 1 //[6]
      lambda 1  //[2]
      omega 0.2 //[0.5]
    }
    scale 1/50
  }
}


Thomas


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