I am makign some web graphics for a friend. The project is comming along
rather nice, but I reach sort of a wall when I come to making some
assorted leaves on a branch. The branch itself is handmade, and the
leaves can be too, but, being that they are web-graphics and not a full
scene, I would was hoping an include file existed - at least a tutorial
of how to do a leaf in sPatch. I could make some cheezy leaves using
CSG, but I would  like them to look somewhat convincing.

Also, has anyone successfully made tree-bark textures/materials? I am
having some trouble and was hoping someone would be able to help me out
with that as well.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer, and happy tracing!

Tim Soderstrom
TigerHawk
Tig### [at] SticNet

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TigerHawk wrote:
> 
> I am makign some web graphics for a friend. The project is comming along
> rather nice, but I reach sort of a wall when I come to making some
> assorted leaves on a branch. The branch itself is handmade, and the
> leaves can be too, but, being that they are web-graphics and not a full
> scene, I would was hoping an include file existed - at least a tutorial
> of how to do a leaf in sPatch. I could make some cheezy leaves using
> CSG, but I would  like them to look somewhat convincing.

  I posted a tutorial on making leaves with height fields in the
binaries.tutorials group probably about 9 months ago. It is easy
to do if you have a leaf photograph to work from. There is a web
page that has plant and pollen pics that you could probably get
your pics fron then use my tutorial to get you started for very
realistic looking leaves.

Try both of these sites:
http://iris8.cirad.fr/index.htm
http://www.photovault.com/Link/OrdersFlowers/Pollen/OFPVolume01-02.html
 
> Also, has anyone successfully made tree-bark textures/materials? I am
> having some trouble and was hoping someone would be able to help me out
> with that as well.

I use greyscale bump maps made from real images of bark and then use
the original full colored image on top of the bum map for the color.
Work good but finding bark images takes a while. You might find some
useful images at the above two sites.


One last suggestion I have is Tree Designer which has a nice suite
of pre-made leaves and is designed for modelling trees. I believe
Mr. Hubert also uses HF's to make leaves for his modeller. Check
it out at:

http://free.prohosting.com/~jhubert/TreeDesigner/

-- 
Ken Tyler
1100+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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I decided to go ahead and get Tree Designer. It took a few days to get,
because of my connection. Then I decided to simply pull a leaf .pov file that
came with it and use that (it was a prism). Not the best, but I do not have
the time to design the Tree - though I may later.

On idea I thought of from Tree Designer was to use sPatch to make the leaves,
which I may do eventually...

As far as trees go, however, think I might prefer lparser over TreeDesigner,
mostly becasue Lparser seems to make nice trees and its free (even though you
do have less control).

I apreciaste the assistance!

Tim Soderstrom
TigerHawk

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There's one thing I'm trying to do this fall. I'll fetch some leafes and
scan them with my little cheap flatbed scanner and then I'll try to make
small meshes from the scanned pictures. Got this idea from Oliver
Deussen. One of the authers of xfrog.

Marc 
-- 
Marc Schimmler

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Marc Schimmler wrote:
> 
> There's one thing I'm trying to do this fall. I'll fetch some leafes and
> scan them with my little cheap flatbed scanner and then I'll try to make
> small meshes from the scanned pictures. Got this idea from Oliver
> Deussen. One of the authers of xfrog.
> 
> Marc
> --
> Marc Schimmler

  Making it with meshes might be ok but I don't think you will get as
much detail as you would with my patented HF method. My method allows
you to have the leafs veins too and since the HF is internaly represented
as a mesh object it is highly effecient memory wise. Multiple copies
of a HF are no more memory intensive as multiple copies of a mesh
construct. Plus the HF method is a very easy method to produce the
exact shape of the original plus you can use the original image as
an image map for accurate color rendition.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1100+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
: much detail as you would with my patented HF method. My method allows
: you to have the leafs veins too and since the HF is internaly represented
: as a mesh object it is highly effecient memory wise.

  Would leaf veins be represented more efficiently with a proper normal map?

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
> Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
> : much detail as you would with my patented HF method. My method allows
> : you to have the leafs veins too and since the HF is internaly represented
> : as a mesh object it is highly effecient memory wise.
> 
>   Would leaf veins be represented more efficiently with a proper normal map?

See P.B.I. for an example of my method.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1100+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
:>   Would leaf veins be represented more efficiently with a proper normal map?

: See P.B.I. for an example of my method.

  It looks great, of course, but I still think that a proper bump map would
achieve an almost identical result (unless you zoom very near the leaf) and
the rendering time would be quite smaller.
  Of course there have to be a way of representing the leaf itself. Perhaps
a mesh (number of triangles would be a lot smaller than with the heightfield).
The advantage of the mesh would be that you could bend the leaf, which I think
is not possible with the heighfield.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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The downside of a bump_map is that it isn't real, it just looks real - and only if
you are far away enough or at such an angle that it doesn't look fake. I think the
mesh idea would give more controll, but, actually, thinking about it, a hightfield
is not really a bad idea.

Just throwing my 2 cents in,

Tim Soderstrom
TigerHawk


Nieminen Juha wrote:

> Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
> :>   Would leaf veins be represented more efficiently with a proper normal map?
>
> : See P.B.I. for an example of my method.
>
>   It looks great, of course, but I still think that a proper bump map would
> achieve an almost identical result (unless you zoom very near the leaf) and
> the rendering time would be quite smaller.
>   Of course there have to be a way of representing the leaf itself. Perhaps
> a mesh (number of triangles would be a lot smaller than with the heightfield).
> The advantage of the mesh would be that you could bend the leaf, which I think
> is not possible with the heighfield.
>
> --
> main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
> ):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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TigerHawk wrote:
> 
> The downside of a bump_map is that it isn't real, it just looks real - and only if
> you are far away enough or at such an angle that it doesn't look fake. I think the
> mesh idea would give more controll, but, actually, thinking about it, a hightfield
> is not really a bad idea.

  I ran a test for mostly parse time and memory use. With 19,881 height
fields each with an image map the total parse time was 29 sec. and
consumed about 27 megs of memory. The same HF's with a simple pigment
parsed in the same amount of time and comsumed only 22 megs. In either
case the render time was not at all time consuming and was actually
surprisingly fast. The only time I imagine it would take a long time
to render is if you were doing a VERY high resolution leaf and you
were zoomed in tightly to get maximum detail. Otherwise distance has
a way of cancelling out the detail so it does not take as long to render.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1100+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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