"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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