dark trees

[miha2]

Hello. i'm trying to learn working on terragen. i already know how to paint grass clumps, many other stuff, now i'm interested how to put the trees in the program so that they were not "black", but "green" with "brown" legs. there's no point to attach the pic, because all you'll see is black trees. i know it's more of xfrog, but anyway, maybe somebody knows... and one more thing - when you load trees, the warning window pops up, "cannot locate..." something like that. tried putting trees in C:\Downloads, no result

[domdib]

I find it's usually best to have the model (plus all associated files) in the same directory as the scene file. Have you tried that?

[Hannes]

As far as I know, it's enough to put all associated textures into the same folder where the object is.

[miha2]

yes i did. in fact, both .MTL and .OBJ files for all trees are in my C:\Downloads folder. Don't know what's the reason. All trees that i have for the moment, be it exported from Xfrog or downloaded, it's all the same - dark trees... even tried copying mtl info from my Sweet Birch (free sample, downloaded) to mtl for other trees - no result.
actually, i create on the go, don't save files. (well, not a pro to this program yet, sorry) so there's no reason to put trees in the same folder as my project

[Dune]

You should make a habit of organizing your objects in folders, with their textures. And clear all filenames of spaces; so Wild Berry.obj should be Wild_Berry.obj. For all files AND folders. Then it should all work fine. If you then open a obj in TG, you might only have to associate the alpha channel/opacity tab.

---Dune

[miha2]

You should make a habit of organizing your objects in folders, with their textures. And clear all filenames of spaces; so Wild Berry.obj should be Wild_Berry.obj. For all files AND folders. Then it should all work fine. If you then open a obj in TG, you might only have to associate the alpha channel/opacity tab.

---Dune

so, you're trying to say that i should have all trees in different folders? the mtl files and obj ones do not have spaces. as i said, i have my trees in C:\Documents folder. and where do i get the alpha channels?

[Dune]

No, that's not the point, although it's easier to find trees if you have a folder for each (set of) trees. The texture file of leaves should have an alpha channel, so you add the file in opacity and check use alpha channel. Unless you use a transparent image, then you just add that image in opacity.  I always make Tiff's with an alpha channel for leaves.
Best is also, once you have your obj imported, to save it as tgo in the same folder. Saves you the trouble of having to do everything again when reusing the tree.

[miha2]

so, basically, what i should do is to put .mtl, .obj, AND .TIFF files for leaves and skin? now, is that the point?

[miha2]

so, why does it write me cannot open mtllibrary? it's in C:\Documents, no spaces, no any signs, just names. gives 2 errors, all the same. and it shows me path "Z:/host/Documents/(tree folder)/C:/Documents' and 'C:/Documents"

[Oshyan]

Is the path a network folder or other special/unusual storage arrangement? There are no special characters anywhere in the file name? Does this happen with all objects?

- Oshyan

[miha2]

yes, it's kind of "network" hard disk - i'm sitting on linux, but well, it looks like my terragen glitches on my linux. hope so... and hope it won't do it again...

[Oshyan]

Try it from a local disk.

- Oshyan

[miha2]

ok, thank you. i will. this topic can be closed now. thank you to everyone who answered.