Animated trees

[Hannes]

A population of wind blown trees. The scale should be right. Trees are not included!
You'll have to download the following free Xfrog tree set to use this file:
http://xfrog.com/product/AS12.html
Use the AS12_9.tgo model and the according textures.

It's the result of this discussion:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20339.60.html
...and is meant to explore some possibilities on how to animate trees.

The lean factors of the instances of each population are (differently) animated.
The trees are additionally animated by the mesh displacer (an animated input transform shader with world scale checked plus a power fractal)
I also used the color tint function to get more variety.
I changed some color settings of the trees, since Xfrog trees seem to be quite dark and uniform off the shelf.

The tree trunks are wobbling too. Looks quite crappy, doesn't it? Feel free to find a solution for that.


Thanks to Kadri for the idea of animating the lean factor of objects and Kaedorg for starting the discussion. Hope you like it.

[Kadri]

A little low quality to see but looks good Hannes.
I don't have that tree just now but have you tried this to lower the trunk wobbling:

"...powerfractal that is restricted in altitude with a surface layer" ? The "Wind_test.zip" file does have everything in it.

Here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20339.msg201506.html#msg201506

[Hannes]

Hadn't read that exactly the first time. Thanks, Kadri.
So does the surface layer with altitude key set to final position treat each tree trunk correctly no matter how high it's position is?

[Kadri]

It looked so from that Low res renders but i am not sure Hannes.A closer look is needed.

[Hannes]

I'm afraid, this doesn't work. If you use the same surface layer as color for your objects (I used -25 as minimum altitude) , it looks like that:

[Kadri]

Yes.I made just some much bigger render tests with different altitude options (altitude key etc.) but nothing worked.

Maybe an UV approach could work?
The easiest might be like in one of my tree tests on the other thread to use separate object parts.
That would have probably other problems like the intersecting parts moving.
If the tree branches are at a optimum high separated from the tree especially from a certain distance it could work maybe.

[luvsmuzik]

There is no ANIMATION section in File Sharing so I am moving this to ANIMATION.....

I do not mind if you (Hannes) move it back to file sharing, but I though perhaps it would be easier seen here. No offense.

[Hannes]

Actually I think it might be better to move it to "objects", even if it's animated, since it's a file to be shared, and someone who's looking for animated trees would probably find these only by accident.

[luvsmuzik]

Actually I think it might be better to move it to "objects", even if it's animated, since it's a file to be shared, and someone who's looking for animated trees would probably find these only by accident.

All righty then.... Matt will have to move it back, sorry.

[Matt]

I have moved it File Sharing > Vegetation, but I suppose it could make sense in other categories because it's an animation technique/setup.

[Hannes]

Thanks Matt! I think for now it's OK, until there's a more special category.

[WAS]

Can this be done uniformly? Along one direction with little variance? I haven't actually played with this method yet. Or is this responding to tree rotation?

[Hannes]

Or is this responding to tree rotation?

I haven't used this method for quite some time now, so I'm not sure, but as far as I remember it IS responding to tree rotation.

[DocCharly65]

Oh wow! Thanks Hannes... I should give it a try again.