The Grove 4

[ajcgi]

Mmmm 10GB is pretty large for a basic tree.

[Rumburak]

I have to apologize. As usual, the biggest problems are sitting close to the keyboard.   

I think there has been another problem with blender the last time I tried to export a tree (it crashed during the render I did before growing the tree and I didn't reboot). I tried it again now and I have to revoke some parts of my last post.

I grew a tree with Grove 4 (24 years) and I did this with object instances. Blender is still getting slow and the export is taking a few minutes, but it took only 3GB of RAM this time. The obj file itself is approx. 1.5 GB in size. Importing into Terragen is possible (see attachment), so I would say Grove 4 is useable at least for hero trees. The interaction with other trees/objects while growing is really nice. After this second try I would say: It's really worth a look!

Sorry for posting something before verifying the results.

[Dune]

1.5 gig? For one tree? I don't think that's a very workable situation. I'd go for XFrog or Speedtree, even for a few hundred dollars/euros more.

[Rumburak]

Yes, the obj file is very large. In blender it's much better because you can use the Particle System. But as I mentioned before this feature won't work in Terragen. If you import the tree that is grown with the Particle System you will get only the bare tree without twigs and leaves. 
As Ulco said, XFrog and Speedtree are the better choices for Terragen, although the Grove is a very nice Blender addon.

[masonspappy]

Rumburak,  when you use Blender particle system, do you convert everything to mesh before exporting?

[Rumburak]

Either that or you can use the 'Object Instances' setting while growing the tree.