Hi Gang!
I've been trying to fine a good merchant for obj trees. Most of what I have stumbled across are OK but it seems to me that they "look not so good". Most seem to have Leaves that are out of scale with the rest of the tree, most times to large in my opinion. I have purchased some old pines from Runtime DNA which I Like but are only good for certain scenes. I have seen some really nice detailed pines in one of Oshyan's Mt. Saint Helen scenes. And lucbianco has some top quality trees also. I don't mine purchasing them as that seems the only way to get the really good ones. Any leads would be greatly appreciated ;D
Thanks!
PS: I have been keeping a watch on the thread "
Resources for 3d models etc" http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1106.0 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1106.0) so please don't point me there. ;)
Most of the tree models used by the alpha testers, including myself and Luc, are Xfrog Plants (http://www.xfrogdownloads.com/greenwebNew/products/plantlibsSubStart.htm) from Greenworks. They offer a number of libraries of high quality plant models at several stages of development (young, adult, mature). They cover trees, bushes and flowers, house plants, exotics, cacti, even underwater species. They're not cheap, but generally speaking the quality is worth it.
You can find a sample of TGO format Xfrog models for free download on our TG2 Technology Preview page here (bottom-right): http://planetside.co.uk/terragen/tg2/tech_preview.shtml TGO versions of the full Xfrog plants library are not available at this time but I encourage you to inquire about the possibility.
- Oshyan
Thanks for replying Oshyan! I do have and use the free XFrog plants supplied at Planetside. And yes the packages from XFrog are pricey. I wish they would sell single plants so more of us could afford them. And I also wonder if enough Terragen users requested single tgo's if they would come through? Might be worth a shot if everyone jumped on the bandwagon and Marched on XFrog. ;D
Buzzzzz, let me know when and I'll join the assault.
I found this last night - http://www.vistainternetproducts.com/steve1.htm (http://www.vistainternetproducts.com/steve1.htm).
I really like the looks of that Cottonwood. Has anyone tried those? Do they work easily?
I think I'm about to spend the asking price on that or the oak. Don't tell the wife.
;)
Oh, and does anyone have good tree bark textures that would work for aspens and/or willows? That's actually what I was looking for when I found these.
Quote from: Harvey Birdman on May 01, 2007, 11:44:40 AM
I found this last night - http://www.vistainternetproducts.com/steve1.htm (http://www.vistainternetproducts.com/steve1.htm).
Damn! Thanks Harvey! The Oak and Cottonwood look very promising. The Cottonwood I could use in my Southwestern scenes. Great find and lead!
About the XFrog Plants, perhaps someone with better Writing Skills than myself would be willing to Draft a Petition of sorts to XFrog requesting Single TGO Objects for TG2 Users and then all interested could add their Digital Signatures. The more the better of course! Then send it off to XFrog. Any Volunteers???
Hope I don't get into trouble with Planetside for this? :P
I think there are many XFrog individual plants for sale at Turbosquid for about $30 each.
are there any free ways of converting .3ds or .max files into .tgo or .obj files for importing into Terragen?
Tere's a really sexeh Blue Spruce on this site, but it's in max format.
http://archidom.net/ddd/mod_tree2.htm
PoseRay will do 3ds -> obj.
Don't hold your breath on that blue spruce - it might be one of the old lo-res XFrog freebies.
even then, I can reserve it for far-off shots at the least. Thanks for the tip on poseray
Harvey, I don't know if you ordered the Oak Tree you mentioned? I just did and it's being delivered on CD, there doesn't seem to be a download unless I missed it.
No, I hadn't done it yet.
Damn! That's too bad - kind of weird, too. You'd think they'd save the expense of burning media and shipping it. I can't imagine that a CD would be the preferred delivery method for most customers - sure wouldn't be for me, anyway.
Well, looks like you're our test case. ;D I think I'll hold off and see how you do.
Quote from: Harvey Birdman on May 01, 2007, 02:32:27 PM
No, I hadn't done it yet.
Damn! That's too bad - kind of weird, too. You'd think they'd save the expense of burning media and shipping it. I can't imagine that a CD would be the preferred delivery method for most customers - sure wouldn't be for me, anyway.
Well, looks like you're our test case. ;D I think I'll hold off and see how you do.
I'll be sure to report back the outcome. :)
What do you think? - http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=56161&TopID=&WhatsNew=Y
Considering the price, I think it looks pretty good.
I think I might buy it. It's too bad we can't share stuff like this, but it's pretty cheap.
Alright, so we get all these trees and plants and then convert them to a TG2 friendly .obj format (with Wings 3D), and then to TGO using TG2.
However-
The translucency of the leaves doesn't transfer and has to be tweaked manually. Translucency contributes to part of the realism IMHO. I've been tweaking translucency on the models I've acquired, but what a job trying to dial it in! Its a shame TG2 can't pull .obj files in directly from the source (as the translucency values appear to be included).
A good example of realistic translucency in TG2 can be seen in some of Luc Bianco's images. I can see translucency in the leaves and such, and it looks superb! I'm not sure if he tweaked translucency manually, but he likely did since TG2 doesn't seem to pull these values over with the models.
Rooting for the planetside team to impliment better model imports, sub-surface scattering, and colored water with turbidity! 8)
Quote from: moodflow on May 07, 2007, 04:14:40 PM
Alright, so we get all these trees and plants and then convert them to a TG2 friendly .obj format (with Wings 3D), and then to TGO using TG2.
However-
The translucency of the leaves doesn't transfer and has to be tweaked manually....
You can't always blame the developers of one software package when there are so many variations in obj formats output by different programs. TG2 imports obj files quite well if the file is structured in a certain way... I would have said "structured properly" but this is well out of my area of expertise. I'd assume that their implementation of an obj import was based on a "technically correct" file structure...
PoseRay to the rescue once again. ;) Translucency and Specular settings are imported correctly from .obj converted by PoseRay. There is hope ;D
I have yet to get realistic translucency or - for that matter - reflectivity in my scenes.
My expectation is that the transparency and reflectivity will be fixed. This is part of procedural programming and we've been told these things are coming by Oshyan and Matt and Jo. The "fixes" that are being implemented by a few users here in the forums shows a lot of understanding and creativity from the individuals who provide these things, but I can't live with these on a full-time basis. I have too many other things to do to keep up with patching someone's software and I'm certain Planetside doesn't expect us to continue to do this. The completed software is my goal.
A positive side to all of this is we get to learn the ins and outs of TG2.
Here is a quickly created close-up of Flink's tree without any changes. I imported the object into Pose Ray, imported that result into TG2, and then saved it as a TGO. I used the default textures and alpha.
A pity - there seems to be some alpha trouble.
I was wrong about the ALPHA. After looking into the TGO's textures, I found the process didn't include the ALPHA. Here it is upclose with the ALPHA.
that actually looks quite nice. not very realistic for my taste, but nice.
Considering it only costs around $6 and it comes with bark, 4 sets of leaves, and a transparency for the leaves, I think it's one of the better ones I've seen without being touched up like BigBen does, etc.
Try applying a little color-based displacement to the bark to bump it up a little - it might improve the look a bit. (I think you're right - for the price it's not bad, as long as you don't have the camera jammed into the branches...)
Harvey - Yeah. That was just to show the leaves. Up close, the branches look more unrealistic, though with a full-frame of the tree I like it. I actually like this vendor and will likely buy another set of his trees. He does grass, too, but it's sort of expensive considering we have a lot of free grass floating around here.
In my opinion, it isn't worth tweaking too much (though I like messing with displacements for now), since we're supposedly going to have transparency, etc. someday. Call me lazy, but it isn't worth my time to tweak the hell out of any program when it doesn't do what it's supposed to. I have too many other things to do in life and I'm sure everyone here who isn't just sitting at home playing with software can understand that...unless it's how you make your living.
I can't wait to be able to use more of the beauties within TG2. In the meantime, I'll keep having fun with what we have.