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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: zaxxon on January 05, 2014, 10:34:48 AM

Title: In The Ash Grove
Post by: zaxxon on January 05, 2014, 10:34:48 AM
A higher res re-do of a sketch from an earlier thread. Trees from Speedtree: sample Greenleaf Ash with 5 variants. Grass and Lupin from Walli via Silva3D. Default T3 terrain.
Title: Re: In The Ash Grove
Post by: Oshyan on January 05, 2014, 03:12:53 PM
It's very interesting to see plants from a significantly different source. Most we see here are Xfrog, or modeled primarily/partly with it (e.g. Silva3D). Xfrog models are generally great, but they do have a certain consistency at times, and some compromises made to keep polygon numbers down (especially with older models). These SpeedTree models have some issues too, I think, the branches in particular look a bit odd in some cases, but the leaves look great, and the overall impression is very good. They're nice-looking trees, they render well, and integrate nicely into the environment. The bump/displacement on the trunks looks a bit high here (not a lot, just a bit), but having bump does look nice and helps avoid the "CG" look.

Looking forward to more!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: In The Ash Grove
Post by: TheBadger on January 05, 2014, 04:18:29 PM
Like it a lot.

Agree with Ohyan that the bark is just a tad too strong. Great trees!
Title: Re: In The Ash Grove
Post by: zaxxon on January 05, 2014, 05:00:20 PM
I agree with the displacements being a little out of whack, I've had some issues finding a happy medium and suspect that my displacement map (made with crazybump) needs to be reworked. The branches are also being distorted by the displacent to some degree. The art of modeling a tree is certainly more complex than meets the eye, and just because the modeler can create any number of semi-random branches and twigs, doesn't mean they all harmoniously fit together. 'Culling' is a part of the ST toolset, both automatic via collision detection and procedural settings, but manually as well. The base tree is far more 'natural' (as one would expect) then my created variants (also to be expected). It's very exciting to have the kind of tree modeling power, but certainly these initial efforts are mostly WIP's at this point. Thanks for the observant feedback.
Title: Re: In The Ash Grove
Post by: bobbystahr on January 06, 2014, 10:50:28 AM
Tons of potential but too bad it's such a high dollar drop....can understand that from your description of it's features, notably the culling, but not in this lifetime for me I'm afraid....