Growing leaves

Started by bigben, October 25, 2008, 01:00:43 AM

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bigben

#30
This is all done within TG2! The only animation here is a single colour adjust node on an opacity function derived from an image map.

gregsandor

The models aren't being replaced.  The opacity of the leaves is being changed.

old_blaggard

Ah, yes, you're right, silly me. For some reason I was thinking of Bigben's age variations project, which I believe does require a separate model for each age, and if you wanted to have an animation of a tree growing, you would have to have one model per frame.
http://www.terragen.org - A great Terragen resource with models, contests, galleries, and forums.

bigben

Quote from: old_blaggard on October 27, 2008, 09:09:19 PM
...For some reason I was thinking of Bigben's age variations project, which I believe does require a separate model for each age, and if you wanted to have an animation of a tree growing, you would have to have one model per frame.

That's my next project using Arbaro and multiple XML docs to generate an OBJ model on the fly.... more swaying in the wind than growing, although growing grass should be feasible.  Growing trees would be a bit trickier as there would probably be a lot of jitter in the leaves as the branches grow, but it may still be very effective. It would partly depend on the grwoth rate.

bigben

OK, the 1/8th render pass is complete.  Posted a 3 frames per second animation at http://podcast.bigben.id.au/channel0/leaf-growth/  I'm starting a second sequence of a whole tree for comparison.

bobbystahr

Quote from: bigben on October 28, 2008, 07:08:11 AM
OK, the 1/8th render pass is complete.  Posted a 3 frames per second animation at http://podcast.bigben.id.au/channel0/leaf-growth/  I'm starting a second sequence of a whole tree for comparison.

That's pretty awesome Ben....dunno how I missed this thread but now I gotta go back and read the whole thing...fortunately I'm just sittin waiting for the phone to ring...LOL.. ...
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

bigben

Thanks Bobby

Here's the partially rendered full tree animation. every 4th frame, 6fps.  (Just play around with the slider once the movies loaded)
http://podcast.bigben.id.au/channel0/leaf-growth-2/

It will be interesting to see how this can be varied across a population.

Mohawk20

You might want to adjust the speed of the changes toward the end. Suddenly the leaves grow super fast...
Howgh!

bigben

#38
Yes it is a bit fast... but then this is the first test and it's not like a surface where you have a preview render to check.

I just used a few linear gradients for each stage and didn't actually calculate the change in density vs distance. Had I planned it a bit more I would have set a key frame for each (white level) of the animation stages. I also considered varying the mask for each leaf blade to have them start at different times. The effect would be subtle at this distance but it's easy to setup.

Key values for this mask image (now that I've looked it up)

Black level = white level
End of branch (1 -> 0.75), petiole (0.75 -> 0.56), leaf blade (0.56 -> 0.02)

bigben

#39
The second animation is complete now.

http://podcast.bigben.id.au/channel0/leaf-growth-2/

Sorting out an issue with IE7 and the plugin. If you have this browser try http://podcast.bigben.id.au/files/leaf_growth2/ReadMe.html

Mohawk20

Once you got these leaves sorted, add a little animation in front of the tree itself grow from 0 to 1 size (or whatever you have it now). Could be a nice effect...
Howgh!