Tree Development

[morcroft]

This thread is for discussion of the development of StillTrees - as opposed to SpeedTrees!
SpeedTree is deeply lovely and horribly expensive - so we're making do with old fashioned static 3D modelling for some trees, as previously discussed in Talu Swamp Development . I'm redirecting discussion of the actual modelling technicalities over here where it belongs rather than clutter that thread up any more.

This is a summary of where we are:

We've started to use dedicated software to define the basic tree, then clean up and tweak in our 3D package of choice

I'm using blender and a freeware called ngplant as described in this tutorial to approximate a Water Tupelo.

Koniption's using tree[d] and 3DS Max 9

Both tree modellers produce .obj format, so the 3D modeller's not critical.

Koniption's previous work includes:

Originally posted by Koniption:
My HugeMossyTree with the big roots that extend out along the ground [which] is 3616 triangles big, with everything that is modeled on it, included.

My second mossy tree, the one that is MossyTreeAngled01 (or some such name in the archive), is only 2280 triangles big, including all the moss and stuff modeled on it.
[...]
I'd say stick with 2850 triangles or less for your tupelo tree. The less, the better. Since Ibsen will need to use a lot of these together in the exterior worldspace of the swamp, to achieve the canopy effect he needs, we don't want these trees to have too much polycount.

I'm going to propose the following poly budget:

Huge Feature Tree: max 3600 triangles
Normal Tree: 2500 - 3000 triangles
Filler tree: 2000 - 2500 triangles

[Koniption]

Hi Morcroft,

The poly budgets you proposed sound fine to me.

Me, clutter up an inappropriate thread with modeling techinicalities??!! Naw!!

Actually, yeah, the topic got off-track a little, so thanks for starting thread specific to making "StillTrees".

Koniption

[The Old Ye Bard]

What would be good is if we could get a program to convert 'stilltrees' to .spt files, but anyway technically related:

How are you making the leaves atm? Are they fixed planes, or are they rotating-to-view like SpeedTrees?

[Lady Nerevar]

Originally posted by The Old Ye Bard
What would be good is if we could get a program to convert 'stilltrees' to .spt files

not sure what exactly this would add, as speed trees are a rather limited format. there is no way to control collision on a speedtree, and you can't rotate them. in this way, regular nif trees are much more versatile. billboard LOD can be handled as a separate distant object. the only thing missing would be canopy shadows, and i've seen those handled by creating a separate blank speedtree file which is placed alongside the real tree.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Hmm, we have a canopy shadow texture that I took from Disturbed's mod. I wasn't sure how it worked so I decided to leave it in. Nevertheless, it currently remains in the Textures-Trees folder (and should be part of the archive). Do you think it will work if it remains here? And will it offer canopy textures for all trees in that folder?

Thanks for starting this thread, morcroft. Very useful!

It would be nice to get things converted to .spt format but I'm guessing that, seeing as no clear way has been discovered by modders as yet then there is likely to be no easy solution.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by The Old Ye Bard
What would be good is if we could get a program to convert 'stilltrees' to .spt files, but anyway technically related:

How are you making the leaves atm? Are they fixed planes, or are they rotating-to-view like SpeedTrees?

For me, the tree[d] program makes the leaves on flat square planes, and they do not rotate to view like speedtrees do. I think it'd be a monumental task to make the leaves rotate using billboards, because you'd have to use a separate billboard node for each leaf plane mesh, and maybe edit rotation settings a little for each leaf's node. Not worth it, if you ask me.

Koniption

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by Koniption

Originally posted by The Old Ye Bard
What would be good is if we could get a program to convert 'stilltrees' to .spt files, but anyway technically related:

How are you making the leaves atm? Are they fixed planes, or are they rotating-to-view like SpeedTrees?

For me, the tree[d] program makes the leaves on flat square planes, and they do not rotate to view like speedtrees do. I think it'd be a monumental task to make the leaves rotate using billboards, because you'd have to use a separate billboard node for each leaf plane mesh, and maybe edit rotation settings a little for each leaf's node. Not worth it, if you ask me.

Koniption

Well there seems to be an easy way of doing it, as they've made pseudo-speedtrees with rotating leaf-billboards for Morrowind, and they look alot better than static planes

[morcroft]

I've just tried out importing a .obj mesh from Blender into ngPlant to use it as the leaf node and then export the whole thing back out to Blender. My leaf planes are now bendy! Still static, of course, but the planes no longer disappear edge-on. I'm using the same 10-tri shape used for some of the leaf planes in Morrowind.

Promising.... very promising...!

[Koniption]

Originally posted by morcroft
I've just tried out importing a .obj mesh from Blender into ngPlant to use it as the leaf node and then export the whole thing back out to Blender. My leaf planes are now bendy! Still static, of course, but the planes no longer disappear edge-on. I'm using the same 10-tri shape used for some of the leaf planes in Morrowind.

Promising.... very promising...!

Good to hear!

KP

[morcroft]

By the way - just got to stick in a link to this one for Ibsen to get excited about...! Not much canopy in that example, but lots of lovely moss.