Marlin Studios

[glorybound]

Will something like this choke V-Ray?

http://www.marlinstudios.com/product.../treefarm.html

I like this statement.

"Since the first 3D tree models were created, there has always been a tradeoff in placing trees in a 3D environment . . . either lots of lollipop-looking, low polygon trees or a few very high poly trees. Now you can have quantity and quality . . . plus the photorealism required in today's 3D graphics. "

[crazy homeless guy]

I have used Marlin textures before and was not that impressed with them, so I am automatically skeptical of claims they make. Though I would be curious to hear how people like them.

[RErender]

They have some samples

http://www.marlinstudios.com/samples/samptreefarm.htm

[glorybound]

Marlin

I actually tried it after I posted. One tree with default v-ray settings takes over an hour and 1/2hr when I remove it from GI. It looks good though.

[Neilg]

They still look pretty awful, whats wrong with a proxy and full 3d trees? Their claim only works if you take into account proxies not existing.

These probably take even longer to render too, if theyre using alphas.
edit: Yeah, they also expect you to use sub surface scattering... haha.

With a full 3d tree, up the refraction slightly on the leaf and turn on 'affect shadows', does the job fine for that effect.

[glorybound]

Proxy

I'll try.... I do have Onyx, but I haven't gotten good at it yet. When I create a large tree the poly count get outrageous. Little trees work fine.

[Neilg]

Thats the thing though - poly count is irrelevant if you use proxies.
I'm currently working on a job with over 7000 trees running about half a million polys each. With the entire site on a full HD frame (1920x1080) it renders fine, and thats just under 4 billion polys.

[glorybound]

Trees

I'll try to work some more with Onyx trees, I am sure it is me.

[beestee]

Thats the thing though - poly count is irrelevant if you use proxies.
I'm currently working on a job with over 7000 trees running about half a million polys each. With the entire site on a full HD frame (1920x1080) it renders fine, and thats just under 4 billion polys.

If you don't mind, what kind of render times were you getting? Animation quality? Just wanting to kinda guage one of our recent projects. We had ~3k high poly trees, at a noiseless/flickerless 640x480 we were getting between 30min and 1hr per frame.

Back on the topic, if you aren't opposed to making your own alphas...
http://www.howardmodels.com/0-tree/D...2103/index.htm