Trees...again

[tricky]

I want to achieve a stylised look for 3d trees. We've got all the Bionatics stuff and I know about all the Onyx Speedtree options.

However, what I want is a kind of 'sketchy' look for my trees. Have a look at this image:



I want that kind of massing and roughness that this sketch shows so that I can easily convey a 'volume' of planting, but I don't want the problems of either images of trees placed on quadpatches (when they rotate they look rubbish) or high polygon trees that choke my renderings.

The actual texture of them would be fairly straightforward. I also like the 'outline' edge which I imagine can be achieved using vray toon shaders or something. What I need is a set of the little 3d 'blob' models I suppose.

Does anyone know what I am on about?

[CCS]

Not sure if this works for you, but here are a few images showing some trees I played with a while back. They are simple shapes with vray displacement.

[powerandrubber]

I used a very cheap PS plugin called buzz simplifier from fo2pix.com for this image. Check out their website for lot's of examples and tutorials.

[priad]

humm CCS good result but what about your rendering time?
I'm curious.
Final toon can make amazing result for that, but you need to model one or several trees at first.

[tricky]

CCS: Thats along the right lines I think, they look pretty ideal from a distance, but closer up they look a little like 'fuzzy monsters' (just thinking from my client's point of view ). My animation will start from an elevated position like in your aerial shot, but then move on down to eye level and through the trees. I think it is at this closer in point that I would have visual problems.

powerandrubber: I had a quick look at that website, but it appears at first glance to be for images only, and I'd need to render out high(ish) poly trees out first in order to apply their filters frame by frame. In this way, I may be able to get the look I'm after, but rendering those initial high poly trees would be the problem.

Priad: Final toon (is that vray or something else - finalrender?). Again, I would need high(*ish) poly trees first.

Any other clever people out there with a good alternative? To sum up - I need low poly (blob) trees of different types and styles.

[priad]

humm ok Have you already test the poser render engine?

Priad: Final toon (is that vray or something else - finalrender?). Again, I would need high(*ish) poly trees first.

Any other clever people out there with a good alternative? To sum up - I need low poly (blob) trees of different types and styles.

Something I don't understand here you want what high or low poly?

[tricky]

Something I don't understand here you want what high or low poly?

Low poly blob-like stylised trees that convey massing, and to a degree, variety, in planting.

(What I meant was I don't want to create high-poly Bionatics-type trees only to put an effect on them to make them look sketchy (and low poly!))

[priad]

does the first pict is yours?
Bionatics is the worst thing that I have see to make tree so don't use them. onyx is the greater thing
In the past I have seen some rpc with a pencil filter on them but I can't refound it on their website, if someone remember that.
I re said that poser engine can help you, they have a powerfull sketched engine, you must composite them and put them in to background in poser then after you make a render with alpha.

PS: I just try to help you

[jow]

Ive been messing around with a similar idea,still trying to sus out the best way to do the trees/plants.
For the shader i used max's own ink and paint material and adding a shaded map (like on your image) to the shadow slot of the mat.Works well but doesnt work will displacement.
Also you would need to make more than one shading map if you need colour.
very interested in how you get on tricky,keep us posted!

[archcanvas]

3dsmax + FinalToon or:
3dsmax + Piranesi or:
Photoshop > Stylize > Find edges and then desatuate it

And then using customized brushes to retouch it here and there (either Photoshop or Painter, but I suggest using Painter with Wacom)

[CCS]

Yes - they are fuzzy monsters up close. They work nicely for filling out a mass of distant trees. Haven't used them in a while though.

I was just playing with another idea, but ran out of time. Here's my thought, maybe you can make something happen.

Start with a geosphere. Use a displace mod with a noise map driving it. Crank it up to get the desired lumpiness. Use meshsmooth as desired, then optimize and collapse it. When I was playing with it, I got a decent result with about 300 faces. Depends how smooth or chunky you want, and how many lumps you want.

Then, you could probably get a similar look to your image using the planet map with various levels of grey for the continents and water. Or, use a leaf cover map if you want a look similar to mine, but without the hairiness.

Scatter those suckers around and I'll bet you'll have low render times.

Then use vraytoon to get outlines.

[olitech]

This method might help...and it's free!




They're only about 35 polygons each

[CCS]

Yeah, but what's your render time with all that opacity? I'd bet that geometry would render faster than opacity.

They look good though. What did you use to create the plan view image? cloned elevation branches?

Why don't you just email those to me?

[olitech]

CCS:
Geometry trees have the same amount of opacity (if you're using opacity
for the leaves). There's no way 20,000 geometry trees render faster than
these little suckers. (20-30mins -3,-2imap, -1,2 AA -or- 1-1.5h. -1,-1 imap
1,3AA)
The plan view is exactly the cloned, rotated elevation branches(photoshop)

*The more 'holes' you have in your opacity map, the harder it is to detect
the planes
*The shadow side always looks better than the sunny side...up close anyways
*This is just a quick'n dirty fix for massing
*I think this technique would work great if your map had that 'hand drawn' arch. style..maybe

forgot to mention dual 3.06 xeons

oh ya, i only spent about 15mins to half an hour on these trees...you could
probably do a much better job if you spent more time =]

[olitech]

Just a peak as to what these 'el cheapo' trees look like in action.
Sorry about the blurring, but these are framegrabs for video...not for stills