@GussNemo and mtnmen. I recognise the feeling from my first tries. Then I followed two tutorials and everything became much more clear to me. There is still much more to learn, I assume, but you can see that a couple of hours gets nice results.
What is very important is to not forget the revolution angle. I didn't get anywhere before I understood that this enables the branches to spread around the stem.
I also noted you can make several layers at the same level. That is how I made the one big branch on which the girl is sitting. I tweaked that level (second variant of the second level after the stem) to contain only one branch.
I think there is an enormous set of options, but I still have to discover those.
Good luck with getting to grips with it!
EDIT:
After posting, I decided to look for more tutorials. There is not very much around. Here are some in various languages:
@hansmar ... Thanks for the tutorial links... and your tips... So...We'll check them out and give it a whirl around the block and see what comes out... Thanks
Steve
@GussNemo and mtnmen. I recognise the feeling from my first tries. Then I followed two tutorials and everything became much more clear to me. There is still much more to learn, I assume, but you can see that a couple of hours gets nice results.
What is very important is to not forget the revolution angle. I didn't get anywhere before I understood that this enables the branches to spread around the stem.
I also noted you can make several layers at the same level. That is how I made the one big branch on which the girl is sitting. I tweaked that level (second variant of the second level after the stem) to contain only one branch.
I think there is an enormous set of options, but I still have to discover those.
Good luck with getting to grips with it!
EDIT:
After posting, I decided to look for more tutorials. There is not very much around. Here are some in various languages:
I watched those videos too. But I think thee is an even easier way to get people going.
ngPlant is far more flexible than Arbaro, its even more powerful in some respects than the Carrara plant generator, which is really saying something. When I get home later I will draw up a quick tutorial to get people going. Fun fun.
@Rashad: Can't wait to see those tutorials. If they get people going very fast, that would be great! As far as I can see, indeed, ngplant is very versatile.
Wow all the entries since my last post are beautiful and inspiring.
My last entry done using David’s Wings 3D bowl and Peter Sharpe’s Breaking glass tutorials and the EWL from the Lens and Filter pack. The sailing ship is a freebie. Best of luck everyone. :)
@mermaid010: nice way to show a tree. I like the way the light through the bowl effects the shadow. Don't think the tree will grow very well in a glass bowl, though; where should the roots go?
@roland4: Nice entries. I really like the first one.
Here is another one from me. Consider this an entry, unless I find the time (when?) to improve on it before the deadline (that won't happen, I think).
The trees and bushes here are all made with Ngplant. I just wanted to test and show the versatility of the tool. I have a prickly cactuslike one at the left, two strangely bent ones at the right, two heavy leaved bushes in the back. And the two 'treepeople' are also made with Ngplant. Each treeperson is one Ngplant tree! I just like to test things and this worked nicely. I could (should?) have spent more time on perfecting the trees (e.g. more round top branches and no holes at the end).
There is a story to this render. Something like this.
"When I came to a field with some strange trees, I saw a number of weird creatures dancing with two trees that looked like people. Or where they people that looked like trees. Some of the creatures were flying round the 'treepeople'. I could only drop to my knees and look at that incredible sight. Wonder what more fantastic things I will see in these lands!"
My third entry... The Hangman's Tree
Every Old West town had one...
The tree is Lisa's Botanicals Creepy Trees II
Now that this is done I can just sit back and really check out and enjoy all the wonderful entries thus far in the challenge ...
Good luck to everyone
Steve
Nice - would you be willing to share how you made the lightning? It looks almost real.
Another great round of challenge images - glad I don't have to do the choosing!
Here's my second entry: "Willow Glen".
My attempt to create a better willow then the stock Arbaro willow. There are 5 variations here, none quite to my liking. I also had to "sanitized" the female swimmer for DAZ posting (LOL).
Staged and rendered in Bryce 7.1 Pro. Rendered with TA at 16 RPP (about 6 hours to render).
Credits:
Trees: Arbaro (poly reduction and normals smoothing done in Modo)
Fantasy Castle: DAZ3D
Genesis female: DAZ3D
Aspasia Hair: 3Dream/Mairy/DAZ3D
Water plants: Lisa Botanicals/DAZ3D
@Jstryder...
Glad you like the lightning bolt... I was pleased with it as well...
My inspiration for using the lightning was from reading the Bryce forum thread "Bryce Sparks"... In that thread Chohole had a link to her image "Skull Cove"... a really fantastic image with a very dramatic lightning bolt.. I asked how it was done and she pointed me in the direction of using PhotoShop brushes for making the lightning bolt... I down loaded some free lightning bolt photoshop brushes and so...
in PS I started a new blank image 500 x 500
Using a downloaded and installed lightning brush I sized to just fit within the 500 x 500 and clicked in the workspace using Black...
then invert the image to a black background, and save it as a PNG
In Bryce click the Leo icon (picture object)
load the PNG in the first box.. copy and paste it into the second box.. Then click the white dot at the top of the first box and the "White" lightning bolt is shown in the 3rd box.. click the check mark, and in the materials lab be sure that there is a dot in transparency... I think as a PNG it automatically does that..
load a spotlight and point it directly at the 2d object and size it to match the size of the (square) 2d face (picture object)... and in the light lab increase the amount of light to brightly illuminate the lightning bolt and in the light lab click the "include" dot and in the drop down click the 2d face.
Then just render and there you go lightning...
The first and second images should be switched...
In continuing...
Hope this is clear enough...
...and by the way JStryder... Very enjoyable image of the infamous Jackalope... We used to have them on our menu in the local mountain restaurant where I cooked... Very tasty!
Comments
Thank you very much Guss and Hansmar
@GussNemo and mtnmen. I recognise the feeling from my first tries. Then I followed two tutorials and everything became much more clear to me. There is still much more to learn, I assume, but you can see that a couple of hours gets nice results.
Here is a link to the tutorials. I could not do better than the original!
http://vimeo.com/62388036
http://vimeo.com/62931669
Another, more quick overview type one is here: http://yorik.uncreated.net/tutorials/treemaking.html. This one also has a very nice part on creating leave textures (leaves are 2D faces linked to the branches)
What is very important is to not forget the revolution angle. I didn't get anywhere before I understood that this enables the branches to spread around the stem.
I also noted you can make several layers at the same level. That is how I made the one big branch on which the girl is sitting. I tweaked that level (second variant of the second level after the stem) to contain only one branch.
I think there is an enormous set of options, but I still have to discover those.
Good luck with getting to grips with it!
EDIT:
After posting, I decided to look for more tutorials. There is not very much around. Here are some in various languages:
English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnwJ5DihhM
French: http://skias.free.fr/tutongplant/
Portuguese: http://cacema-modelagem.blogspot.nl/2009/11/modelagem-de-arvores-e-plantas-as-vezes.html
German: http://www.vuewelten.de/tutorial-yucca
That's about what I could find.
@hansmar ... Thanks for the tutorial links... and your tips... So...We'll check them out and give it a whirl around the block and see what comes out... Thanks
Steve
I watched those videos too. But I think thee is an even easier way to get people going.
ngPlant is far more flexible than Arbaro, its even more powerful in some respects than the Carrara plant generator, which is really saying something. When I get home later I will draw up a quick tutorial to get people going. Fun fun.
@Rashad: Can't wait to see those tutorials. If they get people going very fast, that would be great! As far as I can see, indeed, ngplant is very versatile.
@rashad..
Thanks for these tut links... There's lots of learning to do here... Looking forward to becoming educated...
Steve
@hansmar: Thank you very much for the links. I'll give the first two a go when I'm more inclined to concentrate.
@Rashad: Yeah, can't wait to see what you come up with. Your other ones have been great help.
Wow all the entries since my last post are beautiful and inspiring.
My last entry done using David’s Wings 3D bowl and Peter Sharpe’s Breaking glass tutorials and the EWL from the Lens and Filter pack. The sailing ship is a freebie. Best of luck everyone. :)
The Lonely Willow
Love the curvature of the land in this, Mermaid, and the light through the bowl looks super.
Jay
@mermaid010 - the Lonely Willow is lovely. Great idea and nicely done.
@mermaid: Really nice scene, and idea.
Hi friends
Here is a picture from from me.
Nice to see people are still entering. Some really nice images, as usual.
Each of my pictures is unique.
At the moment I do a lot with trees and clouds. Like this:
@Roland: I find those two interesting.
Thank you GussNemo.
@Roland4 - long not seen here. Interesting entries to the challenge.
Hallo Horo
I have many problems in recent years. It's nice to be back here.
@mermaid010: nice way to show a tree. I like the way the light through the bowl effects the shadow. Don't think the tree will grow very well in a glass bowl, though; where should the roots go?
@roland4: Nice entries. I really like the first one.
Here is another one from me. Consider this an entry, unless I find the time (when?) to improve on it before the deadline (that won't happen, I think).
The trees and bushes here are all made with Ngplant. I just wanted to test and show the versatility of the tool. I have a prickly cactuslike one at the left, two strangely bent ones at the right, two heavy leaved bushes in the back. And the two 'treepeople' are also made with Ngplant. Each treeperson is one Ngplant tree! I just like to test things and this worked nicely. I could (should?) have spent more time on perfecting the trees (e.g. more round top branches and no holes at the end).
There is a story to this render. Something like this.
"When I came to a field with some strange trees, I saw a number of weird creatures dancing with two trees that looked like people. Or where they people that looked like trees. Some of the creatures were flying round the 'treepeople'. I could only drop to my knees and look at that incredible sight. Wonder what more fantastic things I will see in these lands!"
This is called: dancing trees.
@hansmar: Neat image.
@hansmar - great idea here, I like it, the story as well.
i just wanted to say...brilliant renders posted by everyone who contributed :) .... and best of luck to all entries :)
Nice - would you be willing to share how you made the lightning? It looks almost real.
O give me a home, where the Jackalopes roam . . .
Another great round of challenge images - glad I don't have to do the choosing!
Here's my second entry: "Willow Glen".
My attempt to create a better willow then the stock Arbaro willow. There are 5 variations here, none quite to my liking. I also had to "sanitized" the female swimmer for DAZ posting (LOL).
Staged and rendered in Bryce 7.1 Pro. Rendered with TA at 16 RPP (about 6 hours to render).
Credits:
Trees: Arbaro (poly reduction and normals smoothing done in Modo)
Fantasy Castle: DAZ3D
Genesis female: DAZ3D
Aspasia Hair: 3Dream/Mairy/DAZ3D
Water plants: Lisa Botanicals/DAZ3D
Thanks for looking!
Willow Glen. That is a really nice render. Well thought out and put together.
@Jstryder...
Glad you like the lightning bolt... I was pleased with it as well...
My inspiration for using the lightning was from reading the Bryce forum thread "Bryce Sparks"... In that thread Chohole had a link to her image "Skull Cove"... a really fantastic image with a very dramatic lightning bolt.. I asked how it was done and she pointed me in the direction of using PhotoShop brushes for making the lightning bolt... I down loaded some free lightning bolt photoshop brushes and so...
in PS I started a new blank image 500 x 500
Using a downloaded and installed lightning brush I sized to just fit within the 500 x 500 and clicked in the workspace using Black...
then invert the image to a black background, and save it as a PNG
In Bryce click the Leo icon (picture object)
load the PNG in the first box.. copy and paste it into the second box.. Then click the white dot at the top of the first box and the "White" lightning bolt is shown in the 3rd box.. click the check mark, and in the materials lab be sure that there is a dot in transparency... I think as a PNG it automatically does that..
load a spotlight and point it directly at the 2d object and size it to match the size of the (square) 2d face (picture object)... and in the light lab increase the amount of light to brightly illuminate the lightning bolt and in the light lab click the "include" dot and in the drop down click the 2d face.
Then just render and there you go lightning...
The first and second images should be switched...
In continuing...
Hope this is clear enough...
...and by the way JStryder... Very enjoyable image of the infamous Jackalope... We used to have them on our menu in the local mountain restaurant where I cooked... Very tasty!
@JStryder - I like that render, really funny.
@Dan - that's a beautiful scene.