On the search for real quality vegetation - possibly in the Predatron sale?
kleinefotoman
Posts: 81
Hello everyone,
Looking in my item collection, one of the things it lacks most is vegetation. With Predatron's store in sale I wondered if his items could fill the vegetation gap and if they are really good. Because I guess people will tell the short answer, "it is good" or "no, it isn't" I might better ask: what is good vegetation;
what do you need to keep an eye on when working with vegetation;
how does it work with light, does it have subsurface shaders;
what level of detail is actually required in this time and age;
and is that level of detail good enough for closeup usage;
is there vegetation with movement morphs (simulation of wind).
I also hope that some of you have the experience with more than one vendors products and are able to compare them.
Many thanks in advance
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Comments
Huh, I always start with Andrey Pestryakov's sets. Lisa's Botanicals, now not here, are worth noting. Stonemason includes good plants in his sets. Merlin offers really neat trees. I liked Predatron's plants based on promos, but I don't have them, so I cannot help more.
What is important? I would say variety. Morphs, textures, so on.
XFrog makes high quality plants but they are not in poser/DAZ3D format. You can get them in obj format and import them. Some extra work my be required to adjust the textures. If you want to try them, they have a number of free samples available.
http://xfrog.com/category/samples.html
Charlie
About that variety. To be honest, that is something I am indeed worried about. The least you want is seeing the same tree over and over again in a render. With good placement you might not see it directly with small things like flowers and grass, but with trees it is hard to miss.
Do the items from those artists have morphs?
By the way, I almost purchased the enchanted forest from stonemason because it was in the V4/M4 sale a few days ago and I wanted to try it out, but I was just a little to late so I didn't purchase it.
I saw that they also have some products in the daz store, The promo's from those are not really nice. I did get the idea that those are not really 3D trees. But the site you are referring to does seem to have nice tree's
edit: corrected syntax
edit 2:
I see they actually sell the samplers here, not fair, free for other software and here you have to buy them?
Seems you have much higher expectations that most hobbyists here. I have a few from most vendors and in my experience most have basic textures with bump and some with specular maps. No morphs usually. The detail is usually fairly decent, but kept to a reasonable level since most scenes would require many plants in addition to the high end figures and sets and most here don't have state of the art systems.
Since you seem to be serious with your plant needs, Plant factory if probably what you need.
http://www.plantfactory-tech.com/
It is indeed what I might need, though it is out of my reach. I still am a hobbyist. I am considering some items on sale, which will bring me actually above my budget for this month, let alone an very expensive software package. ;-)
I guess I am really expecting too much. I had a related software package in my wishlist, vue. But that one was an old version and Cornucopia never placed a newer version in the daz store I think. A few weeks ago it was listed as 100% discount in my wishlist, so I clicked it to 'purchase' it directly - despite it being old - but it was actually already removed from the store. :lol:
Michael, Who's items have the most advanced shaders do you think? The Predatron promo's seem to tell that they have more than just a texture.
I saw that they also have some products in the daz store, The promo's from those are not really nice. I did get the idea that those are not really 3D trees. But the site you are referring to does seem to have nice tree's
edit: corrected syntax
edit 2:
I see they actually sell the samplers here, not fair, free for other software and here you have to buy them?
Most of the Xfrog products in the DAZ store are just 2D billboards and fairly old. The three 3D samplers they sell at DAZ are also fairly old and for Bryce. BUT the ones in the free samples on the Xfrog site as well as the ones for sale there (except the last section labeled 2D billboards) are true 3D models and quite nice. You can get them in obj format and import the obj models into DAZ Studio. Anyway, they are free so why not try them out and see for yourself?
Charlie
Can't really think of any that have more than diffuse, Bump and Specular Maps. predatron trees do have mostly geometry and no transmaps for the leaves in most cases, which is probably a higher level of detail similar to what you are looking for.
My most used and fav tree is this one
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/queen-palm-dr/96789/
If you truely want to do landscapes with many trees Carrara or Bryce may be your best buy.
Both generate trees with variety natively and C.5 can import/load rigged poseable DAZ figures natively too, some better than others admittedly.
Send to Bryce is also available in DAZ studio to render posed DAZ figure content in there as props
Well, I can't leave something free laying around, can I. I shall try the Xfrog freebie's.
It is sad to hear that the Predatron items don't have much maps. The items do seem to be quite detailed though, at least the bushes and the plants for as far as I can see. Some trees don't seem to have a nice geometry. By the way, about state of the art systems, well, I might not have a powerfull enough system. I have an i7 4770(non-k), use its igpu, have 32GB memory of which 1GB is assigned to the igpu. Doing real heavy stuff is not fluently possible. Scenes like valle alpina are not even workable without some tricks.
Thanks for warning me again Wendy. As you know I have indeed Carrara and some howie farkes scenes, but I also wanted to have some nice trees, bushes and plants in DS. I actually like DS a bit more although it is quite limited in some things. By the way, sorry for not telling earlier people.
I also do have Bryce, but I never really did much with it. Heck, I do not even know how to actually work with it. I first saw it years ago when I was searching for 3D software. Downloaded Bryce (might be version 4 I think, was for free) only looked at it, but was to different from other software like Autocad (which of course is something totally different). Daz Studio did not even exist yet. Oh well, might try it again.
are you kidding me
i5, 3,3GHz 16 GB RAM, geForce GTX 760 here, I think my rig pretty reasonable :lol:
Vale Alpina is unworkable except in wireframe on mine too is a very intense scene
Except for lacking a discrete GPU that's a good system.
Well, I was ordered to build a energy-saving computer. So that translated into an igpu processor. Since I couldn't find an extremely low energy nvidia performance graphics card, I just never bought it. but I did use some money for efficient parts like the supply (corsair AX760 Platinum ).
There should be some program around to turn of an nvidia dedicated graphics card when not needed but I never found out where/how to get that program (another reason for skipping a dedicated graphics for now).
And also lacking some SSD's which would really help with fast acces to all those small files in the library. But I found it to early to use those (not enough space on them, and still the price too high).
A few opinions to toss in
XFrog- XFrog trees are amazing no doubt. But mostly all of them, even the fully 3d models, still rely on transparency mapping to cut out the shapes of the leaves. While this greatly reduces polygons compared to fully modeled leaves, it also leads to deadly long render times, especially in complex scenes where there are lots of duplications causing the light and shadows rays to travel through multiple layers of transparency on the way to the camera's eye. Slow slow slow rendering. Still. the models themselves are created in some cases by botanical experts.
Predatron- These trees and plants are fantastic. They always look good to me. The only problem is that I personally will never spend that amount of cash for a single tree model. Dropping $30 for a pack of varying species of temperate trees makes sense, but for a single tree, just too limited.
The Plant Factory- Now if you really want the best trees on the market, you definitely want to look at the Plant Factory for Vue. Nothing else can hold a candle to it. But it is expensive, works only with Vue, and the models you create with it cannot be sold arbitrarily as vegetation packs. Which makes sense, because if someone made an aspen model that looked really good and sold it as a stand alone obj based vegetation package end users would have no reason to invest in the Plant Factory itself. These plants will be good for your personal projects only, you cannot really use them to generate any income nor can you share them with others except by special circumstances which eon controls on their websites.
Generally speaking, vegetation is a wide field, so flexibility is what you are looking for. That's why it is sometimes a very good idea to learn how to model plants yourself. Buying plants can be very expensive, so build it yourself and save money.
Carrara- Carrara has easily one of the most powerful plant generators I've ever seen. It was my absolute favorite until recently when I learned about my new favorite plant modeler which I will go into a bit more. Like with anything, to get really fantastic results you need to move far beyond the presets. Still as good as it is, Carrara is not the best option right now.
ngPlant- ngPlant is where you should be looking for a true tree solution. This is a free application that produces results on par with XFrog but at no cost. Does it require some learning...yes, but the program is remarkably simple. It will make you wonder why everyone isn't using this application.
Below I have included a link to a thread where some of my recent trails with plants produced in ngPlant and Carrara rendered in Octane. While the realism of the renders benefits greatly from the unbiased lighting, the quality of the models still shows through. Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert, but I did some research online and starting building what I felt I was seeing.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50021/P45/#734805
ngPlant is by FAR the BEST free solution I've encountered. Love it love it love it.
Best of luck.
Those renders are amazing, Rashad. In that second one, if you look close, maybe you'll spot me in there in the shadow dark looking up. At least I wish I was there which doesn't happen often with a render.
I take it ngPlant is for Carrara? I picked up Carrara at a ridiculous price a couple months ago but don't have the space to install yet. I want to do scenery.
ngPlant is FOSS and you can find it here.
@Rashad: spectacular renders, Vue quality.
I bought the Plant factory but haven't had time to play yet - however, as far as I can tell you can export to OBJ from at least some versions (though of course that loses any editability).
@ Rashad
Thank you for your telling me your findings Rashad.
Xfrog: good to know about the dangers of relying on Xfrog vegetation. Best not to use too much then.
Predatron: The prize is exactly the reason I am still not sure about buying, even with the 60% at 3 items. And the ones I am considering are the bundles which are already a little bit cheaper.
The Plant Factory: As I will never earn the investment back (as with everything I have), I can not justify such an expensive purchase. I am not selling 3D stuff, but I might do that one day so not having the right to sell might become a problem. The free exporter they have may be handy for the items they have in the TPF Nursery but those items are expensive themselves and the free ones are not noteworthy. It's a shame, I do like the quality.
Carrara: well, I never used the feature, but I will try some time.
ngPlant: I actually saw your renders in that thread before you posted here. But the night here was already almost over and I was really tired, so I got to bed. You really do some awesome things with that software, really nice trees you made. I will definitely try that one. Do I understand correctly though that the leaves are - as Xfrog's - also with transparency, thus slowing down? Also does a plant generator generally work better on a certain growing group of plants?
@ Spit
What is a ridiculous price? I saw an old daz email where it was $9 :lol:
(though that was for Carrrara 5)
I made these all in Carrara
Can you change transparency maps into meshes or something?
no but you can swap them with others for different leaves to make new trees
So you used the meshes from something else? Nice to know the leaves do actually have meshes.
no I meant the Xfrog ones
I modeled my leaves and flowers in vertex room and use carrara plant room
Aha, well it is a good idea.
kleinefotoman,
Thanks for looking. The trees you see in those renders are full mesh leaves, no billboards, which was the point I was hoping to make. ngPlant gives you the option to use alpha mapped leaves painted onto 2d squares, or to import your own as a g-mesh. The import feature is slightly unusual as it is sensitive and often models need to be tweaked in notepad to remove any unusual lines of code. But otherwise, it is very reliable.
And X-Frog trees are really awesome trees, so do use them as often as you can keeping in mind that they might get slow from time to time. The only reason I mention about the alpha mapping is that an adult looking tree from most species using mesh leaves will be a very big file costing tons of memory. Who wants a 2gb tree? Plants without a billion leaves however might be modeled with meshes so give them a try on a case by case basis.
Wendy,
Those are very nice, in particular the green one on the right. Very nice work! Yes, Carrara really kicks butt as a plant generator.
Spit
You make me smile!
Latego
That is a very grand compliment, thanks a ton!!!
Rashad,
Thanks for those tips you give. How much memory do you have then, that you render those scenes with mesh leaves.
Also, do you have a collection of references and tutorials on obtaining such awesome trees?
As Latego said, it really looks like a vue render. Your images are actually the best I can find on the web for ngplant.
I guess it took you long to get at this point.
Is it possible to edit the tree mesh after after exporting? So that you can give some advanced details on the trees like broken branches and things like morphs?
It was a flash sale here at DAZ. Only lasted a few hours one day. I don't remember exactly what I paid but if I remember right it was like 85% off the retail price.
Flink at Rendo has some nice plants of good quality, here's his Dandelion (DS render) and a close-up of Wildflower 1 (Poser render). Dandelion ground is from Esha's Grassy Grounds Megapack here at DAZ.
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