Does anyone know any good free or cheap (below $30) 3d tree modelers? I have spent ages looking for one but I can't find any decent ones. True, I did find one which only drew the vertexes but not the faces, and also about 5 which didn't work. If anyone knows any PLEASE tell me. [edited by - Radioactivebloke on May 10, 2004 8:23:57 AM]

There is a LSystem-based Python scripted .blend file for Blender here that is pretty neat. It offers a lot of different options to tweak, and algorithmically generates the tree. You can select branching patterns, leaf patterns, leaf shapes, etc....

I did have to make one small change to make it work with Blender 2.32: in the module lsystem.py, line 61 there is a line that reads C=NMesh.Const that I had to comment out, as Const is no longer a member of the Blender.NMesh module, and that line doesn''t really do anything anyway. It has the look of the creator''s personal debugging code.

---

World of Golem

i have the same experience as you. there is simply no really good freeware around ... and the professional packages are a bit expensive ... also python was never my case .

i achieved best results without the freeware treemakers out there.

well, in fact you just need a 3d software which is able to glue objects and allows point edit to shape the branches .like blender or the free ts 3 version from caligari.

simply build small branches. very small ones. three or four different. with a handful of leafs at it.
then tweak them a bit around, rotate it ,etc. glue them together to bigger branches, then connect it to other big branches.
in this way i build up a very big branch that i connect to the tree trunk. three or four different shaped and rotated big branches should give the tree the right irregularity ...

nearly as fast as using a software for this job . remember all the registers where you don´t know what does what

the price may be a big ammount of polygons , but the freeware softwares don´t makes this much difference at this point ...

one more fast way: create your tree without leafs, and use a particle system to create the leafs then .

or attach a bunch of leafs at the right places ... this bunch is easy be done by starting with one leaf, copy it , rotate it, glue the two leafs ,copy it rotate it , copy the four leafs ... ...eight ..., ...sixteen ... ... onemillionsomewhatafterafewsteps ...

tilesets games sprites
http://www.reinerstileset.de

Blender is probably your best bet. It has a very strong programming community. Try the forums at www.blender.org and www.elysiun.com.


[edited by - Matei on May 6, 2004 3:37:28 PM]

Gilles Trans offers his tree making macros here.

http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources01.htm

Gilles has several of his works winning first prize at Internet Ray Tracing Competiton (www.irtc.org).

www.aliencodec.com

Treemagik all the way!!!!!!

free - http://www.treemaker.nl/

I''ll back anonymous poster (that you sabata? No need to hide advertising your product ) here: Tree Magick is a GREAT little app. Check it out, well worth the price.

www.aliencodec.com

And depending on what 3D program you''re using for other stuff, there''s a gameSpace/trueSpace plugin called TreeDo that may meet your needs. Just do a search for it.

-Nick "digisoap" Robalik
Web & Print Design, 2D & 3D Illustration and Animation, Game Design
http://www.digital-soapbox.com
nick@digital-soabox.com

Hmm, that tree engine, from www.aliencodec.com seems sweet, but it works only with Blitz basic? Or am I wrong? I''d gladly pay the price if it would work in C (and let me render the trees themselves).

Yes, TreeMagick is very nice. I was sold on it after playing with the demo. My only two real complaints is that the "demonstration mode" seems to try to use pixel shaders or some other DX9 feature, even if your card doesn''t support them (so its emulated and becomes VERY slow). And the Lightwave exporter is borked. (It doesn''t export all of the clusters properly. But currently I export to .X and use another program to convert to .LWO and that works fine.)

---
- 2D/Pixel Artist - 3D Artist - Game Programmer - Ulfr Fenris
[[ Gaping Wolf Software ]] [[ GameGenesis Forums ]]