Trees and ground textures

Not sure if this is the correct thread for this - Is there a tutorial or something that covers trees and undergrowth - I want to put some Australian trees on my property and need to know how to do it - can any one assist? All these birches and European evergeen are nice but I feel a bit homesick without a stringy bark or a Wattle

Tarak

Quick guide to making a prim tree:

1: Make a texture that shows a side-view of the tree. Try to center the trunk on the texture. Anywhere that isn't part of the tree, make a 100% alpha area. Save as 32-bit TGA, and import into SL.

2: Make a flat prim, the height and width needed for the tree, and as thin as you can make it. Texture the whole thing with a 100% alpha texture, so the edges won't show, then select the flat faces and apply your tree texture. Flip the texture horizontally on one of these faces.

3: Duplicate this plane to make two more copies, and rotate the copies to +60 and -60 degrees from the original orientation, on the Z-axis. Overlap them so the trunks interesct.

4: Link the three planes, name your tree, and save it.

Like Ceera said...

I wonder if they have to be boxes. Couldn't you use a cylinder, sphere, or other shape to get something interesting, and maybe less transparent area. If you have ever used a slow machine, you know how annoying it is to have to wait for giant gray trees to finally rez into little bushes

Also, it would be easy to make the first prim generate the other two as temporary, thus saving a couple of prims per tree. For that matter, on little rock can throw out a half dozen temporary trees, which dramatically reduces their impact on your prim count.

Here is a nice technique that I have seen and imitated. Add a green tint (or perhaps yellow or brown, depending on the plant) to one side of each prim, leaving the other side as the original texture. As you walk or pan around the plant you will get different shades of color. this ads interest and realism.

You could use any prim shape - like sections of hollowed cylander, perhaps. But the "three intersecing planes" method works best for most plant uses, and is viewable from pretty much any direction except straight down from above.

Temp-on-rez prims are screwed up right now, and count against parcel prim counts, so attempting to use them to reduce a prim tree from 3 to 1 prim will not save prim count, and will increase sim lag becaise of script load.

You might model something like a fern with a bunch of cut pieces of cylinder and sphere. Could look quite pretty, if done well.

I have a set of prim wings that are done on cylander sections. Much nicer than flat planes.

Hey that is all great feedback - thanks people

Tarak

I thought they'd fixed this? At least, it's not breaking as much for me now as it was before they said they'd addressed the issue. But the lag is something to think about. Unless you're looking to have an enormous forest, I'd go with just using two prims per tree instead of one and a temp on rez script. Of all the things you can save prims on, it hardly seems worth it with trees. Temporary objects tend to 'die' for a period, even if they're set to re-rez on time, so they do tend to come and go which, whilst acceptible some places, might be a bit annoying in landscaping.

I've seen interesting 2 prim pine trees with a multiple revolution torus and a tree trunk.

I've also seen 3 or more prim trees with twisted torus crowns. I prefer not having sheets of stuff mostly invisible or not between me and other things.

I have not tried, but though about using slices of cylindars, to more closely follow the outlines of where the bush or crown of tree actually is.

Temp rez is working for me. Right now, "Oo! Pretty!" is enough for me and I don't need more than a minute of it.

If a prim rezes in a forest and there's no one there to see it, does the server still lag?

ROFLMAO at Renee! That would be an AWESOME tagline!

I have played with flexi-ferns made from hollowed and cut cylinders. It took a while to figure out the flexi controls and what they did, but I think they look pretty neat, gently swaying in the wind.

The most difficult part was getting them where they didn't flop all in one direction, and it was a great learning experience. One of these days I'll go back and do a better job with the texture and sell them (kinda yucky with the white lines, which I know how to fix now).

This is a great thread filled with a lot of good info.