ZPiDER

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE: 0.2 ok that was quick. i think that should do it. runs on 11.0, SHOULD run on 10.5 and earlier, havent tested it though (please try)! TreeeZ_0.2.hxt

no download yet, because i'm not yet sure how and if i can make it compatible to 10.5 and earlier. currently only runs on 11.0 ..

new feature: REGULARITY CONTROL as seen in the example for locality control, small offshoot branches typically have a large influence on the shape of the main branch. to reduce this influence, use the regularity control. at 100% the plugin will weigh the branch influence. meaning that if you have - a main branch with 9 child generations and - an offshoot (no child generation) the main branch will have 10 times more influence on its own direction than the offshoot (the example image shows this more clearly). at 0% both branches have the same influence on direction, regardless of their child generations. (note that i avoid saying "thick" and "thin" branches in the above 2 paragraphs, because thickness can be controlled with a curve) so if you have a tree thats balanced (low locality and regular target mesh) (roughly the same number of child generations for main branch and offshoot), this control wont have much influence on the resulting tree. again in other words: use this control in combination with a high locality use it like all other controls.

new feature: LOCALITY CONTROL TreeeZ will normally try to create weighted trees. that means it will identify clustered target points and use them to grow the tree. for certain trees however you might want to make the offshoots a lot thinner than the main branch and give it a more local target. you can control this with the locality. as with the other features you need a property called "locality" and animate it over 1 second in the action.

instead of creating a pose (and the relationship that comes with it) you can also just add a property to the model. this will do everything we need.

new feature: BRANCH LENGTH CONTROL have a pose for your model called "branch length control". (i forgot to mention this for the thickness control, but the pose shouldnt contain any modification of the model. its just there so we get the slider) in the action animate it over the time of ine second. the example shows short branches at the base, long ones in the middle and short ones at the tips. when tweaking this, keep in mind that the tips will ALWAYS end in a target cp! this means having very short branch length all over the tree will result in very long straight tips (level0).

people, you got some really neat pics there! keep them coming! i'll keep the features coming: new feature: THICKNESS CONTROL have a pose for your tree model called "thickness" in the action animate it over the time of one second (example is 25 fps => 25 frames). ideally it should start at 100% and end at 0%, but you can also create thicker tips by letting it end higher. this gives you some basic control about the "sleekness" of the tree.

yes, it creates standard a:m meshes. your crash animation is the first thing that would (rig-wise) call for more than a distortion box .. hmm .. i'll think about automatically adding a bone and assign the tree cps to it in a weighted fashion .. also could be useful for wind animation.

wow! that sure is a strange piece. i think you'll like the new features i've programmed yesterday! you should post the images as jpg to make then visible in-page and make them smaller downloads.

Please scan some leaf images and post! Today i thought it would be nice to have some leaf images to choose from. i'd like to scan some and create alpha maps for it, but where i am (austria) its still winter and we dont have any leaves. then i thought, you people are all over the world, someone got to have spring! i'd really appreciate if some people could pick up some leaves, scan them and post here. we could then create some ready-to-use material files to drop on the trees. as guideline: pick the most "normal" leaves you find of the tree. very irregular shapes or coloring will result in unnatural trees. please do only post images, that you have the exclusive rights to - ideally could you transfer the rights to the hash community? i'll start with the only one i have .. http://www.kci-group.com/z/treeez/leaf2.zip below is just a small preview, the link above is a tga file with an alpha channel.

nope .. its our own server. hmm .. you still get the access denied? i've just tried and it worked fine.

levels: i thought, having all levels would be cool, but i've noticed that i have hardly used more than level1 and level2. you could e.g. add sparse red leaves to level0 and dense green ones to level1 for a neat effect. my original intention was to use them for coloring the tree along its length, but it looks too clipped. thats why i'm working on automatically creating decal stamps to enable you to texture the tree along its length, or use this map for hair density, etc. thickness spline: its currently not doing anything, but this will be the way how i'll give you control over the tree thickness. currently the thickness diminishes in a linear fashion along the tree, with this channel you'll be able to control this. i also plan to ass a "randomness" spline like this and a "length" spline, possibly also a "roll" - spline. suggestions or comments about what would be nice can be posted here. you also asked about better branch joining: i was originally planning to do this, but this would 1. not allow for custom "base" shapes 2. make the plugin much harder to code 3. make the tree generator less flexible (each branching would have to have a minimum angle to not mess up the connector cps)

heheeee neat! keep em coming! and note that i've said "coool pics". this means, the pic should be cool, not necessarily the tree. so feel free to add your fav character(s) to the images you create, or just add an eZTree to a scene you're working on

neat! i'd like to see it lit, but i know, 11.0 beta has some issues with hair (though i've only managed to break it with spriticles and hair combined).

1. its a clustering algorithm (i've had uni classes on data mining, but to my shame i couldnt remember any clustering algorithm, so i had to re-invent it) how it basically works: at each intersection the plugin tries its best to separate the cps relevant for the branch into 2 sets. then it sends a child branch one step towards each set. 2. you can hide it, or just copy the tree geometry into a new Model.

thanks! though currently all structures will look pretty much the same. soon though one will be able to animate the target surfaces (with bones or muscle mode) and e.g. let the tree start growing flat outwards, then up in a cone and to a tip. or in a spiral around something. or twisting, etc. i hope this will work

1 and 3: not necessarily. you dont need to use the hair material. after all you've already drawn the target-surface which, whith a nice texture will serve well as leaves. 2: re-read the above posts! this group is already there and its called "level0" - the group needs to exist already BEFORE invoking TreeeZ [WHY: because its currently not possible with the a:m sdk to create a new group] - the group must also contain at least one cp (in the sample project file it is one of the base-groups cps - doesnt matter really which one) [WHY: because its currently not possible with the a:m sdk to create the first cp in a group]

2 examples with more regular targets: the left just uses a grid as target, the right uses 2 "C" splines

1. color comes from Model1>Surface>Diffuse Color 2. just play with the hair material! its actually really easy. to tweak, make sure to * have the model view open * have the material assigned to a group (or more) * tweak the values in the material * to update the view, click into it and hit the spacebar my settings for the last screenshot (v11.0 hair)

1. open the Model1 in the project 2. draw your target surfaces (you can delete the ones that are already in there) 4. edit the "base" group (be careful that all of your base cps are in the group!) 5. go back to the action window, rightclick>plugins>wizards>TreeeZ

the plugin does NOT generate the materials. it only creates the inner structure and groups it, so you can easily texture it based on that. the hair system in my first image was just dropped on the level0 group and tweaked for 3 minutes.

if you use the supplied .prj file you wont need to create this group. the plugin will will the existing groups for you (this screenshot is taken in 11.0: hair images are awesome ):

on my machine the unzipped file goes to C:\Programme\Hash Inc\V10.5\hxt. likely on your computer the folders wont read german ("program files" ?). also download the project file, then just rightclick in the sction window and do as the BEFORE-image above shows.

sure can! but i've created the example in 10.5 and realized too late that it doesnt have leaf images. the plugin SHOULD work fine in 11.0 though.

and this AFTER TreeeZ: