Tree growth animation WIP

[williamgaylord]

Here is the latest installment of my tree growth animation project. I haven't been able to put much time into it in the last couple of months, being too busy with my "real" job. Once I get the whole thing built, textured, and animated, I want to put it in the context of a vacant lot in the middle of a city-scape. Any recommendations or how-tos for that sort of thing would be greatly appreciated.

 

Below is a simple still image render. Check out the latest animation at my "laboratory" .

 

[JavierP]

Hi Bill,

Very nice work. I don't really have any crits for you, except to suggest that you should stagger the growth of the leaves the same way you did with the branches. Right now all the leaves grow in at almost the same time and at the same rate. I think that would really make the motion "pop" if you added that kind of secondary motion.

 

Javier

[williamgaylord]

I agree with you about the timing. As complicated as the model is, its reasonably easy to tweak it later. Each major branch is a separate "character" in the assembly and can be adjusted independently. Later I might be able to add some secondary motion to each branch, like leaf flutter and bending for wind like effects. For now I'm focused on how to animate the growth, which is quite a challenge all by itself. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

Bill Gaylord

[zacktaich]

you've got to share at least some of how you do this

[Iham Wrong]

Hi William,

Is the vacant lot located in a more urban tennant slum type setting?

 

Travis Price has a large collection of urban textural treatments that might interest you.

http://digitalcraftsman.com/textureBin/textureBin.htm

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Here's another interesting texture link done by Jason Waskey.

http://www.pixelpoke.com/ornament thumbnails.htm

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http://www.marlinstudios.com/home/home.htm

Is a premire supplier of commercial textures, that is if you have the funds available, though they do have some nice free samples.

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http://www.1000skies.com

Offers some of the best sky textures you can find.

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If you use either Corel's Painter or JASC Paint Shop Pro and dream of jungles, woodlands or rural open settings. you might find this interesting.

http://www.gardenhose.com/

[williamgaylord]

Zachary,

I do plan to put a tutorial together on how to do this. I basically define the ultimate shape of the tree with spline paths. One defines the trunk. Others are "path" constrained to the trunk. Still others are contstrained to these branches and so on. Each branch is basically a tube with a bone assigned to each spline ring. The bones are constrained to a spline path. To make the branch "grow" I adjust the ease for length and scale the bones for thickness. Leaf clusters are done as self-contained groups, each with its own bone for scaling and constraint to a path. To make the work manageable and a lot easier to animate, I used these basic components to make three basic "characters": a trunk, a long branch, and a short branches. I then replicate the branch models a few times and change the shape of the spline paths and the angle of the leaf groups to create a "cast" of different characters I can assemble into a complete tree. I create a full growing action for each character so that I only need one or two slide posers to animate each branch. Each branch must also be made transparent at the very beginning of the growth action so it remains hidden until its time to "sprout". As efficient as this approach is, it is still a lot of work though. Trees have very simple anatomical structure, but a whole lot of it!

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Frank,

Thanks for the references! These look very interesting. I plan to put this tree in an urban context, either a slum or a very stark, cold, sterile one (the latter might be easier to construct). This tree or its offspring will be the "star" of the show with other plants like grass (made with AM's wonderful hair). The "theme" is how trees and other plants can transform urban settings.

Thanks!

Bill Gaylord

[Mike Lium]

Very cool William it really looks like time-laps photography.

[modernhorse]

excellent work !!!

 

Doug

[Zaryin]

This is looking real good. Besides other peoples comments, there is nothing else to say.

[williamgaylord]

Here's today's contribution to the project. It's a model of an old brownstone rowhouse. I'll use this to create a very wide shot of a whole row of these as a backdrop for the trees that will grow along the street. The shot will be an extreme telephoto--very wide, like an extreme letterbox format--with the trees growing up along the street. Later I plan to animate a boy and girl planting the trees, with the trees growing up as they progress down the street.

 

Still have a few details to add, like doors and texturing. I love Animation Master! Such a joy to use!

 

Anybody know off-hand how to set the transparency of an individual patch independently from its surroundings? I need to make the patches behind the windows transparent.

 

Thanks!

Bill Gaylord

[johnl3d]

make the window patches a group and give it any attribute you want..

[KingSalami]

Love the tree animation and the building looks great also

[williamgaylord]

Here's an update on the rowhouse. Just need to add a fence and gate at ground level and pictures to simulate blinds/curtains behind the windows and then I can replicate a whole street's worth of rowhouses. Any suggestions for texturing, etc., will be much appreciated.

 

Thanks!

Bill Gaylord

 

[williamgaylord]

Continued progress...Here is a test view of a row of the rowhouses. Need to add a few more details, like the fences at street level. Haven't decided whether or not I'll vary the color of each house or keep them identical (except for variation in the curtains perhaps). Any suggestions on how to make them look more natural in terms of texture and lighting will be much appreciated. Bear in mind that the shot will be a very wide one, so I prefer not to get too carried away on texturing. I mainly want the lighting to look natural.

 

Should be able to complete the house model tomorrow, so I can get back to the trees themselves.

 

Thanks!

Bill Gaylord

 

[johnl3d]

looking very nice..as if thats a surprise..lots of hard work looking forward to the treeing of the street

 

 

[Joe_Lunjen]

very nice looking, that is all I have to say

[Rodney]

WOW! Looking good!

Making very good progress.

The last two pictures look a bit dark but maybe that's just the computer I'm on...

[williamgaylord]

New animation test posted with both tree and rowhouse ( Bill's Experiments). Tree has bark texture added (Symbiont material). Have a multipass render cooking. Will post that later.

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Just posted the multipass render. It takes longer, but man I love the results! Added bark texture to the tree and adjusted the lighting. The tree is only partially constructed--just enough for a test. The final tree will be much fuller.

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Here is an update. I'm now assembling in earnest. Building the trees along the street. This is about 40 minutes work, though I expect I'll be able to assemble each tree in about an hour a piece by the time I get to the other end of the street. In hindsight I would have put more leaves on each branch, but it was hard to judge early on in the development.

 

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to render 9 trees and 9 brownstone appartments. I put a lot of detail into the appartment model. This is not an excercise in work flow efficiency. It is certainly "breaking new ground" (pun very much intended ).

 

Although it looks complicated, the tree model is actually rather surprisingly simple in terms of its basic elements. Its just that there are so many of them. It should be fairly straightforward to automate. (Hint, hint, Marcel...or anyone else who might be interested.)

 

 

Wish me luck! And any suggestions are very welcome.

 

Sincerely,

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Purchased SkyCast recently. Here is a test render using my brownstone apartment model. I'm realy pleased with the results. Look forward to seeing the trees in this light!

 

 

Thanks to all who've helped so far!

 

Bill Gaylord

[modernhorse]

Deeeelicious. Looks swell with the new lighting too.

The only minor thing that doesn't work for me is the blue railing. I said minor didn't I?

 

Doug

[williamgaylord]

Hit a snag with patch count and limited computer resources. Experimented a bit with V11.0 and hair, but it's not quite ready for what I'm after. I have reworked a branch of my model to reduce patch count and increase leaf coverage at the same time.

 

Here is an old branch with 2772 patches and 168 leaves:

 

 

Here is the new branch with 1104 patches and 240 leaves:

 

 

I basically reduced the patch count by replacing the leaf cluster stems with rendered lines. I further reduced the count by reducing the lathe cross section of the branch forms to 4. Thats a 60% reduction in patch count with a %43 increase in the number of leaves. I think I will make the trees smaller with fewer branches, too.

 

My workhorse computer became terminally ill recently. Took this as an excuse to build a new one: AMD Athlon64 3400 with 1G of RAM and 240G of hard disk space. Maybe that will help some, too.

 

Wish me luck getting the project done!

 

Bill Gaylord

[Dalemation]

You`ve been busy and experimenting hard!

The new branch and leaves looks great and an improvement on your earlier heavier patch count version. The Brownstone Apartment is very impressive too.

 

I like it all.

[mtpeak2]

The one with less patch count to me looks alot better. The tree is looking awesome. The step to me looks like they need to be a different color, sidewalk color maybe. Just the step not the riser. The sky lighting looks great. Keep it up and you'll have a masterpiece.

[williamgaylord]

Here is a new sample of things to come. This is a rendering with one of the new branches and a brownstone apartment in the background. The lighting was done using ArtBox Animation's SkyCast. I must say I am very pleased with the results. The stems of the leaves are now just splines rendered as lines. Saved a load of patches to render!

 

 

Let me know what you think of it. I may render an animation of the branch growing in this light. Stay tuned!

 

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

That looks great Bill. Can't wait to the animation. Is that patch leaves or hair?

[williamgaylord]

Each leaf has 4 patches. That's just enough to give it a simple, but natural shape, including a slight cupping. The stems are now just splines rendered as lines.

 

This project definitely involves a large amount of overkill, but it has a lot of potential for spin-offs.

 

By the time I finish this, character animation will seem like a breeze!

 

A movie of the branch growing in the SkyCast light is only about an hour away. Stay tuned!

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

Here's the movie! To save on rendering time I cut the duration in half compared to what I would have prefered and set the frame rate at 15 frames per second. I noticed that the longitudinal splines of the branches did not render quite right--they should be smoothly curved. (This is an occasional glitch I've noticed now and then--usually goes away when I restart AM. Just didn't have the time to start over.) Overall, I am very pleased with the results!

 

Lighting Test

 

Much thanks to the folks at ArtBox for the wonderful SkyCast! Bravo!!!

 

Any comments, suggestions, etc., are very welcome. Bear in mind that this is a "quick" test, with much tweaking.

 

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

I think it would look better if the leaves started to grow while the branch is about half way grown and continued to grow after the full growth of the branch. Just a thought.

[williamgaylord]

It might make the animation look a little better, but it would be a good bit more complicated, or a lot less accurate. (I'm doing this for some tree experts.) Aside from the fact that the actual growth would be seasonal, this model simulates the way a tree actually grows. A tree grows at the tips of branches and at buds. The shape of the previous growth stays the same except for thickening as new layers (what makes the rings of the cross-section) are added each season. The locations of newly sprouted branches and leaves stay fixed rather than migrating along as the branch lengthens. So my model (being a magical tree that "catches up" to the current growth season, doesn't sprout any leaves until the branches reach the end point of "last season's" growth. Then it sprouts the new leaves and branch tips. If the leaves started growing at the half-way point, they would have to travel as the branch lengthens, which is more like scaling a branch than the way a branch actually grows.

 

My model isn't entirely accurate in the way the branch growth happens. I don't grow it from the end, as you can see by following the bark texture. A real branch would only grow at the tips, with the bark texture behind the growth staying in the same position and only becoming thicker and more coarse. To make the model manageable, I stretch tube forms along a spline path to simulate growth from the ends, but a close inspection of bark texture gives the "trick" away....

 

Actually, describing it to you has made be think of a refinement to the model that might actually work very well. Instead of keeping the spline ring bones evenly spaced as the tube stretches along the spline, I could keep the rings near the growing end "collapsed" together and only expand one segment at a time--like "telescoping". Then the stretching would only be visible near the growing end and the texture along the rest of the branch would stay put like it should! Cool!....and @#$%, I'll need to modify the branch growth actions again! Might be worth it though.

 

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I could probably stagger the sprouting of leaves a bit so they don't look quite so much like they are growing in unison.

 

How do you like the SkyCast lighting?

 

Thanks!

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

The lighting looks good to me, but I'm no expert. Your telescopic idea sounds like it would work pretty well, but you would still have to scale all the rings, even though you are not stretching the segments. As the tree gets taller the trunk gets fatter. It's starting to sound more complicated to rig and to setup sliders. I wouldn't have noticed the bark if you didn't say anything. All in all it's looking great. Keep it up.

[tobinjim]

Bill,

 

What fun to be a voyuer on your project! Thanks for keeping us posted all along.

 

The SkyCast lighting to my eye is too flat. Could you add a spot light to give some better contrast, and let the SkyCast rig provide overall general lighting?

 

The way the leaves scale up is too obvious to those of us following along... I'd ask my wife to look at it and see if it bothers her the way it bothers me (she not having read the whole thread), but she's out right now. To be sure, actually controlling angle and size would be much more challenging than scaling a bone, but that's still what's bugging me about the animation.

 

Oh, a lighting question, too: Is the time-lapse meant to be real? In other words, if time is passing while those leaves and branches grow, I'd expect to see lighting changes (sun movement across the sky, cloud shadows zipping by, etc.) to enhance the realism and the sense of time passing.

 

Jim

[Sacman]

I may have missed something, but you said you hit a problem with patch count and reduced the patch count of the tree by approx 1000. However, did you not say you were going to have 9 trees? If so you are going to hit the same problem on tree number two and then be stuck.

 

For informational purposes, how many patches are in the Brownstone. This would help to answer the age old patch count question.

 

As an aside, I am currently working on a building that I need for closeups and I made the walls one extrusion thick. This resulted in an insane number of uneeded internal patches. I may have been able to counter this prior to the initial build but by the time I noticed it, it was too late. So, I went back and added extra control points on the internal 'ladder' structure that were the walls and eliminated about 90% of the internal patches. Some I could not get rid of easily and I am sure I missed some that I could have hence the 90% instead of 100%. This reduced the patch count dramatically.

 

For distance shots, I intend to copy the building and remove most of the interior since the detail will not be needed. This will more than half the total patch count.

 

Another consideration I have had since I began is that most of my close shots will only involve the front of the building. Once I have completed the entire Inn for its own sake, I am going to remove most of the back half of it and anything else I can get rid of for the purposes of the scene. It is a different mode that I need to be in. I am in the build cool model mode and need to be in the direct cool scene mode.

 

But, I digress, my point is, have you checked for any internal patches in the buildings, assuming you also extruded the walls? This may be a way for you to get your patch count down.

 

I love the scene by the way,

 

Wade

[williamgaylord]

Thanks, folks, for the suggestions and encouragement!

 

The SkyCast lighting to my eye is too flat. Could you add a spot light to give some better contrast, and let the SkyCast rig provide overall general lighting?

I agree. It's more like an overcast day.  I do have a key light I can turn up to fix this.  (This was a quick test without much tweaking.) I also need to make sure the leave's reflect specular light better, perhaps.

 

The way the leaves scale up is too obvious to those of us following along... I'd ask my wife to look at it and see if it bothers her the way it bothers me (she not having read the whole thread), but she's out right now. To be sure, actually controlling angle and size would be much more challenging than scaling a bone, but that's still what's bugging me about the animation.

 

There are just too many leaves on a tree to do much more than scaling, but I certainly could stager the timing so they don't look like they are growing in unison. The angle is more of a challenge. I leave "store roll" on so the leaf clusters stay facing upward without me having to adjust ever one of them when I rotate the whole branch. It's definitely a compromise.

 

Your telescopic idea sounds like it would work pretty well, but you would still have to scale all the rings, even though you are not stretching the segments. As the tree gets taller the trunk gets fatter. It's starting to sound more complicated to rig and to setup sliders. I wouldn't have noticed the bark if you didn't say anything. All in all it's looking great. Keep it up.

Actually my rigging is that complicated.  But the final animation controls are quite simple.  Every spline ring has a separate control slide to scale it.  I adjust the scale of each ring and the "ease" of each ring along the guide spline in an action so I have as much control as possible as I animate the growth of each basic "sub-branch".  This boils the controls down to a single slider to control the "growth".  The key is building a hierarchy of relationships.  I then animate the whole branch from these "sub-branches" controls in yet another action window and animate them to sprout and grow in the right sequence.  This leaves me with one slider to work with which allows me to control the timing of the branche's growth, even stretching out some parts of the sequence in time.  Each branch is then used as a separate "character".  (I tried to import the branches into an action to assemble a tree, but this did not work. There were a tremendous number of conflicts.) I assemble the tree in a choreography using the set of branches and the trunk as sort of an erector set for trees.  Still labor intensive, but well within the possible.  I'm hoping we can take the basic assembly technique and automate it with a plug-in or utility.  That would allow a whole tree or other plant to be assembled as a single model and reduce the controls to a small number of controls.  Any volunteers?

 

]As an aside, I am currently working on a building that I need for closeups and I made the walls one extrusion thick. This resulted in an insane number of unneeded internal patches.

 

My brownstone apartment is just a front, not a box, so it was easier to avoid internal patches. You do have to be careful about the number and placement of control points in the figure you plan to extrude. I would create a box by hand with open ends that already avoids inside patches and then extend that. The grid for my building has a patch for each window so I can make those patches invisible. Probably could have done the same thing more efficiently with decals and alpha channels. My brownstone has a fairly high patch count, mainly because of all the fine details like the moldings and (especially) the fence.

 

I may have missed something, but you said you hit a problem with patch count and reduced the patch count of the tree by approx 1000. However, did you not say you were going to have 9 trees? If so you are going to hit the same problem on tree number two and then be stuck.

 

Yep. May have to recruit a render farm.

 

Again, thanks for the comments and encouragement!

 

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

I've thought of a way around the patch count problem. I'll just do one tree for every two apartments. Then I can render each pair of apartments separately. This results in animated "tiles" I can stitch together into a single very wide shot.

 

It still would look good from a landscaping standpoint and has the benefit of fewer trees to animate! I could probably use the same tree and just rotate and tweak it a bit. I can add relatively stationary characters, change the widow dressings, and add different props to make each tile look more unique. Wow! I may actually get this project done!

 

I could even add conventional characters if I keep them inside each tile, or composite them later, being careful to keep them outside of the tree shadows (or simulate the shadows--a good bit more work).

 

Thanks for the conversations, folks! It really stimulates some good ideas.

 

Bill Gaylord

[tobinjim]

As an aside, I am currently working on a building that I need for closeups and I made the walls one extrusion thick. This resulted in an insane number of uneeded internal patches. I may have been able to counter this prior to the initial build but by the time I noticed it, it was too late. So, I went back and added extra control points on the internal 'ladder' structure that were the walls and eliminated about 90% of the internal patches.

Wade, was adding CP's (changing internal 4-point patches to 5-point geometry) faster than just deleting the cross members? That's the technique I've been using, but am always looking for better ways. I figured by deleting splines I was speeding up load and save times as well.

 

Either way, I'm sure you and I have gotten very adept at "T" rotation and seeing those nasty little internal splines no matter where they hide!

[williamgaylord]

Here's another lighting test, which was also a render speed test as well. Each brownstone apartment has 13249 patches, so I had my doubts whether or not even my new whiz-bang computer could handle it. The long shot helps, but it did just fine! There is hope that I'll finish this project! Later I will alter the brownstone model so that I can easily vary the window treatments for variety.

 

 

The longest shot will take in all nine apartments. I'd like to animate a small boy and a small girl planting trees along this row, with the planted trees growing up behind them as they work their way down the street.

 

Yes, there is a lot more detail in the models than will show up in this long shot, but there will also be other angles, and plenty of close-ups. The main purpose is for me to learn as much as I can in general and in some cases push the limits of things that can be done with AM.

 

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

Looking forward to seeing that animation with the trees growing one by one as the child plants the seeds.

[johnl3d]

Nice to see all you work coming together...great job hope we see the animation or at least pieces soon

[williamgaylord]

I've decided I'd like to animate two children--a little boy and little girl--to plant the trees in this animation. This is pro bono work for a non-profit organization, so there is no money involved. Any decent royalty free models out there I might at least start from? I need to minimize the time I spend assembling them, so I don't want to build them from scratch. Blue jeans and shirt for both of them is fine, to minimize the need for dynamics (a dress would be somewhat problematic, relatively speaking). Some closeups involved, so nicely crafted faces would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Bill Gaylord

[williamgaylord]

I'd like to introduce the human cast of this production: Meet our tree planters, Missy and her brother Kenny. These are graciously being provided by Frank Hulsey, AKA Iham Wrong. He is refining these character models while I focus on the trees and the set. I really look forward to animating these two!

 

 

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

Those are some great models frank. They should fit in nicely with your set Bill. Looking forward to seeing them animated.

[Iham Wrong]

Here's a little update on Missy.

[Rodney]

Here's a little update on Missy.

 

Little?

 

Looks like she is much improved! And she must be happy with her new wardrobe too.

 

I am curious as to why you want to go with 3 fingers on such realistic characters.

Care to comment?

[Iham Wrong]

Sure, it's a genetic trait. You have to realize that all these characters are related Thom.

The actual reason is to ease animating the hands and I'm lazy when it comes to modelling.

 

In short, the hands are a stock item in my custom library; which aids greatly in rapid model development. As for the geometry, it's very lean and takes advantage of how patch flex. If you will notice, the fingers are spaced broadly. This makes adding standard v10 cp weights a simple task. All I do is adjust the finger bone's falloff setting to encompass the web cps, calculate and get knuckles that work pretty well. It's not perfect, but satisfactory for my use. Hope that this is a more respectable explanation.

 

P.S. I'll add a little finger sometime soon. <grins>

[williamgaylord]

Here is a complete tree. Need to tweak the branch positions near the crown, but this should give you an idea of what to expect. Leaf coverage looks good. Leaf clusters are a bit too similar, but I don't think I'll go back and tweak the several hundred clusters again. More realistic lighting with substantial diffuse lighting should bring out the leaves that are farther in, giving it a more natural look. This lighting is not very good. A bit too dark a rendering, too.

 

 

I may try rendering an animation. Stay tuned for more exciting developments...

 

 

Bill Gaylord

[mtpeak2]

Wow Bill that tree looks awesome. It just keeps getting better and better. Keep us posted. Looking forward to the next update. I'd like to see the tree rendered without leaves. It looks like there are alot of branches.

[Iham Wrong]

I love the cast shadow on the tree trunk. It could be the texturing, but the shadow has that feeling of rightness to it.