An Ivy Generator Program - Free!

[stusic]

Okay, now I've got to try this: an open-source program that generates ivy in your scene. (http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/%7Eluft/ivy_generator/) Fully licensed for commercial use, you can use it in your projects with no problem.

Has anyone used this before? After looking at dellis' thread on crawling vines, I started looking into how to efficiently do something similar and ran across this. Interested to know how it goes.

[loydg]

I've used this program for a few projects. It's pretty cool, even if a bit awkward to use at first. The ivy objects it produces are sweet. Only downfall is poly count. Plan on some long render times if using raytrace or any GI. I ended up rendering out large portions of just the ivy in a front viewport with alphas and then using those as diffuse and oppacity maps.

[loydg]

An image would be helpful too...
The retaining wall on the right has the ivy from the generator on it. The foreground ivy is 3D and as it gets farther back becomes a map on a simple object.

[dellis]

This program is really cool....but the amount of geometry created is pretty much why i went the particle flow route. Great images by the way!
What tree program are you using for the ones in the last image?

[loydg]

What tree program are you using for the ones in the last image?

I this scene we used a combination of X Frog up close and then Forest Pro in the distance. Although this project was before we discovered the power of V-Ray Meshes. Now we can have thousands (I've pushed 45,000 in one scene) of 3D trees at 150,000 to 300,000 polys each. Interestingly enough, render times are not as bad as you would think. Up to 10 minutes per frame with motion blur turned on (5 without).

We also use Onyx Tree/Treestorm. It has a great ability to randomize on creation. Very slick.