The trees in the test scene are randomly rotated too. With particles you can also do multiple random tree types like Pedro pointed out. You could put the trees in bounding box mode so your 3dview doesen’t get stuck, but I feel it’s too cumbersome. If you have to change the tree positions (like when you get a different parking lot layout right before deadline!) it’s easier to hide the particles and adjust the emitters vertices than move the tree instances themselves.
With particles it’s very easy to try out more tree models, more or less randomness, change scale without getting too much into editing the tree itself. You have to scale and rotate each by hand to get a random look, and there you are, later changes to the whole set are more difficult to make. But it’s not effective at all with something like 20-30 trees or even more throughout a large scene, believe me I tried. I’ve written more on the subject Yes this can be done by instancing too, and I agree I would’t bother with some 5-6 trees in the scene.
(with “use count” you can make them random but have one tree appear the most). The weight paint distribution sounds like a very good idea, I’ll look up the tut.Īs for the technical yes you can use the “Group” option in particles with a group of different trees, and you’ll find there useful settings for randomness and occurrence of a certain tree in the total number. My trouble is I don’t have enough time to spend on editing trees myself. well…bustedĪnd although I love Sapling I confess I had to buy Onyx to get the results I need and I’m still working on that one too. The tree and scene were not really the object of the post and I didn’t spend too much time on that, but you are right, background looks really cloudy so I softened the shadows as for sun filtered through a break in the clouds. So you’ll be able to place the trees exactly where you want them by adjusting the emitter’s vertices. This means the distributed objects will be placed only on the vertices of the emitter mesh (aligned with the object origin exactly on the vertex and the x axis pointing up). The idea is to use the “verts” setting in the Emitter panel of the particle system, with “random” unchecked.
Either object or group distribution can be used. I used the same distributing mesh with a second particle system to add some tree grates.
Shown above in my “wavy road” test scene, I just wanted one row of trees aligned to the side of the path. You can take this one step further by placing the trees in a precise pattern, something I often use in architectural renderings, for trees in parking lots or rows along a road, but still keeping the random scale and rotation features that come with particles and improve the repetition issues. This method can be applied to areas of random growing vegetation. I have already written about distributing objects using particles and I think settings in that post still apply to the current Blender version (v. Since I started using 3d trees in my work it also became clear I must use instances as much as possible and for large numbers distribute them using the particle system.