Trees in an Image

[Dylan]

I was just wondering how you pro's best deal with trees in a TR / SU workflow.
I am not talking about a woodland, just the odd 2-3 trees in an external scene around the building.

Do you find rendering a good 3d tree works best, or adding a few trees post pro in Ps?

Do you know of any good FF or 3dwh trees that render well in TR?

[Fletch]

Very close/foreground still images:
Post Pro with High Quality personal library been building up over the years from photos I've taken or been given or found on web
On top of this, I have a flat plane with a tree on it just out of site, close to the camera that casts shadows onto the scene in front of the camera. This is extremely 'cheap' in rendering time, and increases realism 2x or more in a heartbeat.

Mid-ground still images:
Currently I put in a "stand-in" 3D sketchUp tree that is reasonable quality so that I can go in during post-production and put in a high quality image that matches the lighting from the library I've been building up over the years.

Distant trees:
Using alpha mask of scene I put in a high quality sky and trees image (from the library I mentioned earlier)
I also use 2D trees from time to time in these distant views that I know will look ok, mostly as a 'guide' for coming in during post-production to 'paint-in' over them trees that match the mood.

Grass:
I almost always post-pro my grass, but I also have a component especially created for Twilight, I will share in coming days... it's mostly for animations, as post-pro grass will always look best, imho. Not to say great grass can't be achieved, but it is a waste of time in most architects' workflows who "just want to show a nice picture to a client".

Here you can see perfect examples of this style of work flow.

[Gaieus]

Also, if you are not "afraid" of Kerkythea, you can always export your Twilight scene to Kerky and use any imported, high poly 3D trees either placed "by hand" or using the instancing brush. Over the Kerky site they offer a couple of nice looking and well working samples of such trees already converted to Kerky.

Obviously we are not talking about whole woodlands even in Kerky (that would be Vue already), but even a couple of dozen of trees can be placed. The rest - far away trees - can remain 2D.

[Fletch]

For Kerkythea users, many have discovered that the Instancing Brush is amazingly powerful, and for me personally was easier to control than "the other guy's"...
And you CAN do a forest with Kerkythea... (image courtesy of Twilight user Frolfer12)

[Gaieus]

Ah, yes, I remember this scene - great, indeed.

With the forest I actually meant that however well Kerky handles high poly and such, render time must be growing somewhat with each new component - even if instanced.

[Dylan]

Shane the grass you show above, is it Ps added?

Kerkythea sounds a good way of adding these, but I'm a little scared of trying to learn that at this moment in time!

[Fletch]

The grass above is post-pro, as stated.

You would not need to learn Kerkythea, just export your scene, open, and paint your grass... basically. But there are some steps there, and there's an excellent instancing brush video tutorial at Kerkythea made by this guy I know....

Here's a shot of the grass we created for Twilight...
AND a hint how it was made... full tutorial is in the making...