Gen3. Blender tree generator.

What is it?

Gen3 is parameter-driven tree model generator for Blender. Generation algorithm is based on model described in "Creation and Rendering of Realistic Trees" by Jason Weber and Joseph Penn.

Some screenshots

News

07.09.2006 - Gen3 V0.5 released. Bugfix release.
07.02.2006 - Gen3 V0.4 released. Save/load parameters functionality have been added, generation time significantly reduced (sometimes it works two times faster than v0.3).
06.24.2006 - Gen3 V0.3 released. Leaves support have been added as well as possibility to import parameters from 'Arbaro' .xml files.
06.18.2006 - Gen3 V0.2 released. It is small bugfix update, no new features have been added. (see Changes for details)
06.17.2006 - Gen3 V0.1 released

Downloads

Gen3 v0.5 source code ZIP-archive Gen3 v0.4 source code ZIP-archive Gen3 v0.3 source code ZIP-archive Gen3 v0.2 source code ZIP-archive Gen3 v0.1 source code ZIP-archive

Installation

Unpack archive into temporary directory.
Copy gen3.py and gt directory into your Blender scripts location.

Usage

Start Blender and run Gen3 from 'Scripts->Misc->Gen3'

Usage notes

First of all I recommend to read J.Weber and J.Penn paper to understand model parameters. But it is not absolutelly necessary - you can just run script and play with parameters (if you computer is fast enough ;), or you can use predefined parameter sets for quick start.
I suggest to start from trunk only generation (set 'Levels' to 0) and increase 'Levels' only then you are satisfied with results. It will help you to see tree structure better and also significantly speed up generation process.

Changes

Version 0.5
- Branch and leaf count calculation fixed. If you have parameter sets saved with v0.4 you may need to load them and tweak 'Branches' and 'Leaves' parameters to make v0.5 generate trees which are similar to v0.4 generated ones.
Version 0.4
- Ability to save/load parameters to/from external files have been implemented
- Tree generation time reduced (Quaken Aspen generation takes about 32s in v0.3, in v0.4 it takes around 15s on AMD Athlon 64 2800+)
- Small bugfixes
Version 0.3
- Leaves generation implemented
- Parameters import from Arbaro .xml files added
- Branch count calculation have been modified for trunk branches
- Workaround for bug which cause random module importing to fail implemented
- Support for negative values of 'nRotate' parameter implemented
Version 0.2
- Tree generation time reduced (sometimes up to ~1.5 times)
- Bug which leads to 'index out of range' error while using 'Levels == 4' have been fixed
- TAB-ordering in GUI corrected

Current limitations

Generation is REALLY SLOW.
There is no way to interrupt generation.
No auto-LOD support (too much faces and vertices generated even they are not necessary).
Pruning is not supported.
Trunk flaring and lobes are not supported.
Stem splitting support is not always correct.
Some parameters are not supported or not fully supported.

Contacts

If you have questions about this plugin you can e-mail to stager13(at)mail.ru