RpTreeMaker Free

RpTreeMaker - A new way to add depth and realism to your SketchUp model.

RpTreeMaker Free tree placed as an image in SketchUp and rendered with IRender nXt. Note the quality of the fractal rendering and the subtlety of the shadows.

Play RpTreeMaker Free Video

RpTreeMaker Free is a free integrated plug-in for SketchUp that creates realistic trees for SketchUp.

What RpTreeMaker Free means to you...

• A new way to add depth and realism to your SketchUp model.
• Quickly and easily add a large variety of trees to your SketchUp model.
• Create custom trees to match any setting.
• It’s Free!

New for Version 2.0

• A library of premade trees. See: Load Tree from Library
• Toolbar for easy access to functions
• Flowers and additional Tree types such as "Complex"

User comments:

"This looks fantastic! A long time needed and superb tool for those with inferior talents/expertise in PS work and such (not to speak about time needed even for experts to create something like this). And all this for free!" - Gaieus

"This is a very needed plugin, as it enables folk to add original trees into SU for straight output or render. Especially with SU poly handicap this feature results in a low poly solution for a very poly intensive object." - solo

RpTreeMaker Free, a free add-on for SketchUp , generates fractal trees based on parameters - tree type, number of trunks, number of roots, age, bending parameters, etc. - and the creates a tree image and places the tree as a 2D, always-face-camera, component into SketchUp.

For more information see: RpTreeMaker Free

What others have to say

Al that is fantastic! Amazing. Thanks. I've just got out of bed, it is snowing outside, so a good day to stay in and draw trees." - lineal

Hey Al, this is just great!! Thanks heaps! I can see an explosion of vegetation in SU models! - Stu

Simply amazing Al! Thanks for this, - Chris

Thanks Al, very useful. And continue your great work at Renderplus. - Burkhard

Generate Fractal trees and save them as components in SketchUp

Download and Installation

1. Proceed to Downloads Page to download a copy of RpTreeMaker Free.
2. After downloading the ZIP file, click Click to install to install it.

See also: Downloads and Installation

Video Tutorial

• RpTreeMaker Free Video Tutorial

Toolbar

There are two functions on the RpTreeMaker toolbar: #Create a new tree Load a tree from the Library

Create a new tree

After Starting SketchUp, select the Tree icon from the RpTreeMaker toolbar. Use the Tree Editor to define the tree. (See documentation below.) Click Ok when done.

valign=top

Load a tree from the Library

After Starting SketchUp, select the Library icon from the RpTreeMaker toolbar. Select one of the predefined trees from the library Use the Tree Editor to define the tree. (See documentation below.) Click Ok when done.

Create a tree image

After defining the tree shape and parameters:

1. Enter a name for the component.
2. Enter a resolution for the image stored in SketchUp.
3. enter the Shadow Mask options
4. Use Advanced Settings... for other settings.
5. Click Start to render the tree
   After generating the first image, you can change the resolution or rotation and generate a new image by clicking Remake Image.
6. Click Save Tree Image when done.

Shadows from Shadow Mask

Advanced Settings

• Tree Rotation - lets you rotate the tree in the image.

(Useful for angled, or non-symmetrical trees)

• Camera Height - lets you raise or lower the camera for different effects.
• Background mode - this does not effect the final image when saved to SketchUp.

HDRi sky mode and be useful to see how the sky effects the lighting.

• Illumination factor - alter if tree is too light or too dark.
• HDRi sky rotation - will effect how the HDRi sky illuminates the tree.
• Use Defaults - reset to default settings
• Create alpha clipmask for VRay - an alpha mask is created for VRay users.

Save tree image

1. Adjust the Brightness, if desired
2. Click Save Tree Image.

Changes effective with Build 330

September 2013

Bug Fixes

• Certain trees may not scale properly when using the "Randomize" feature.

Changes & Features

• The UI for Complex plant type has been reworked to make it more understandable. I'm still working in this area so I haven't yet sent the changes out to be translated for non-english users. Some english may be present in the foreign languages versions, and some labels may not make a lot of sense in these versions.

• The default Complex plant type looks more like a tree. Much easier to work with.

• The render engine for the Tree Editor has been switched to the Hybrid Engine for performance reasons.

• The OpenGL display should be more responsive.

• Added a persistent Units setting. You can now choose between Imperial and Metric. Overall plant dimensions are given in feet or meters. Leaf and flower dimensions are given in inches or millimeters.

• Display and controls can now be sized independently.

See: Tree Editor Changes

Tree Editor usage

Plant Type

Set the type from the File/New menu at the top.

There are four tree types - Standard, Conifer, Broad Crown, Palm and Complex
(Do not use Groundcover with RpTreeMaker).

Each has different setting on the tabs of the tree editor.

Play with the various settings to see what they do.

Trunk Settings

Change the Parameters and see the results at the left.

Foliage and Flowers

[[Image:Tree-editor-foliage.jpg|500px]

You can click on the leaf image to select a different image.

Flowers/Fruit
You can also add an image to be used as flowers or fruit

Leaf and Flower Images

You can select new leaves, trunk, etc. by clicking on the image.

You can also add your own leaves and bark to the Plant Image folder and use them for your custom trees.

RayTrace

Click 'Start' on the RayTrace drop down menu to see a sample rendering of the tree with foliage.

Use the mouse and scroll-wheel to on the image to set a new view before starting rendering if desired.

Rendering tips

RpTreeMaker tree placed as an image in SketchUp and rendered with IRender. Note the quality of the fractal rendering and the subtlety of the shadows.

For IRender nXt users, the RpTreeMaker tree will automatically re-render as a full, fractal, 3D tree.

IRender nXt users should make their tree images at the lowest resolution to save time and keep the SketchUp model fast and small. After the tree is re-rendered the original image resolution will not effect the final image.

The 2D Trees will work properly with SketchUp, including shadows, and most other rendering packages. Users of rendering some other products have discovered that they need to explode the tree component, explode the image entity into a face, and remake to tree component in order to get the tree to render properly.

Settings

There is a Settings menu which lets you set:

• Background mode while rendering (this had nothing to do with the final image, but the HDRi setting gives you some sense of how the HDRi illumination works - If turn it on you will see that the tree is illuminated in a forest with the sun shining from behind on the left)
• default Illumination of the image. -(Smaller numbers make the image brighter)
• HDRi sky rotation for illumination. (55 degrees leaves the tree half in light and half in shadow)

Display Quality

Note: If your alpha transparent images do not display well in SketchUp, you can adjust the quality (vs speed) of Alpha Image display.

Set it to 'nicer' for the best tree display.

Notes

• The Tree Editor allows you to choose from four types of trees (more coming soon.)
• .ArPlant files can be saved and loaded in the editor.
• .ArPlant files can be loaded into SketchUp for rendering.

Some Limitations on Trees (still numerous)

• Shrubs may be difficult to do in the current interface.
• We don’t have templates for things like Herbaceous Plants yet.
• You can’t change anything about the trees at the moment.

In case of a problem

Some users are having problems loading and running the tree editor.

If the tree editor fails, go to the RpTreeMaker menu under windows and select Show debug file. Send us the content of the debug file so we can determine where it failed.

Batch mode

Some users are having problems executing RpTreeMaker directly from SketchUp, so we have instituted a batch mode.

Select RpTreeMaker... - Match mode from the SketchUp Plugins menu.

You will be presented with the name and location of the Batch file, and two Run Options:

1. Run Manually, or
2. Execute .bat

To run the .bat file manually

1. Select the file name from the top edit box (Batch File) and use Ctrl-C to copy it the Windows clipboard.
   (Select and copy the quote marks as well.)
2. Go to A DOS prompt (or use Windows Start/Run) and paste this command to run it manually.
3. The .bat file should allow you to define a tree and then to create a tree image.
4. Select OK from the prompt in the SketchUp window after running the .bat file
5. The tree should now appear at the end of your SketchUp cursor for placement in your model.

To execute the .bat file from SketchUp

1. Select the Execute .bat Run Option
2. Click Ok
3. The .bat file should allow you to define a tree and then to create a tree image.
4. The tree should now appear at the end of your SketchUp cursor for placement in your model.

Let us know if either of these options work for you.

If the second option works, there is no need to use the first option.

Frequently asked questions

Can you change color? If so, how? This would be very important.

To change color, you can take the raster images for the leaves or bark, change the color, and save them with a new name.

These are stored in:

C:\Program Files\Render Plus Systems\RpTreeMaker\Support\Plants

in a Bark and a Leaves sub-folder.

Here I took the standard leaf, made it yellow, saved it as a new leaf, and used it to render the tree.

You can create your own bark and leaf images by altering the color of existing images.

You will need a paint program which respects the Alpha Channel.

(I don't have one, but there is a tool in RpTools which will convert the background color of an image to an alpha channel which I used.)

Can you use this to make a 3D tree

• As I understand, the tree generator is actually 3D based by default right?

So what about the option to have the full 3D tree as output?

Would be great for us render heads.

I will try this out (creating full 3D plants) and see if it works and or is practical.

However, this may effect the "Free" aspect of RpTreeMaker Free. I will have to discuss this with the developer, since he includes this product as a tool in his own rendering package (nXt) - which is not free.

Where can I get some more leaf and bark images?

• Bark
• Leaves

Note: these are links to collections, not the images themselves.

See also

• Ground Cover
• RpTreeMaker Free - New Version
• Tree Maker
• IRender nXt