Experiments with IvyGen (Post Your Work!)

TrumanBlending · August 1, 2011, 10:11pm

Hi All,

I have been working on an addon for Blender to generate Ivy. The script (called IvyGen) is now included in trunk and all Blender builds after r38855 include it. With Blender 2.59 close by, it has been suggested that a nice picture of Ivy would be good to have in the list of changes. So please post your IvyGen work and hopefully we can put your image in the 2.59 version of this page http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/changelog_

Usage
To use IvyGen, follow these steps;

Download a version of Blender after r38855 from Graphicall
Under user preferences in addons, enable IvyGen
Place the 3D cursor where the ivy should begin
Select the object to grow ivy on.
Click “Add Ivy to Mesh” under the menu Add -> Curve
Change any parameters you want and click “Update Ivy” to see the changes!

Here are some quick tests to get you started;

From mfoxdogg

From myself

Cheers,
Truman

MadMesh · August 2, 2011, 3:36am

Awesome work on the Addon, another new plaything in Blender to spend time on.

marnal · August 4, 2011, 4:33am

Thank you for working on the addon Trumanblending!! Here is my first test with ivy .
I just have one question can i edit ivy settings after i select different object ?

Drew42 · August 10, 2011, 11:04pm

So glad you made this TrumanBlending, thanks!
This is the add-on that finally got me to get an account at BlenderArtists, I just had to share the fun this brings.
I started looking at it just today…all day. and next thing I know its bedtime and I’m looking at:

I’m still learning the how to scale things, its amazing how changing the “ivy size” set from .02 to .2 can save the loads of access memory. After figuring that out, most other settings were just trial and error.

There’s probably about 5-6 ivy sets going on here, just to try out some options. Then I joined most the geometry together and did 1-2 more over all the mesh to gel it together. (I wonder if one could just multiple select…instead of joining meshes…hmm)
1,480,409 faces later my cpu can still finish a render in just over a minute.
This is an awesome add-on.

jabbadagrif77 · August 11, 2011, 11:17am

Here’s one I did awhile ago. Hope you like it

GraphiX · August 11, 2011, 4:07pm

does anyone have a method for generating “bark” textures on the stem?

staxxer · August 12, 2011, 4:11pm

Can’t download the script D:

place57 · August 12, 2011, 4:51pm

I believe it is included in the latest blender.

staxxer · August 17, 2011, 4:35pm

Here’s one:

3pointEdit · August 18, 2011, 3:17am

Eww, strange hair growth

tangent · August 18, 2011, 6:42am

It is included in Blender 2.59
Just activate the add-on in user preferences, then in 3D view select the object you want it to grow on, and hit shift+a -> curve -> ivy to mesh

Paint_Guy · August 18, 2011, 11:14am

I’ve clicked “Add Ivy to Mesh” but the ivy is showing up on the mesh very tiny. I’ve tried the settings but I can’t get the ivy to look like the examples above. What settings do you need to generate more ivy?

Also, once you deselect the object is there any way to open the ivy settings again?

http://postimage.org/image/22t86e6x0/

tangent · August 18, 2011, 1:04pm

I don’t think you can bring back the ivy settings.
And to change the size and length of it you can:

under branch setting: ivy branch size (changes the thickness of the branches)
under leaf settings: ivy leaf size (changes the size of the leaves)
under size settings: Max ivy length (changes how long the ivy grows)
Then just hit “Update Ivy” it will take a few seconds, and then your settings will be applied

Quick tutorial on how to texture it:

Select the leaves
Create new material for the leaves and your object that is being grown over
Turn on transparency for the leaves and enable receive transparent for your object being grown over
Create a new texture for the leaves: set to “image or movie”
Select your ivy leaf texture
If you get a weird white outline around your leaf, turn on “premultiply”
Under Mapping change the coordinates to “UV”
Under influence set it to “Color” and “Alpha”
I like to add a little bit of environment lighting and lessen the specular for the leaves, but that is up to you.
You can also repeat this process for the branches as well.

Paint_Guy · August 18, 2011, 2:27pm

Thanks Tangent but like I said above I’ve tried adjusting the size and length of the ivy but it seems to have no effect.

tangent · August 18, 2011, 3:11pm

You can always just scale your entire scene down.

My try at IvyGen:

Attachments

Paint_Guy · August 19, 2011, 8:41am

Good idea I’ll give that a try. Thanks.

flokkievids · August 20, 2011, 1:26am

my go on ivy, realy cool, but so many verts…

Modron · October 11, 2011, 5:19pm

I just tried this for the first time, and I was really impressed with the results, and how easy it is to get good results.