[fe] Something like SpeedTree?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

On Sun, 29 Mar 2009, Jason Weber wrote:
>
> I've paged through their site.  I didn't feel the motivation to
> download their software and evaluate it in detail.

Evaluation can be done in the games: e.g., Oblivion.

While I recognize the various shaping constraints, I'm more
toward natural growing effected by natural constraints (light,
water, platform height, bruning (cut&grow), etc.)

ngplant is some kind of clone of SpeedTreeCAD and I have not
succeeded in making anything that looks like a real tree.
Growing things naturally could be only choise for people
like me. (But see Greenhouse project for how some people
are able to make trees with ngplant.)

For the movies they have found suitable trees, so, it must
not be too hard to generate trees by growing and picking
what looks right.

> If you want someone to duplicate SpeedTree just to save money,
> I'm not willing to expend three man years to simply duplicate
> existing work.

There is no money to save because they don't have the needed
product. In that sense, there is no existing work. The target
is graphics hobbyist like me. Why open source Blender exists
while Maya exists? Have they duplicated the work for no reason?
Why Google have spent their money to Blender in the summer of
code activity while they could have suggested to use Maya instead?

OK. It would be a good idea to have us hobbyist for implementing
what exists already. As I said, experts may be busy in creating
something new. More people could join when they find out that
the goal is to write a complete solution. Now they visit and
pick up what is already available, and don't think any further.

Juhana