   tree design
  Hi,Are there any recommended programs for 2d tree, plants, bushes design?Thanks,Safra   
  If its tree and bush sprites your after, then I would just take some photographs of real trees and manipulate them in Photoshop or Gimp so they don't look so "photo-y".If you where looking to create trees with no work whatsoever, then you'd have to look into some kind of fractal system, which would "grow" trees procedurally.  Don't know of any off hand, but I'm sure they exist.What type of project is this for?  2D or 3D?   ;  FYILindenmayer (sp?) systems (aka L-systems) are common in the "fractal" world.They're a special "dictionary set" (is that the correct terminology?) of commands in 2d (or 3d) used in a term replacement "system" (?)Anyway, more info can be obtained by google-ing for l-system or term replacementPrograms:hhmm..  SpeedTreeRT is really cool, but costs money (search it up)I believe there's a program called X-frog, which specializes in this sort of stuff.  I believe it's free...-Michael g.   ;  Thanks to both!I do need just sprites to place trees as billboards in my game.@ JohnHurt, I think using fractals will not result in the desired quality, or at least I couldn't find tree fractal software that does what I need. I tried just shooting photos but they do look to much as photos in my game. Perhaps I should spend some time in finding a quick way to make them look less like photos.@ Thr33d. Those 2 programs are exactly what I need, especially SpeedTreeRT but unfortuantely way to expensive, US$ 8.495!I found a website with a list of other software packages at:  http://www.vterrain.org/Plants/plantsw.html   ;  Are fractal systems complex to do? since i am interest in them and to what i have seen on the internet it is like commands ect likeV = {A, B} // variablesw = A; // startP1 = A - > Bp2 = B - >BAWhat exactly does that all do to what i am thinking A creates B when then creates BA which then loops back around again to create B like   A   B   BA  BAB BABBABABBABIs this correct?   ;  OP: Yay, you found vterrain (I was going to post that before, but forgot to)GameMasterXL:Yeah, you have the basic idea of term replacement systems... my understanding of L-systems is that they have some specific characters relating to displaying them in 2d or 3d.For instance, this page shows an example where + and - are defined to adjust the angle, F means to move forward, X and Y are defined using themselves and the minimal special "dictionary" (F, -, +, is all we've defined thus far, there are more though) The next page shows some FractInt conventions.  These are fairly standard (although I recall "f" being used for what they use "G" to represent...)  Anyway, if you read that page, and the following 2, it'll catch you up on 2d L-systems.But you're probably interested in 3d l-systems.Doing a search on google for 3d l'systems gives a number of good hits.The options are always    1) find a program to do what you need, take its output, tweak it as needed    2) write your own program based off of already made libraries, output however you need, implement your own functionality    3) write it from the ground up (usually the "best" option only when the first two will not suffice)Ta ta,-Michael g.   ;  Another one (not listed on vterrain.org), http://www.bionatics.com.Looks like this one is used by major video game companies.   