Ponderosa Pine Forest Megapack

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Author: Greyflame

Last revision: 12 Mar, 2021 at 03:29 UTC

File size: 484.2 MB

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Description:

Introduction

This is a pack of 54 unique assets (yes, really) including 41 live trees, 9 snags (dead trees), and 4 stumps. This is my largest forest pack yet. I wanted to represent the incredible diversity of Ponderosa Pines. I often struggled to believe I was looking at the same species when finding examples. It’s possible that I’ll release expansion packs in the future since there are still many shapes and sizes I didn’t include.

The enormous scope of this projects means I’ve been working on it for several months. I fell so in love with the tree during my research that I even planted a few from seed which quickly sprouted. It feels great to finally bring it to the workshop.

The Tree

This iconic frontier pine covers a vast tract of wildness from Canada to Mexico. Named by botanist David Douglas for its heavy wood, the Ponderosa remains a key material of the logging industry today.

Most young Ponderosas (known as blackjacks) begin life with flaky grey bark that only develops into thick and fragrant red plates after many years. Old growth trees (sometimes called yellowbellies) vary in size tremendously depending on local growing conditions, but can rapidly grow 50 meters or taller with ample resources.

These resources aren’t essential for the tree to survive, however; the Ponderosa is famously resilient to droughts and poor soil conditions. It even recovers well from brush fires. These fires clear underbrush and provide saplings with access to sunlight.

Ponderosas share traits with similar trees such as the Yellow Pine, Red Pine, and Jeffrey Pine, all of which can be represented by the assets in this pack.

Placement

I recommend using the Forest Brush with these, lest you be trapped eternally selecting individual trees. However, I don’t recommend just throwing them all in a single brush. Think about which trees you’re using and try to use similar trees in groups.

Consider whether you’re painting old growth forest with giant yellowbellies spaced widely apart, a densely packed cluster of young and vigorous blackjacks, stunted survivors struggling for life on a cliff, etc. You can mix and match, just be conscious of the forest’s narrative.

Likewise, be wary of overusing the most unique trees. As a general rule, the more distinct the shape of the tree, the less often you should use it, or you’ll notice the repitition.

Technical

– All 54 assets in the pack share a single 4096 x 1024 texture set. Don’t let the file size scare you; the Loading Screen Mod should eliminate the vast majority of functional RAM requirement for this pack.

– Tri counts are all over the place. They bottom out at 28 for the smallest stump but go up to 6625 (yes, really) for the absolute beast of a tree that is "51m Heavy". Keep in mind that the higher tri trees are also much bigger, so you won’t need as many of them. It all balances out. I promise, I aggressively optimized these, and they should perform similar to my other conifers if you don’t do something ridiculous with them. If you’re really worried, just avoid trees labeled "Heavy."

– I did NOT alter tree sway on these assets. I recommend using the Tree Movement Control mod to reduce sway, which can eliminate sway on LODs as well, and doubles for random tree rotation.

Tree LOD Fix is critical as always, and the larger trees may warrant Ultimate Level of Detail and/or Adaptive Prop Visibility Distance.

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Loading Screen ModSteam Workshop