A low to medium size/quality native library is a brilliant idea.
What compromises should be made to create an acceptable low to medium resource usage plant?
In my case, a lot of compromises, as I work on a slow laptop. Most plant models are so large/complex that they will effectively grind the drawing process to a halt. So my compromise would be using tiny (and ugly) trees and bushes in the design process - and in rare cases - swap them for nicer ones for rendering (not as pretty as Cec' trees, though).Examples of very simple trees in the design process, you can find at SF 3D model 261, but they are too ugly for any real rendering. Or you could use, as Hansmex suggests, Arboro (see thread 7742) to create ones that are better even if simple (but still to resource-demanding for me).
But it all comes down to what you use it for. To visualise a beautiful garden, of course, you need some of the more elaborate models. But if, like me, the only objective is to understand light and shadow as in the sunlight simulation blog post, even very simple shrubbery will do the trick.
So if anyone wishes to design and share some low/medium models, I for one would welcome that very much.
ok
