The lives and times of Birches, Part 2

Things keep improving with time, to our decorating pleasure. As botanists –in this context, Second Life content creators who specialize in plants– refine their skills, new birch trees hit the market. In no way the following products replace or make obsolete the ones covered in the preceding post. They just bring additional colors and shapes to Second Life’s forests and gardens.

Forest Floor –a funny name for a store that lies in the clouds– has always specialized in low prim plants. Trees in particular are sold in packs containing small, medium and large, and sometimes thin, standard and wide, sparse or lush versions, with ground covers, falling leaves, grasses, and lately some handy extras such as rocks and fences. Another plus for these trees are the dozens of different combinations you can come up with by mixing an assortment of bark and leaf textures for every growing stage (from sapling to young to mature) and season imaginable (including illuminated for festivities or fairy settings). The first trees were –frankly– Frankensteinish, combining some interesting trunk and branch structures with so and so foliage. However, they were quite popular because they were sold at a nice discount for members of certain themed regions. The Birch pack in the picture above is part of what could be referred to as second generation, when leaves got some love and became distinguishable. They are not only fabulous as trees, but also make perfect shrubs. They’re 2 prims too, so what else could you ask for?

Another store with second generation trees is Garden World. Their first Silver birch set was very similar to this one, except for the bark texture, which was… erm… too unreal to be cute. Being the narrowest exemplars in this review and at 3 prims per object, these trees are simply perfect for birch groves. Make sure to rotate and resize some of them to get a varying look because placing a lot of these together could be somewhat monotonous. The pack comes in green, winter (bare) and four shades for autumn.

POST is well known for the splendid detailing and texturing work in all of this store’s products. Hence, it came as no surprise that the Lutsen Paper Birch set released last year was of the same high quality. The only peculiar thing to notice is that these 3 to 7 prim birches come in spring and summer variations only, so that’s why there are no vivid autumn colors or a bare option in the pic. Taking into consideration the temperate character of most, if not all, POST builds, one has to wonder when the missing fall and winter sequel will be announced. Me crosses fingers –would it be worth sending a “reminder” too?

Or is it that Post is working in updating the trees to mesh? Maybe that’s what the Gnarled Birch Tree (8 LI) released this year suggests. As for the sculpted ones, you can get them as a pack of seven trees (from 12m to 20m tall) or individually.

If you desire –as in some kind of gardening lust– an alluring vista instead of a regular landscape, the natural drooping “stance” of 3D Trees‘ Silver birches deserve your full attention. After examining all the trees in this review, perhaps you will agree with me that these seem convincingly life-like, so it won’t hurt to add a few of them to your yard (if birches are what you’re looking for, that is). Though they were originally released in green only, with a LI equivalency of 6 prims, an autumn version later added its orange hues to the combo. Apparently, a winter version is not in the works right now, judging by the fact that 3D Trees has already released the winter collection, and a snowy birch was not included. Let’s see if it shows up later on.

Studio Skye recently introduced an all-in-one Silver birch set by way of a scripted unit. Clicking anywhere (in the tree of course) will pop up a menu from where you can choose the season you want. As simple as that. Out of the package the tree is only 5 LI and about the right size, but if you want it bigger (hello, the tree), you can stretch it up as needed, but do it with caution because this is a mesh product, so land impact is prone to increase as the object gets larger. This birch also makes for good bushes, and in that case, shrinking its size will reduce the land impact requirement. Now that’s an absolute advantage.

Finally –wait, what?– Buddhabeats has been selling good-looking plants for some time now (and yes, there’s some music to the name as well). The first version of his birches (picture above) was already quite attractive. The trees came in two sizes (big, at 10 prims, and small, at 8), and as in the Studio Skye set, a menu would let you change seasons and turn on/off an elegant falling leaves particle effect.

Sometime later (it sounds like a long time ago, but it was actually earlier this year) the classic birch tree received a stunning makeover that not only lowered the prim count to 2 LI, but also turned it into a beautiful chef-d’oeuvre. I may be exaggerating a little bit (as usual), but hell, the change is really astounding. And what did the creator do? Believe it or not, it’s actually the same tree, textures and all, but with a different foliage arrangement made of a new sculpty base. Compare the two pictures and see what a great difference such a little change can make. Isn’t it obvious that I love this tree?

Ok, so here you have fifteen birch sets to choose from (plus a couple more that opted for retirement). I hope you didn’t fall asleep (did you?). And, by the way, thanks for coming back to this second part (if you did).