Release 3 gets back to the core. Introducing new natural effects for greatly improved – and totally new – tree characters.
Tree branches have many senses and matching reactions to guide themselves through space. As The Grove delves deeper and deeper into the inner workings of growth, it becomes clear how much influence each of these strategies has on a tree’s eventual shape. It comes as no surprise that a tree’s main sense is that of light, or the lack thereof…
A branch has several strategies to get to the thing it craves most: light. Apical Dominance is the strongest strategy a tree has. By favoring current branches over sub branches, a tree will soon find the light above its neighbors.
Until now, Favor Current was a uniform effect for every branch. From now on, each branch individually regulates its own Favor Current based on the amount of light it gets, or does not get. Now each single branch of a tree competes for light with all other branches.
So how does this work in real trees? Some species are shade tolerant and comfortably grow on a shaded forest floor. While others are shade avoiders and they will die in the shade.
Take the Beech tree, a good example of a shade tolerator. In good light conditions, a beech will grow quite high, with a fairly high Favor Current. But it evolved to live in the shade of taller trees and it knows that it may have to survive in shaded conditions for a long time.
Shaded branches will branch out with equal power to the main and sub branches, to maximize its leaf surface area and to harvest as much light as possible.
A shade avoider like a Pine can’t bear shade. Its best shot at survival is to increase its Favor Current on shaded branches, to not waste any energy on side branches.
Shade Avoidance adds a lot to the character of the tree. As the best lit branches perform better, trees will get a nice mix of heavy main branches and big clusters of canopy.
