Whats the best way of generating geo from L-systems?

I usually use an L-system sop (skeleton mode and adding attributes) followed by a polywire sop

This doesn't give me control of thickness, if it did (Im not certain), than how.

Try creating a float attribute named “width”.

OK let me be a bit more clear, I had a system that worked great but created ugly mesh, I like using the attributes from L-systems and than Width in poly-wire as the thickness, but i don't get control, in the other system I created a color ramp that controlled the thickness as it went up, but even that isn't great because lower branches that reach the end of growth are as thick as the trunk, if anyone knows a way that would be great, it's this or buying a subscription to Digital Tutors, and that's not a great idea because they have little on Houdini, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your thoughts.

Here's a quick example of what jkunz07 was saying.

Yeah I've done that before, is there a way with more fine grain control? Or do i have to hand model it in.

what do you consider more control? you have complete control over width unsing l-system rules, polywire will just use whatever it will output

but if you want control by ramp, you can take arc attribute from l-system, normalize it to 0-1 range and drive ramp with that, so you will be able to define thickness by distance from the root along branches

Just opened the file, that's exactly how I see fine grain control: A ramp, sorry to sound so stupid, I haven't used L systems much, if there's some stuff i should read other than the documentation please tell me. And can you explain the VOP net.

essentially you have Thickness and Thickness Scale
then in rules you either use
! to just multiply inherited thickness by thickness scale
or
!(x) to multiply it with x

it's helpful to read this
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini12.1/nodes/sop/lsystem [sidefx.com]

however ramps may be easier to use for artists

Now it comes flooding back, now I know every time why I add that in there! Do you know of any good LSystem examples?

if you want to learn L-systems, this free book is quite popular
http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop [algorithmicbotany.org]
it contains many examples with explanation inside
and overall the site has quite interesting information on r&d around l-systems

I've known of it for about a month, i guess i have to take the long route with this project.

Delight0092
Just opened the file, that's exactly how I see fine grain control: A ramp, sorry to sound so stupid, I haven't used L systems much, if there's some stuff i should read other than the documentation please tell me. And can you explain the VOP net.

l-system creates attribute called “arc” containing distance from root to each point along branches
attribute promote finds it's maximum value (furthest distance)
vop sop
fits arc attribute from range 0-maximum arc value to range 0-1
ramp samples the ramp spline based on that normalized attribute
then it's scaled by some scale factor and saved to width attribute which is picked up by polywire