Fractals seemed to offer a way out of this impasse
The concept that simple equations could describe an object at a variety of resolutions and allow new "trees" to be grown to order - all different, but all of the same species.
However, keeping track of everything you create becomes an issue and the human eye and brain demand maddeningly detailed structures to make things "realistic"
And then you need a fractal equation for each species of tree, each class of building, each type of rock, each flower and lawn...