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Easier way to transform leaves for tree textures?

polycounter lvl 8
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EJtheArtist polycounter lvl 8
Making a tree texture. Transforming, warping, puppet warping.. leaves duplicating them... it's a tedious and arduous process. Anyone have any better methods? maybe in photoshop zbrush or otherwise?

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  • AtticusMars
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    AtticusMars greentooth
    You can create an insert mesh and use it in ZBrush or your 3D app. That's what I would go with.

    If you want something faster you could try some procedural placement/scattering method in your 3D app with your insert mesh, for example something like NanoMesh in ZBrush. I've not attempted this though. May require you to do some cleanup to remove extra leaves you don't want but you can just select them whole and delete them... may not be too bad.

    Some paint programs have an "image hose" feature that will let you image stamps and spray them out with a brush. I don't think photoshop has this though and to be honest the quality probably wouldn't be great doing that.


  • Steppenwolf
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    Steppenwolf polycounter lvl 15
    Is Speedtree an option for you? With its Leaf Map Maker you can do this proceduraly.
  • Eric Chadwick
    One of the fastest/easiest ways is to create a small leaf cluster, 3 - 5 leaves on a small branching twig. Then duplicate and rotate this along a larger branch to make the whole texture. It goes surprisingly quick. Then bake it down to your texture flats.
  • EJtheArtist
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    EJtheArtist polycounter lvl 8
    @Steppenwolf I wish speedtree was an option for me. This project uses unity 4. I would love to use that program, it looks like so much fun! Can you customize your textures with it? is it easy to make LODs and Low poly foliage?

    @Eric Chadwick That's an awesome idea, thanks!

  • Steppenwolf
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    Steppenwolf polycounter lvl 15
    @Steppenwolf I wish speedtree was an option for me. This project uses unity 4. I would love to use that program, it looks like so much fun! Can you customize your textures with it? is it easy to make LODs and Low poly foliage?

    I don't know much about Unity but isn't it possible to upgrade Unity 4 projects to Unity 5?

    Speedtree is quite powerful and much faster then manual modelling methods. Takes some time getting used to and learn all the tricks but well worth it when you plan to do a lot of foliage for your game. Doing LOD's is a breeze. As for customization, you have the option to either import custom meshes/textures, generate them or use a mix of both. For your leaf textures you can tweak branch number and distribution, leaf density, position, color variation, vertex normals etc. and bake it down to a texture directly inside speedtree.

  • EJtheArtist
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    EJtheArtist polycounter lvl 8
    Yes, its completely possible, but unfr not plausible. The Ever Jane team is pushing for their first release of Ever Jane in the next month or so, so upgrading isn't in the cards at this time. Though, when it comes to my own personal work, I'm looking forward to playing with speedtree for my projects! Specifically in use with unreal (Castle Project) or even unity 5 (colorfull). So that's probably when i'll get my hands on it :)
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