Do not have the money right now to watch a tutorial from Damian Lararski which sucks because this particular tutorial would solvet it. But if any of u now how to tackle this the best way and let it look nice in UDK I would be happy. Any cool tutorials help
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@ UP!!
I forgot: I'll post some tut aobut shading the tree later, I just forgot aobut it But it's pretty simple. And the leaves texture are the 2nd texture on top of my texture tab.
A quite useful trick is to actually think a little bigger when it comes to the planes and texture. model a "big" branch(with leaves) that you bake down diagonally across your whole UV space( will cause some slight jaggyness but as long as you res it down your fine ) and 1-2 smaller branches along side where there is some extra space. then make a few different plane shapes, create a "bouquet" of planes - great for building up your volumes to begin with then start adding individual planes / branches with planes. you will be able to build up shape and tweak pretty fast this way always good to save you branches and "bouquets" meshes so you can quickly build new trees or start from scratch if your current tree isn't working out.
Mr Significants tutorial is the way to do it so I would follow that
just create a plane without any subdivisions, so a single face and it should cover the whole 0-1 space. then after baking you just split in some extra edges and move vertices around to get more shape and to follow the silhouette of the texture
A quite useful trick is to actually think a little bigger when it comes to the planes and texture.
I have to second this, and is a trick I picked up the hard way after being asked to model way too many trees..
Making the branches bigger, as in a big branch with smaller leaves upon it.. will make it easier to get a good solid volume and fill it out more rather than having a lot of smaller repeated branches packed tightly and taking up a lot of tris. Then a couple smaller ones to break it up.
Also, look at plenty of references. Most trees have their unique branching structure and volume.
Hmm, really nice for the first time, but which tree is it? As Adam said: look at some trees, and try to keep the reference. My trees doesn't look like any tree in the real world, but this was also my first tree
So now take some tree, and make preety similar to them.
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@ UP!!
I forgot: I'll post some tut aobut shading the tree later, I just forgot aobut it But it's pretty simple. And the leaves texture are the 2nd texture on top of my texture tab.
Mate those are AWESOME thanks !
They work very well, I did some quick tests.
Any tips for spreading the leaf planes over the tree ?
Tried using instancing solutions like modo replicators but got inefficient results, so atm resorted to instance them one by one
As I understand correclty with my PRO knowledge of english:
You can do as I said in mini tutorial: make a spline along the one trunk, then select your mini branch with the plane's of leaves, go to the animation menu (it's somwehre in the upper menus, like File, edit, tools, etc,etc), click on path constrain, and then select the spline you made earlier. Then use move tool; When you drag the y or x or z axis arrow, the path with leaves will follow the spline.
I recommend you to watch Damian's Lazarski tutorial in 3dmotive site.
As I understand correclty with my PRO knowledge of english:
You can do as I said in mini tutorial: make a spline along the one trunk, then select your mini branch with the plane's of leaves, go to the animation menu (it's somwehre in the upper menus, like File, edit, tools, etc,etc), click on path constrain, and then select the spline you made earlier. Then use move tool; When you drag the y or x or z axis arrow, the path with leaves will follow the spline.
I recommend you to watch Damian's Lazarski tutorial in 3dmotive site.
If you have any question, ask
Ah ok so you do it by hand too, I was kinda hoping there's a way to just slap a few hundred leaf objects to the tree
Btw that tutorial looks cool, but I don't use 3dsmax nor udk so I don't see the point.
When you do something like tree, by automatic or scripts, then it looks very procedural. I love to make the foliage for games, and I hate generators or uber scripts. So I do most of work by hand.
Also you can try Object Paint in Max. there is bilion options in there, but it's still procedural
Also don't put too much bilboards on the trunks; my trees are very dense, they don't have space in the in the upper branches of tree, so shadows looks like giant stone or something like that. Like on shape.
Thanks for the headsup, I guess manual has its advantages
I've researched numerous tree apps (tree[d], nplant, xfrog, etc), and solutions in packages I use (modo, maya, painteffects, etc)
So far I'm really disappointed with the results
ngPlant actually came on top (plus it's free hah) it has really nice leaf placement and sub branch control, but the most annoying thing it can't really use custom geo properly and you can't curl up the leaf like that texture you posted ...
Atm I'm doing the branch texture via modo render, and placing them manually via instances
I think is 2-3 hours to put all the instances
Branch texture is something like this (branch via ngPlant, leafs & render in modo)
I think the leaf placement is utter crap but the fact I get a normal map and leaf material/source control is nice
The branch looks very jelly. You have to make it sharper, need to get rid of that smooth curves. The leafs are fine I think.
When you are making foliage, there is something like Padding Edge. When you applied this texture with the black backround in the enigne, there will be black border around the leafs. To get rid of that border, you can make a layer under the leafs and branch, and fill it with the earth-green color or something like that. Best way to get nice padding edge in my opinion is to:
group all layers that you have in PS into one group: ao, gradients, color variation, diffuse;
then duplicate this layer;
place it below original group;
merge this group;
use gausian blur with high value;
copy layer and place it below;
use gausian blur with high value;
repeat untill fill all canvas;
I think we should not spam inside of someone thread
Your branch is pretty solid as a base, but I think Mr. Significant got a good point.
Instead of throwing leaves planes out and hope for the best, is good to get some refs and plan the layout first.
Maybe not for this model if you moved on, but something good to keep in mind for future ?
Good luck on your next tree project JGreen. This first one was a great start. I think if you use the same leaf texture and and add them to a pine tree trunk, this tree would look fantastic. I can't wait to see what your next project looks like. Keep it up.
Replies
Check this out:
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentFoliage
You ask for amking the leafs or adding plane's to the branches? I can help as I can
That's he's tress:
http://www.damianlazarski.com/images/3dmotive_foliage/damian_lazarski_3dmotive_foliage_trees_wires.jpg
And that's mine trees:
Hope that helped. If you have any question, I'll try to answer. Subscribed
@ UP!!
I forgot: I'll post some tut aobut shading the tree later, I just forgot aobut it
Mr Significants tutorial is the way to do it so I would follow that
I have to second this, and is a trick I picked up the hard way after being asked to model way too many trees..
Making the branches bigger, as in a big branch with smaller leaves upon it.. will make it easier to get a good solid volume and fill it out more rather than having a lot of smaller repeated branches packed tightly and taking up a lot of tris. Then a couple smaller ones to break it up.
Also, look at plenty of references. Most trees have their unique branching structure and volume.
All in moderation though.
So now take some tree, and make preety similar to them.
I just think so
PS: No clue what kind of tree it is.
Mate those are AWESOME thanks !
They work very well, I did some quick tests.
Any tips for spreading the leaf planes over the tree ?
Tried using instancing solutions like modo replicators but got inefficient results, so atm resorted to instance them one by one
You can do as I said in mini tutorial: make a spline along the one trunk, then select your mini branch with the plane's of leaves, go to the animation menu (it's somwehre in the upper menus, like File, edit, tools, etc,etc), click on path constrain, and then select the spline you made earlier. Then use move tool; When you drag the y or x or z axis arrow, the path with leaves will follow the spline.
I recommend you to watch Damian's Lazarski tutorial in 3dmotive site.
If you have any question, ask
Ah ok so you do it by hand too, I was kinda hoping there's a way to just slap a few hundred leaf objects to the tree
Btw that tutorial looks cool, but I don't use 3dsmax nor udk so I don't see the point.
Thanks for the quick reply !
When you do something like tree, by automatic or scripts, then it looks very procedural. I love to make the foliage for games, and I hate generators or uber scripts. So I do most of work by hand.
Also you can try Object Paint in Max. there is bilion options in there, but it's still procedural
Also don't put too much bilboards on the trunks; my trees are very dense, they don't have space in the in the upper branches of tree, so shadows looks like giant stone or something like that. Like on shape.
I've researched numerous tree apps (tree[d], nplant, xfrog, etc), and solutions in packages I use (modo, maya, painteffects, etc)
So far I'm really disappointed with the results
ngPlant actually came on top (plus it's free hah) it has really nice leaf placement and sub branch control, but the most annoying thing it can't really use custom geo properly and you can't curl up the leaf like that texture you posted ...
Atm I'm doing the branch texture via modo render, and placing them manually via instances
I think is 2-3 hours to put all the instances
Branch texture is something like this (branch via ngPlant, leafs & render in modo)
I think the leaf placement is utter crap but the fact I get a normal map and leaf material/source control is nice
When you are making foliage, there is something like Padding Edge. When you applied this texture with the black backround in the enigne, there will be black border around the leafs. To get rid of that border, you can make a layer under the leafs and branch, and fill it with the earth-green color or something like that. Best way to get nice padding edge in my opinion is to:
group all layers that you have in PS into one group: ao, gradients, color variation, diffuse;
then duplicate this layer;
place it below original group;
merge this group;
use gausian blur with high value;
copy layer and place it below;
use gausian blur with high value;
repeat untill fill all canvas;
I think we should not spam inside of someone thread
Your branch is pretty solid as a base, but I think Mr. Significant got a good point.
Instead of throwing leaves planes out and hope for the best, is good to get some refs and plan the layout first.
Maybe not for this model if you moved on, but something good to keep in mind for future ?