Best approach to creating foliage?
I recently proposed my capstone project idea to the class for my graduating demo reel. I quickly blocked out my idea for an environment scene that will showcase prop modelling as well as a static mesh of a beast within it, which will all be displayed in UDK. The overall composition here is more or less what I've got in mind. As you can see, there will be a lot of rocks and natural terrain formations, so i'll need to use a variety of foliage to tie everything together in the scene. Stitching the "seams", so to speak. I'm not familiar with creating natural looking vegetation, which I will need. For 2D grass at least, I know that I can vertex paint a tiling texture onto rock meshes, as well as the equivalent for landscape/terrain.
My question however, is what the most common/efficient/"best" approaches to foliage are, for shrubs, bushes, protruding grass etc. I might even consider a tree if my research makes it a viable option. Keep in mind that I use Maya. If you guys have any tips, advice, tutorials, or threads in particular that you can share, that would be great. I really need to work out the procedures I'm unfamiliar with before tackling this, so now is the time.
My question however, is what the most common/efficient/"best" approaches to foliage are, for shrubs, bushes, protruding grass etc. I might even consider a tree if my research makes it a viable option. Keep in mind that I use Maya. If you guys have any tips, advice, tutorials, or threads in particular that you can share, that would be great. I really need to work out the procedures I'm unfamiliar with before tackling this, so now is the time.
Replies
For trunk textures it depends. If your trees are generic enough you can do the same. If your trees are supposed to be highly stylized then model the trunk first before you texture it.