FOLIAGE ( :D) map - WIP
polycounter lvl 5
Hey everyone! I wanted to show off my love of foliage, and my progress on making this little forest scene. It is still WIP and I will continually be adding to the scene everyday. Any advice/feedback/crit is EXTREMELY WELCOME.
I would love to make tutorials as well or give any advice to other foliage modelers. In fact I am hoping this thread will bring me closer to people who share the same love of foliage as I do, because that would be badass. :poly142:
The scene is rendered inside UDK, and the foliage asset creation is done in 3ds MAX.
This is from a separate scene, but this was from one of my older foliage environments.
PLAN OF ATTACK!
WAY MORE GROUND BREAKUP:
- more ground textures
- needs SPECULAR VARIANCE
- HEIGHT VARIANCE
- rocks or cliffs to hide horizon
- smaller plants
Need to vertex paint trees and add ivy/clovers to them.
I would love to make tutorials as well or give any advice to other foliage modelers. In fact I am hoping this thread will bring me closer to people who share the same love of foliage as I do, because that would be badass. :poly142:
The scene is rendered inside UDK, and the foliage asset creation is done in 3ds MAX.
This is from a separate scene, but this was from one of my older foliage environments.
PLAN OF ATTACK!
WAY MORE GROUND BREAKUP:
- more ground textures
- needs SPECULAR VARIANCE
- HEIGHT VARIANCE
- rocks or cliffs to hide horizon
- smaller plants
Need to vertex paint trees and add ivy/clovers to them.
Replies
I think maybe some mushrooms would add a cool variance in the ground clutter/ break up ground to tree area.
Thanks for the feedback Grag! I totally agree with yah, and I modeled out a couple mushrooms! I also went ahead a made a couple clover variations. Lemme know what you think! I still think the ground needs more variety!
Any other thoughts or suggestions??
I appreciate the help by the way.
Also maybe some fallen trees or large rocks? Bears can cause some serious damage in forests, and I feel like that would make this place seem more real.
really great work!
Trees not looks good. The leafes have lack of color. It's rooted, desaturated green. Leafes have more life in it.
Also the trunk is very dark. And add some height variation on the ground. There is almost straight line in horizon.
I suppose that is your work:
http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles20/2143763/projects/7270883/hd_bdf3ef45fdf0a78c012d3150c1416823.jpg
This looks waaay better that this work what are you working on.
Subbed. Will look what you will do on this.
That will be next plan and I will get started on that ASAP!
For now:
Significant, I really agree that the leaves lacked color, so I added some saturation back into the,, and I think it really helped sell the trees more. Do you think it's too much, a good level, or I can crank it up more? I also made the ground slightly greener to match the more ambient green light coming off the plants/trees.
Yes that was my old foliage scene and I definitely agree it is better. I will go back to sculpting some trees with roots and really vertex paint them nice with moss/mushrooms growing out of it!
I promise to make this EVEN BETTER than that scene, since I have learned so much more.
Keep the feedback coming guys, cause I'm definitely loving your input and the direction it's going!
It also now looks too overgrown for a barren/scrub forest. There are plenty of spare forests out in the real world, though maybe with hills and mountains behind them. Instead of just putting in more trees at the front, just have the forest extend farther into the distance.
I also added some mountain cards and added some rough rocks in a attempt to hide the horizon line. It is still a first pass on that however.
I pushed the directional light more and added some volumetric fog to it to help it get a nice light shaft. Lemme know if this works or not. I'm a sucker for these :P
But seriously, keep the feedback coming
This is very chaotic scene. For me. Look: even in dense forest like yours, here is some space, it's looks more naturall:
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/326/2/0/Deep_inside_a_forest_____by_hasoon004.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Aokigahara_forest_01.jpg
http://carolparafenko.com/forest%20interior%20oct%2009.jpg
http://1565today.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/trees_91.jpg
Also you can try to bring some contrast beetwen the trees and ground. Maybe thru the process chains if you are using UDK.
Now I did have a question for you, as I've been attempting some trees and grass lately myself...are you using the Blend_masked in your material? I tried to do blend_translucent, because I think leaves and plants all have a bit of translucency to them, but I could not find a way to control the opacity, whereas blend_masked is just opaque or not opaque.
I was also wondering about the lighting model you used in the material. Do you build a custom lighting model, or use one of the other ones?
And last one: are your normals for your tree canopies tweaked so that they are all pointing outwards, rather than left in a chaotic mess?
Also as said above, you can try to something like this with translucency:
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/06/Witcher-3-1.jpg
But it propably needs to rebuild your lightning model, and the models of trees too. But first answet the questions above, so we can try to push it more
Another little update:
This is a new tree sculpt for the cliffside that I will be adding. It is sitting at 2100 triangles. WIll post textures/ canopy when I finish them.
Update on scene:
Resculpted the ground to add height variation…which helped a ton!! Fixed the composition and added more space/ defined focal point. I also added some more plants/trees.
What are anyone's thoughts
Generally when I makes forests, I tend to place trees in clusters, which creates clearings where you can add more scenic content (and also lure players out in the open, if that's what you're going for : ).
Agreed on the evergreen needles.
They tend to a bitch to do in almost every game engine since the mip maps mess up the details.
One crit I have is the very sharp looking sticks and twigs you got going on on the bottom of the tree and in the middle on the ground. Kinda takes me outta the whole scene personally.
Maybe a dead tree stump in the middle there instead?
I completely agree synergy, those sharp sticks do look more distracting than adding ground breakup. I will def do a nice tree stump. WIll post pictures when I start that soon.
It might take a bit because my birthday is tomorrow, but I promise to bust ass again in a couple days
Now I want to go and make some trees
*edit*
Only request would be to get the tutorial image slightly larger since the max screenshots are tiny
I'll try that out sometime! Thank you!
Beisde that, I really love your latest update, the mood is great.
I too share a love in making foliage and I will use this for inspiration.
Keep it up!
To get the normal map for the leaf billboards to work correctly, you have to bake them a certain way. If you use this tutorial for max, it should turn out better.
http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=42206
If you use Maya, a render layer with the Normal preset can look pretty good.
I'm doing a dissertation that involves exterior environments and will find your write ups very useful when doing the art! Thanks so much, keep it up!
I'd really love to know more about painting the needles on to the branches. What system are you using for that? Is it a third party thing, or are you using something in Max for it?
Wow no one needs to buy this tutorial now because you have condensed it into a few images!
Couldn't have found this threat at a better time. Thank you!