How do you make cutout plant texures
polycounter lvl 3
I need to do a lot of cutout plant textures and would like to hear other peoples methods of cutting and photographing vegetation.
I have been using a white background and the "select color range" function in Photoshop. i would NEVER recommend this technique as it is very fiddly; one fern frond would take at-least half an hour.
I have been using a white background and the "select color range" function in Photoshop. i would NEVER recommend this technique as it is very fiddly; one fern frond would take at-least half an hour.
Replies
This, seriously. When I did a vegetation heavy project recently, I spent a solid day running around outside and gathering photosource. I brought a white sheet of plastic and a white bedsheet with me as a neutral background so masking would be easier.
Then I ended up going 100% handpainted, but MAN, the reference was great. :poly142:
I think a blue background would be much easier for masking.
I was concerned about blue reflections and bounce light on the plants, since I was using a physical backdrop with just sunlight. In a more controlled lighting situation, chroma blue probably would work better.
What's even better than that is actually planning out what you're doing ahead of time so you don't spend an entire day compiling texture source and instead end up handpainting the scene 100%. :poly136:
Plus Octane render
Not for a grass and ground cover although
It definitely takes longer to initially set up for sure but you can get exactly what you want out of it.
Good photo reference is still essential and it comes in handy when making the diffuse textures.
1. Build your in-game models. You should already have a texture and triangle budget so you know how many leaf/branch variations you need.
2. Take photos of foliage in as neutral lighting conditions as possible.
3. Cut out a few nice leaves from photo.
4. Use leaves from 2 as reference to model 3D leaves.
5. Possibly re-use reference cut outs as diffuse texture for your 3D high poly leaves. Touch up if necessary (remove unwanted highlights/shadows). Or paint from scratch.
6. Duplicate and tweak leaf models to make more variations.
7. Model some branches and twigs to fit the shape and size of the final in-game model's alpha planes.
8. Use an "object painting" script to place leaves on your branches. Use reference to make sure they look natural. Make sure they still fit within your intended alpha plane render to texture target mesh.
9. Render your 3D foliage textures onto your target mesh.
10. Apply rendered texture(s) to your game models. Be happy you didn't spend an eternity trying to select and cut out foliage in photoshop.
If you take a look at the palm tree in my ancient portfolio, that's sort of an example of using the technique I'm talking about. The planter boxes in my portfolio on the other hand are using cutout photo source foliage. I'm much less satisfied with the planters.
Some tutorials here
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Foliage
It helps if you've got access to things like the bend, twist, and taper (IIRC?) modifiers in Max for leaf variation and shape control. There may be other ways to do it FFDs, soft selection + action centers + moving vertices. It's been a looooooooong time since I modeled anything...
You mainly just want to capture the silhouette (alpha) and curvature (AO and normals) of the leaves (and stems, twigs, branches). Sometimes leaves are thick and have edge highlights so you want a bit of a bevel on the edges too.