Hanging Roots for decaying interior environment

Oblivion2500

How do I make hanging roots for say a interior environment that is decaying or a cave? Now, The ceiling is not super high, I don't want it to be too obvious that it's just a 2D plane facing the player with some wind animation. I use Maya and Photoshop for making stuff for UE4. So, any tips would be great.

Joost

Depending on the type of roots you could use geo instead of alpha. Or use several alphad chunks, similar to this tutorial http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1312273#post1312273

Oblivion2500

Joost wrote: »

Depending on the type of roots you could use geo instead of alpha. Or use several alphad chunks, similar to this tutorial http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1312273#post1312273

I have already checked out that thread. Its not quite what I'm looking for as they don't really react well to lighting and it's too 2D looking for my environment. How can I model roots inside of maya that is not too high poly with a simple material/texture?

Joost

Got reference for what you're after?

Oblivion2500

Joost wrote: »

Got reference for what you're after?

Here's an idea of what I'm looking for.

Obscura

I would say a mix of geo, alpha, and parallax can work fine. Also a modular approach would be recommended. Maybe spline meshes with blueprints inside Unreal could work too.

Joost

Yeah I'd use a mix. Geo for thick branches and then some alphas for small branches. Similar to how you'd make a tree.

Oblivion2500

Joost wrote: »

Yeah I'd use a mix. Geo for thick branches and then some alphas for small branches. Similar to how you'd make a tree.

So I should try to make it in speedtree? What kind of texture should I be looking for? smooth bark?

Joost

I'd just do it in Max and/or Zbrush. Though I guess you could use speedtree.
Look at reference pictures for the texture.

feanix

Something that will help a lot to make it look less like a plane is having a texture with a lot of negative space and having several planes that branch from a coplanar source so yu get some parallax when you move around the roots. The human brain will go a long way to filling in the rest and making it convincing.

Oblivion2500

feanix wrote: »

Something that will help a lot to make it look less like a plane is having a texture with a lot of negative space and having several planes that branch from a coplanar source so yu get some parallax when you move around the roots. The human brain will go a long way to filling in the rest and making it convincing.

Can you give me a example?