Answered: How do I use the leaf scans from Megascans
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I'm new to the 3D world so this question may seem silly to most of you. I'm trying really hard to understand photorealistic texturing (specifically for plants/trees). I have watched videos from gnomon workshop detailing how to create the plants, trees, etc. I feel like I have a basic understanding of the concept of scanning/creating my own leaf textures but I've run into a problem. The tutorials explain how to set up the uv's (using a mel script) so that you can use a 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 diffuse map to add variety to your leaves in paintFx. I've been successful with that so I decided to check out megascans for some better quality leaf scans. When I downloaded some of them, I noticed that the maps aren't broken up into distinct quadrants like I had been making. They are just all bunched together in the 0-1 space. Maybe it's a stupid question but I'm really having a hard time understanding how to use the leaf scans from megascans. I also can't seem to get the ground textures to look good either (definitely not like the stuff I'm seeing other people create)...but I guess I'll worry about that another day. Any advice or suggested websites to help would be greatly appreciated. I've tried searching google but can't find a "detailed" explanation of how to use the downloaded leaf scans.
Replies
The best way to use our atlases is actually rather simple! In your modeling package of choice create a square polygonal plane.
Then apply the megascans foliage you'd like to use onto the plane with transparency enabled, now using your programs "Cut" or "slice" tool, simply cut out the pieces you'd like to use.
A good idea is to add a few extra polygons to your cutouts if it means you can get a closer cut to the plants themselves, avoid leaving big empty areas as when rendering these empty areas will create what we call "overdraw" and is a big preformance hog.
Hope that helps you out, let me know if you have any further questions regarding the subject!
//Linus
Thanks,
Scott
I'm not a Maya user, so I can't assist you with this query. I suspect what you're experiencing is probably due to not setting up your material for proper display in the viewport. The Technical Talk subsection should be able to assist you with this!