Do people still create trees like this?

einnemee

Hi, I am a beginner teaching myself how to use Maya and create game environments/ architectural visualisations. I've been trying to find a way that I can create low poly trees to use in my work, but I am struggling to find the best way to do this. I want to be able to create the trees from scratch and have the creative freedom to make many different tree types, without crashing my computer, but also creating a convincing and realistic look. I've found this tutorial on YouTube from 2011 and was wondering if this is still a current way of making trees? https://youtu.be/WfQ1sgpAzFU?t=283 This was my first attempt at some low poly trees - I know they aren't great but wondering if this technique is worth refining: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rAyZDE



I also wanted to understand what is the industry standard for trees in games, is it SpeedTree? Would you expect to see this kind of quality trees in an environment artist portfolio? 

Any advice on where to start would be very much appreciated! Thank you.

Eric Chadwick

Please embed

https://polycount.com/discussion/215993/how-to-embed-youtube

https://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#make

https://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#images

Images are embedded here all the time; it's the expectation. The more clicks you ask people to open, the more likely they will simply move on to another topic.

Hope this helps you.

einnemee

Eric Chadwick said:

Please embed

https://polycount.com/discussion/215993/how-to-embed-youtube

https://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#make

https://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#images

Images are embedded here all the time; it's the expectation. The more clicks you ask people to open, the more likely they will simply move on to another topic.

Hope this helps you.

Hi Eric, thanks for the heads up and I've edited the post now. 

gnoop

https://youtu.be/mIe0ApFTmr8

Some people still do trees like that and I think they are better looking than many  naive style Speed tree ones that  I saw in many games.    With noticeable switch into even not multi angle  imposters but rather single plane builboard

Although I have no idea how the shader is working there.  Seems like foliage cards are having some height  texture with shadows being    built  in  screen space.

icegodofhungary

Here are some "current gen" examples.

Horizon Zero Dawn (don't mind the tech talk there's a short piece on tree creation towards the end):

https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdc2018/presentations/gilbert_sanders_between_tech_and.pdf

Here the bottoms of the tree have more detailed meshes because that's closer to the player. As the tree goes up, the trunk mesh gets simpler and it leans on textures for the details. The larger branches that are closer to the ground have actual geometry. Smaller branches are just part of the cards. Leaves are on cards too. The 2011 example you posted is actually used for their highest LOD.

Dark Souls Remaster:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/48kzzq

Same vibe here. Detail goes where it's needed. Cards are used for smaller things and things farther away from the player.

Assasains Creed Valhala:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YebdDd

Again, same general idea. The small sticks and branches are cards. There's a lot of detail put into the parts of the tree to which the player gets close. There isn't just a simple tree trunk mesh, it's that plus moss or mushrooms and smaller foliage.

God of War:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DPl3e

All these do pretty much the same thing with slight pipeline differences. Now there's nothing wrong with the example you posted if you're doing something where that method suffices. If the player isn't getting too close and it looks good where you use it, then it's fine. The examples I posted are for high production third person games where you can walk right up to trees. You wouldn't use so much geo and texture detail on trees in a racing sim or top-down strategy game. Or if you do a small level in an urban area with no trees nearby but off in the distance.

But the principles of foliage are pretty much the same across the board. Use your detail where it counts. Mix cards and geo to get the effect you want.

gnoop

icegodofhungary said:

Here are some "current gen" examples.

Horizon Zero Dawn (don't mind the tech talk there's a short piece on tree creation towards the end):

https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdc2018/presentations/gilbert_sanders_between_tech_and.p 

Does anyone  know  what they mean  with + fading in bilboard.    A single texture billboard  or  multi view angle imposter  in their lod section?   And why it's something still in X shape in last lod?

Also do they use special  distance gradient texture  instead of  alpha  with  the shader calculating  actual alpha test edge  on the fly with a shift for distant mips?  

icegodofhungary

gnoop said:

icegodofhungary said:

Here are some "current gen" examples.

Horizon Zero Dawn (don't mind the tech talk there's a short piece on tree creation towards the end):

https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdc2018/presentations/gilbert_sanders_between_tech_and.p 

Does anyone  know  what they mean  with + fading in bilboard.    A single texture billboard  or  multi view angle imposter  in their lod section?   And why it's something still in X shape in last lod?

Also do they use special  distance gradient texture  instead of  alpha  with  the shader calculating  actual alpha test edge  on the fly with a shift for distant mips?  

I don't have any technical experience so idk. I'm not quite sure I understand the SDF thing exactly but it does help with generating alphas for mips. Because the image contains the distances from the edge as pixel values, rather than just a binary mask,  you can recover a more accurate alpha from that data when compressed. A regular alpha gets its edges aliased too much and that leads to less accurate alphas at farther LODs?

gnoop

 

icegodofhungary said:

I don't have any technical experience so idk. I'm not quite sure I understand the SDF thing exactly but it does help with generating alphas for mips. Because the image contains the distances from the edge as pixel values, rather than just a binary mask,  you can recover a more accurate alpha from that data when compressed. A regular alpha gets its edges aliased too much and that leads to less accurate alphas at farther LODs?

yeah. I agree it looks like a cool idea.   Still I am not sure , for final result it goes as modified binary mask still for alpha test only  or they  render actual translucent pixels on the edges?     Just a few on the very edge?    So another render pass / buffer image?

poopipe

The distance field in the alpha is used to compensate for mipping artefacts - so basically as icegodofhungary says. I forget whether they adjust the clip value based on distance or if custom mips do all the work for them (itll depend how well the alphas hold up to compression). 

I would expect they use a alpha test with TAA dithering to get soft edges - this gives you a pretty good result for almost free (I suspect a second alpha-blended pass would be prohibitively expensive given the screen coverage) 

gnoop

Thanks poopipe  .       I heard of that  TAA ( temporary somthing, right?)     but never actually learned what it is exactly.  A special screen buffer for that is still necessary?   

Obscura

Temporal anti aliasing.

gnoop

Thanks Obscura

poopipe

If I understand it right it uses a sort of buffer that stores differences in screen position of objects over a few frames to work out what's moved and then selectively apples antialiasing .  Ive not really looked under the hood though so that's likely not a very good explanation

gnoop

poopipe said:

If I understand it right it uses a sort of buffer that stores differences in screen position of objects over a few frames to work out what's moved and then selectively apples antialiasing .  Ive not really looked under the hood though so that's likely not a very good explanation

Thanks poopipe,  it's still a bit of info i need.      

I can say I dislike what  typical speed tree  looks like especially what's really possible in a racing game .       For a certain  quite distinctive  naive style.     

Seems  every  good looking trees in modern games are not  simply speed tree but  rather  their  own   know how with a small bits of info rarely available.