Tips on Making Realistic Lowpoly Environments

voidlighthouse

hey! new here. i've been working on a 3dge project for a few years now, and i'm trying to learn how to make efficient lowpoly realistic environments. here's a look:

(render, i had to temporarily remove the mixed textures from my blender file exporter, and reveling in ray traced ambient occlusion, i'll be hand painting that later)

i think there's a lot that can be learned from the masters on this forum, so i'm posting to get critiques and advice! in particular, i've been struggling with tree canopies:

(a larch tree, around 680 tris, shooting for 512 max)

generally, i think i'd like to learn how to create more efficient geometry. how can i make the canopy look more full and uniform while keeping the tricount low? i've considered adding some cross shrub shapes (like x-grass) to fill out volume, but the silhouette for the larch branches in particular is so distinctive.

secondarily, it would be really cool to find literature that could help on this subject. newer computers have no concern for polycount, so old efficient strategies have faded to obscurity. which textbooks did you read when you were learning? :^)

Eric Chadwick

We have lots of examples and links on our wiki
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Foliage#Foliage_Examples

voidlighthouse

fantastic page, these are wonderful resources. thanks for linking! :>