make a good low polygon tree

Genjix

Hi!

Probably this has been asked many times, but I couldn't find much information anywhere... I know the classic cookie cutter sprites, and the branch-plane extrusion method. But this doesn't seem to cut it when I look at the SpeedTree screenshots.

I have never had the chance to look at a SpeedTree model and was wondering where I could find them. Also if any of you had any good tips or tutorials?

Thanks for your time.

JDinges

I always liked this method-

http://bk-coffeehouse.cottages.polycount.com//tut/realtimetree1.html

Neox

Well it depends on what game you are aiming for, a rts game could definitely have more profit of speedtrees billboards then a first person shooter, because the sprite trick will be obvious while you are directly under a tree.

JKMakowka

Today I would use this nifty little prog.:
http://ngplant.sourceforge.net/
You can add groups of leaves as billboards and thus can create results *very* similar to speedtree.
Don't be fooled by the example pictures, as these are either programmers art or aimed at prerendered pictures.

mikebart

There's some info and a tree model download here that you might find useful, I've baked the branch and leaf textures from high poly models, feel free to pull it apart and have a proper look at it.
Theres also some info for a method of adding ambient shadows to foliage via a vertex blend for doom3/quake4 that we got looking pretty good over at www.doom3world.org.

Im not claiming to be some kind of tree expert, but if theres one thing I leaned about making trees is that you need good references, images found on google.com quite often are'nt enough to really grasp the shape and structure of a tree, it helps to have multiple photos of the same tree around that same time period, otherwise you might start mixing seasonal differences onto the same model wich can look quite wrong. I'd advise getting out and actually photographing some trees yourself, good references online are quite often hard to find.
Also crack open call of duty or any other games you have wich have good trees in them and study the texture maps and how they are layed out onto a UV space, I learnt alot from doing this.

Makkon

JDinges: That is a nice tut. I think I might give it a try.

Genjix

Thanks very much all. Those suggestions are very nice

ngplant looks very nice, but how can I make the leaves as a billboard and reduce the poly count?

JKMakowka

Simply select a branch and click "billboard" to use the leaves as billboards

Oh and the newes version supports manual LODs btw.

Ryno

For quick work, I will sometimes use renderable splines with generate mapping coordinates checked (Max) to do trunk and branches, rather than fiddling around with lofts. You can change the segments any time you like without much hassle.

Panupat

Can Maya loft geometry the way this image did? With multiple profiles and only 1 path?
http://bk-coffeehouse.cottages.polycount.com//tut/treeimage/image003.jpg