Problems with lowPoly tree

Boyordo

Hello all, first post here.

Have done alot of models but never foliage and trees of a more low-poly sort for ingame use.

I have encountered a problem:



The issue is that, the picture to the left has full incandescence - So it does not show any black plains. On the picture to the right i get black plains.
I do not want this.

I have searched the forums. Saw Andy Zibits tutorial, but i cannot turn all my normals in that way. As my planes are not as simple and in the same angle, all of them. They dont turn up as bad in a engine, but still not as desired. Anyone here that can help me out?

The tree is unoptimized, just learning the ropes, and is currently 1500tris in total and trunk not even uv-mapped yet.

My main thing is making the branches. I am trying to recreate the style of trees as they have in modern warfare and the dirt engine (well at least in operation flashpoint 2). They suit my current projects engine the best. Fairly simple ones but they work..... so, i also ask if anyone has tips or tutorial links to creating trees of this fashion.

Thanks beforhand guys and gals!

Eric Chadwick

Solution depends on your modeling software, and your engine. I solved this in 3dsmax by using the Edit Normals modifier, and the game engine had support for user-edited vertex normals. Here's a picture.

Another solution would be to disable lighting completely (like your left tree), and use vertex color to add shading. You can make it ambient-occlusion-like if you just darken the interior edges of the leaf planes. If you make it directional, then it kind of prevents you from rotating instances of the tree in your game.

Boyordo

EricChadwick: Thanks for the tip, will try it out. Have been battling the normals a bit but not so much the vertex normals yet.
Ah and for software, im using maya.

Your point about baking is true, i still want to be able t rotate the instances. Well, back to battling the vertex normals.

Justin Meisse

Well there's a max script I've seen a guy at Mythic use but I can't seem to find it, I thought it was one of Blur's. It was called Normals Thief - he created a large geosphere around his tree and the script aligned all the leaf normals to the sphere's normals.

Eric Chadwick

Thanks Justin, cool script! I'm interested in trying this one out.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/normal-thief

Michael Knubben

Ooh, that would be fantastic for trees, Justin! Thanks for linking to it, Eric.
I had to work on a project a while back where I had to create a tree, and I was halfway through hand-tweaking the normals before I was told not to do so... there was no support for it.
Sure self-illumination 'fixes' the problem too, but in the least elegant way possible, and I believe the little bit of work in tweaking the normals pays off so much, it's silly not to do so. As long as it's supported, of course.

Boyordo

Thanks A LOT guys!
I will try this out tonight. I will also do a try of replicating this script in maya if it works, to avoid exporting between 3Ds and maya. Anyone have a tip for doing this? WEll, will try on my own anyway, will be easier when i now can have the script in 3DS tod see how it´s done.

Thansk again.

ivars

In Maya, just use Mesh > Transfer attributes, and set it to transfer normal data.

Boyordo

Ivars:
Thanks for the tip, i tried that but i get the same - not good - result as with the script. Will post a image of the issue later today when i have time.

I get it to work ok when i do a good edit of the vertex normals on the branch object before i start duplicating it for use in the tree. Although it is not what i need, as i need a way to fix other artists trees also... and well some of them are built so i need a way to fast-fix the normals on the full "crown" of the tree.

What basically goes wrong is that some of the branches gets correct when i use a sphere around to align the vertex normals to, but some gets almost a opposite alignment so now full branch sections are black in some angels instead of just a few sharp planes.

Am i getting the idea wrong of how to do this? Just using a sphere around the crown of branches and then aligning, or should i use another method. I tried scaling the spehere to fit the general outline of the crowns shape, but it did do it a bit better but not much.

ivars

You should probably use more of a half sphere shape, unless you want some some branches to have their normals facing downwards.