Okey, need some serious help with my tree leaf material and model. Looks like crap in UDK >.< Can't really say it looks that much better in Maya, but still..
The biggest thing I'd recommend for the leaf texture is to spread out the leaves more and make them smaller. At the moment there isn't much opportunity in the texture to see 'through' the texture as the leaves are too close and too dense. For the material in UDK try to use the transmission mask and colour. Leaves are translucent and generally allow a good amount of light to pass through them .
Also, I'd redo the tree. At the moment it looks very unnatural. The size of the leaves make it look very small and at the moment it's hard to tell where the growth is coming from. Trees generally spread out more and leaves grow from the ends of the branches. I don't know if I'm saying this right but leaves are generally denser around the end of the branches.
I'd model out a basic tree trunk shape with a couple of the large, main limbs (possibly using a bare tree as reference) and then use an alpha plane of a branch along with an alpha plane of leaves to fill the rest of the tree out. Since I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining this here, here and here
Notice how sparse the leaf growth is at the base of each limb and how it gets denser the further out it gets. Also notice how far the branches spread out from the center. One thing that could also help is playing around in SpeedTree and seeing how the models turn out and then going back and modeling it again in Maya (just a personal opinion, but I think you learn alot more this way then using SpeedTree which is a powerful tool) .
Just some suggestions.
Edit: I'd also read some of the threads in the wiki here, here and here
Agreed. Assuming this is a maple tree, the leaves don't start sprouting off until the ends of the branches. You seem to have more leaves closer to the trunk than the outside.
On the speedtree route, that program is brilliant. It not only can be super useful for making realistically correct trees, but it makes you think about the hierarchy of trees in a whole new way. I read the documentation in half hour and the program is super easy once you've done that. I would suggest modeling a maple in speed tree for reference, then do it in your 3d app.
A new tree with a new combined branch/leaf texture. Please tell me what you think.
This tree is supposed to be pretty small, like the once in the foreground of the concept. The one it the concept has allot of bare branches and stuff to, maybe add the to.
I tried the transmission mask/color attributes out, i get what it's supposed to do, but i couldn't get any nice results out of it. Should the leafs transmission mask be close to 100%?
to predicatable a patern to the leaf pattern mess it up a touch make it much more random
secondly create a proper leaf plane with four or nine polys give it some nice curvature and make sure you cut down on overdraw...IE get rid of as much alpha'd out space as possible
Try making 3 types of alpha cards that use the same texture. One card has a bunch of leaves, maybe 5 - 6, and another with 2 or 3, and a single leaf one. It might make it easier to break it up a little.
Try making 3 types of alpha cards that use the same texture. One card has a bunch of leaves, maybe 5 - 6, and another with 2 or 3, and a single leaf one. It might make it easier to break it up a little.
I did that with my first try, didn't turn out great I think i'll stick with doing a whole branch. Thx anyway (:
My few points would be, maybe creating some copies of the tree with slight color variations, it feels too bland with them all being the same color. The tree trunk and branches feel too boxxy and unnatural. The stone wall on your doesnt seem to have it's normal poping out and feels flat. Maybe even a more intense spec might help it out too.
I'd also consider making higher poly grass thats closer to the screen.
Other than those, it's really coming along well! Keep it up mang.
With overdraw you mean fill out the whole 512 texture?
I'll get back to the branch and leaf to (: Thx
nope use the extra polys to have as little empty space around the main alpha structure as pos
current trees foliage are looking much better but maybe use a vertex channel to add variation as BlvdNights said
trunks need work where it splits into the main branches doesnt llok natural...i would have the branches split off one ata time...also the main trunk looks thicker than all the branches coming off which looks odd
ironically the most complex object is in the back ground. there fore the thing u put
the most work in wont be looked at with as much scrutiny as simple things like grass blades. and foliage right next to the camera. What ever is wrong with the building in the back ground can wait. you need to concentrate on your foreground. I think theres more water in the original. IN fact the guy is standing in water. also the first image is gloomy. while this one looks like "the top of the Morning" lol. also ROOTS. You need to model roots coming out of the water. Think Swamp or marsh. And add a nice cube map to the water.
Agreed with what itsmadman said.
Also, Maybe this is a really stupid oversight but in the concept I don't see any water? Or that much water, more puddles here and there. Right now where you have placed the water is around where those two people are walking. Maybe this is really stupid of me.
In the concept a lot of what is creating the gloominess is the fog and the mist so adding that I think would go a long way. I would get some really simple geometry in there to represent the mountains in the background (re:very simple geometry).
Also, I think a much denser grass texture would fill the foreground out a bit more - it almost looks as though you are using a mesh for the grass.
The pumpkins look good and will be great to scatter around the place.
The biggest thing I could suggest at the moment is tweaking your lighting and shadows. The concept does a great job with the contrast of the foreground and the background. The foreground stays pretty dark and leads you into a much lighter middle ground.
Okey, five month and some pretty big fuck ups it's time to wrap this puppy!
I'll start of by getting all my props and textures to work good. Get an other house in there and then i'm gonna work on my presentation, camera angles, better light, better fog, better ground, the backdrop.
I really need to get this to and end, I can't just leave stuff unfinished. It must be my biggest enemy.
I just hope my patched computer can handle it. Sitting on an old geforce 6200 atm. Gonna be interesting. I'll be back soon! PRMS!
get in there dude and finish this! Your next post better have pictures!
That got to me We should have a rule here saying that you can't post without a picture :P
Updated the roof brick tiles texture, wow, and added the planks. I've also split the uves back and stuff that's not really visible.
I'm on a old GeForce 6200 something atm so i can't really render anything then diffuse atm. Sucks, but yeah.
I know i have some serious repeating in that roof texture, it started as an simple test. But i think i'll go with it. I'll go back and refine it, prmz! :P
So i'm planing on a few plants and smaller rocks around the house. The front piece is going to get an own texture. The planks is just there so that it's not white atm. The specular for the planks, beams, door and barrel ain't done yet. There's gonna be chains to
Getting there. Good progress on the texturing. Just some general dirt and other props will be great now. Like rope hanging from paces, some dirty washing and washing bucket maybe. They other thing is on the walls, might be nice to add a few polys to have some of the stones pop out on the edges.
It's ment to be a tavern, so cloth and stuff dosn't really make that much sense. I'm thinking of a fire bowl-thingy in the front tough. Would be cool to have smoke from the chimney to..
I've done a stone. Rebaked the barrel, the beam, the window and the door.. I've also done a concrete texture. There's still a specular left to do.
texturing in that house is starting to look BOMB!
I think you should add some geo to that roof. Pronounce those curved shingles or whatever they are. It may get a little expensive in polys, but I think it'd be worth the geo, and this i a portfolio piece anyways right? XD
Replies
Let me know what you think! It's my second tree or something (:
Also, I'd redo the tree. At the moment it looks very unnatural. The size of the leaves make it look very small and at the moment it's hard to tell where the growth is coming from. Trees generally spread out more and leaves grow from the ends of the branches. I don't know if I'm saying this right but leaves are generally denser around the end of the branches.
I'd model out a basic tree trunk shape with a couple of the large, main limbs (possibly using a bare tree as reference) and then use an alpha plane of a branch along with an alpha plane of leaves to fill the rest of the tree out. Since I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining this here, here and here
Notice how sparse the leaf growth is at the base of each limb and how it gets denser the further out it gets. Also notice how far the branches spread out from the center. One thing that could also help is playing around in SpeedTree and seeing how the models turn out and then going back and modeling it again in Maya (just a personal opinion, but I think you learn alot more this way then using SpeedTree which is a powerful tool) .
Just some suggestions.
Edit: I'd also read some of the threads in the wiki here, here and here
On the speedtree route, that program is brilliant. It not only can be super useful for making realistically correct trees, but it makes you think about the hierarchy of trees in a whole new way. I read the documentation in half hour and the program is super easy once you've done that. I would suggest modeling a maple in speed tree for reference, then do it in your 3d app.
A new tree with a new combined branch/leaf texture. Please tell me what you think.
This tree is supposed to be pretty small, like the once in the foreground of the concept. The one it the concept has allot of bare branches and stuff to, maybe add the to.
I tried the transmission mask/color attributes out, i get what it's supposed to do, but i couldn't get any nice results out of it. Should the leafs transmission mask be close to 100%?
secondly create a proper leaf plane with four or nine polys give it some nice curvature and make sure you cut down on overdraw...IE get rid of as much alpha'd out space as possible
I'll get back to the branch and leaf to (: Thx
I did that with my first try, didn't turn out great
Pretty much it. Now i'll go get some well deserved sleep. 30 hours awake, and counting
My few points would be, maybe creating some copies of the tree with slight color variations, it feels too bland with them all being the same color. The tree trunk and branches feel too boxxy and unnatural. The stone wall on your doesnt seem to have it's normal poping out and feels flat. Maybe even a more intense spec might help it out too.
I'd also consider making higher poly grass thats closer to the screen.
Other than those, it's really coming along well! Keep it up mang.
nope use the extra polys to have as little empty space around the main alpha structure as pos
current trees foliage are looking much better but maybe use a vertex channel to add variation as BlvdNights said
trunks need work where it splits into the main branches doesnt llok natural...i would have the branches split off one ata time...also the main trunk looks thicker than all the branches coming off which looks odd
ironically the most complex object is in the back ground. there fore the thing u put
the most work in wont be looked at with as much scrutiny as simple things like grass blades. and foliage right next to the camera. What ever is wrong with the building in the back ground can wait. you need to concentrate on your foreground. I think theres more water in the original. IN fact the guy is standing in water. also the first image is gloomy. while this one looks like "the top of the Morning" lol. also ROOTS. You need to model roots coming out of the water. Think Swamp or marsh. And add a nice cube map to the water.
Also, Maybe this is a really stupid oversight but in the concept I don't see any water? Or that much water, more puddles here and there. Right now where you have placed the water is around where those two people are walking. Maybe this is really stupid of me.
In the concept a lot of what is creating the gloominess is the fog and the mist so adding that I think would go a long way. I would get some really simple geometry in there to represent the mountains in the background (re:very simple geometry).
Also, I think a much denser grass texture would fill the foreground out a bit more - it almost looks as though you are using a mesh for the grass.
The pumpkins look good and will be great to scatter around the place.
The biggest thing I could suggest at the moment is tweaking your lighting and shadows. The concept does a great job with the contrast of the foreground and the background. The foreground stays pretty dark and leads you into a much lighter middle ground.
Keep going, it's coming along really well.
The water was basically just a test, i'll remove it. I'll try to put out puddles thogh. Don't really know how yet, i'll see.
The trees boxiness is an problem and i'll solve it, that for that (:
Stuff that all ready have planed to put in is a huge mountain far back and a better fog.
The light will absolutely be looked over. I need to fully get my head around light mass, is it possible?
Thanks for the feedback!
I'll start of by getting all my props and textures to work good. Get an other house in there and then i'm gonna work on my presentation, camera angles, better light, better fog, better ground, the backdrop.
I really need to get this to and end, I can't just leave stuff unfinished. It must be my biggest enemy.
I just hope my patched computer can handle it. Sitting on an old geforce 6200 atm. Gonna be interesting. I'll be back soon! PRMS!
I just notice a nice clash of colours between the very dry yellow grass as the terrain texture and the very green grass mesh's.
Pretty much concludes the art test to
Yeah, all the ground textures and the grass are really awful. I'm gonna do some different kinds of grass in dry yellow..
That got to me
Updated the roof brick tiles texture, wow, and added the planks. I've also split the uves back and stuff that's not really visible.
I'm on a old GeForce 6200 something atm so i can't really render anything then diffuse atm. Sucks, but yeah.
I know i have some serious repeating in that roof texture, it started as an simple test. But i think i'll go with it. I'll go back and refine it, prmz! :P
Tring some shit out, tell me what you think!
I've done a stone. Rebaked the barrel, the beam, the window and the door.. I've also done a concrete texture. There's still a specular left to do.
http://www.vnyhlen.se/post/5040261287/tavern
I think you should add some geo to that roof. Pronounce those curved shingles or whatever they are. It may get a little expensive in polys, but I think it'd be worth the geo, and this i a portfolio piece anyways right? XD