Bradgate n Plants

Right, yesterday I went down to Bradgate in the hope to get reference snaps of the rockey terrain and how it interacts with the surrounding foliage and ground. Now obviously it still is winter at the moment (in photos it looked more like autumn) so it wouldnt technically be what I would use for my project but even so I thought it would help my design processes. Also popped over to Milton Mowbrey which had a little park but to be honest It wasnt all that useful.



Also went to a spot called Borrough Hill which was originally a hill fort, now only seen as the highest point in Leicestershire. Only the terrain remained.



Interesting imagery which ill no doubt use later on.
Today my plan was to try and model a few plants as i had never done them before. I will explore different ways of doing them. While in games you mainly see them as alpha planes but I would like to experiment with other ways.

Now I am by no means an expert on the various flowers that ill be doing in this level, my mother on the other hand is so I asked her to write down species which I could then look at and see how they are. (species present at summer/autumn).
Before I begin I will look around on the net and see what they look like! Flowers are not going to be my main focus in my level but little clumps of them with the various colours will aid artistically as well as realistically.

Dog Roses (ref from google search)

Managed to get a couple of shots of the leaves and the stem, didn't realize these had thorns also but.. they are roses after all.

Rosebay Willowherb


Codlins and cream

Bulrush/Typha


Oki ill leave it there for the time being, I think for modelling ill try the codlins and cream (stand alone flowers). I have got 1 theory for more complex plants for maybe ,modelling them straight then with bones rig them so I can vary the shapes and directions.

I think for the grass I will use alphas definatly but for the little plants an actual model may be good practise.





Experiment 1, using the lofting technique. This would work for the smaller of the flowers, not for a huge bush. The tricount is quite high here but that plant is seen more in clumps, if i was doing a small plant this would be fine.
Perhaps if i try a bush I could still have a couple of stems with heads on I can place. The head of the plant im pleased with, it instantly looked good. The texturing for the stem doesnt look realistic though, not entirely sure why.
Anyway Ill try another test using the same plant this time I think using 2 sided planes.



This is using that technique.. Hmm my thoughts on this.. It doesn't really work in my oppinion. It looks very fake to me compaired to cylinders. Still it was worth trying even if for background LOD plants, or plants which you cannot reach.

Anyway yeah, I had a quick look around for more weed plants (sort of low to the ground ones) Things like Dandelions.

(some sourcing)
http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/H-Flowers/Hawkbit,%20Autumn.htm

http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/G-Flowers/Groundsel,%20Heath.htm



So next step will be to try and modelling specific plants