trees

Trees,trees,trees,trees...Oak trees..

Right so I will be trying to model a tree with guidance from a tutorial,
I will be doing an Oak tree and have got a couple of texture shots of leaves but also an oak branch.
The idea with this tutorial is to make high poly models with textures applied and using some render to texture techniques to create the alpha texture.
So firs thing is first is to model the branches, the tutorial uses the graphite modelling tools to be able to make branches quite quickly (basically acts as a quick extrude tool) yet some things need tweaked afterwards.



So after the first section is now done its about connecting loops of edges and extruding out for more branches, but not too many should be done.


Ok so looking alright, next is to get the branch quite smooth looking by using a turbosmooth (this model is going to be used as a alpha so triangle count is out of the window for the moment) not actually done this properly before. On my first tree attempt i tried but I couldn't get the hang of it.

So the first branch was done and the idea now is to model the leaf for the specific sort of tree. Now I made textures previously from photos and what is to be done now is to apply the texture to a plane with a few segments and with the 'preserve uv's' tickbox so that the texture doesn't warp then basically moving vertices to the leaf to get its shape. Afterwards a symmetry modifier is applied to give the leaf a 'clay' look with a bit of substance then a turbosmooth modifier to get it nice and slick.

So that went alright, next is to use a FFD3x3x3 modifier and bend the model with the control points so it looks quite natural.




Ok so next is to duplicate the leaves and make a few variations with the FFD modifier. And make them smaller, the next stage was quite interesting again using a tool I never used before where you can 'paint' selected models onto another model which is dead handy for trees and so forth!

You can change the settings of how the models are painted with live results also so is a pretty good tool for this.

Apply a basic material to the branch for now and start on the other branch, and basically do the same thing all over again.




So its a trickey process as Im pretty new to tree modelling and the techniques for it I didn't fully understand so I ended up restarting this 2nd branch a few times, not to mention that my computer was struggling with the large amount of triangles, anyway managed to progress in the end by hiding what was on screen.



So yes this is it all done, my bark texture will be applied to the branch and this is now ready to have some render to texture action. Its quite a complicated process to go through but basically there will be a basematerial, an alpha, lighting, specular, colourvariation, alphaleaves, gradiant and a normal map. But first is to set up the scene.


SO here are all my maps, quite a few there!

And here is my texture map with all these maps merged and it works pretty well .


So now was a case of separating these sections, adding a few segments to them and modifying the vertices to make them look like natural leaves. Then making a few clumps of them.
Next was simply making the trunk which was done with splines and the path deform WSM modifier where you can draw a cylinder with segments and get it to follow the path pretty good - another modifier I didn't really know about.





So this is my final tree and I think it works pretty well! In the tutorial it covers how to get the leaves to move also but ill look into that a little later.





And i placed a few around my level and it instantly raised by motivation with the project, seen here is the same tree scaled slightly differently and rotated different directions. I will be making more trees now, my original plan was to do about 2 variations per type but I will see how it goes. To me it didn't cross my mind that my trees were the same as from the different angles they all look the same. Not sure but yes ill try another tree - this test taken quite a long time but I have learnt quite good techniques and I hope that ill be able to do more trees quicker and more effectively.