Mini-Scene: Foliage and stuff...

[alexl]

Someone pointed out to me that I've never done any organic nature based stuff. So heres my attempt at learning how to make this stuff, crits and all that would be cool :)

Tree will probably remain leafless but will have more alpha'd branches, some small camp related props will be added but not much, probably just a small cooking pot and something else.
Foliage, grass, tree, and wood are not textured at the moment, just plain color and AO.

http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_wip01a.jpg

Wires & Sculpts Here (http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_wip01b.jpg)
My Ref for the tree Here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoniedude1/3834784184/)

[Cody]

Looks good, but i think some dead leaves, not a lot, but some would be very good. Spend the time and make this great!

[michi.be]

I really like it. Give the tree some leaves. At least some old ones with more small branches (with alphamaps). :)

[NoisyMonk]

Looking pretty good alex. I'd agree that you should add some more ground clutter, like dead leaves and such - not too sure about leaves on the trees though, since that tree looks to have been dead for a very long time.

Only thing that looks off to me is the lower branches of the tree. I'm not sure what kind of tree this would have been, but if it was any sort of deciduous tree, it most likely wouldn't have branches down that low. Other than that, good stuff.

[Joao Sapiro]

i say leave as it is , clutter = not necessarily better, infact it can contribute to add "noise" to the scene. What you have now is clean yet natural , is seen well at a distance and very pleasing to the eye. congrats !

[DennisGlowacki]

The rocks and grass/plants look great. I can't wait to see the tree textured.

[bluekangaroo]

I like what you have there so far

[oxygencube]

Looking really sharp. I am with these other comments. Get a few dead leaves in there. I am thinking orange or red for color reasons.

[alexl]

Latest update, I think I'm almost done? Not sure but I'm itching to move on :P
The tree, I really don't like the tree. Anyway crits welcome, gotta improve.
Fire effect is from Epic, not made by me. (lighting by me though :p)

http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_01a.jpg

Texture Sheets/Wires Here (http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_01b.jpg)

[loganfredericksen]

Awesome! I love the campfire, really brings a new level to the scene.

[adam]

Break this down for us! How'd you do the tree & rocks?

[tyl3r]

Break this down for us! How'd you do the tree & rocks?

I second this! I really like the bottom half of your scene! The texturing IMO is very well done. The rocks look awesome! Texture sheet perhaps?

[Seaseme]

I second this! I really like the bottom half of your scene! The texturing IMO is very well done. The rocks look awesome! Texture sheet perhaps?

THIRDED.

[alexl]

I second this! I really like the bottom half of your scene! The texturing IMO is very well done. The rocks look awesome! Texture sheet perhaps?

Only the bottom half? haha I guess that confirms it, the tree sucks.
Texture Sheets / Wires here (http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_01b.jpg)

How I did the Tree
I made the basic shape of the tree with zSpheres (image here (http://alexluong.co.uk/misc/zsphere_tree.jpg)), made the adaptive skin and then sculpted more shape into it (sculpt image here (http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_wip01b.jpg)), I then sculpted it further with the intention of baking detail down to normal maps but scrapped that idea and decided to go with a tiling texture. I did the same for the branches which are baked down to planes.

How I did the Rocks
The rocks were really easy, I started off with a sphere in zBrush and then just sculpted rocky shape things, off the top of my head the main brushes I used were the form, trim dynamic, flatten and standard brushes, (sculpt image here (http://alexluong.co.uk/blog/images/alexluong_organics_wip01b.jpg)), not much I can add to that I guess.

Texturing was pretty simple, the rock texture in particular has bits of photo source from cgtextures in, the workflow for this went something like: adjust photo source, retrieve edge detail from the sculpted normals using xNormals Normal to Cavity filter which gave me some nice highlights on edges and shadows in crevices, from there on it was just tweaking and adding/taking away stuff.

I figure I should thank adam too, been reading his thread here (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=69345) which has been a good resource for information for some things, I stole his texturing technique for the terrain :).

[Prophecies]

Wow. That looks great! The only thing I have to say is, those branches on the tree seem way too low. I don't see why there would be branches that low on that kind of tree. Put them up higher, and perhaps add some leaves to the tree? Unless you're going for the dead tree. But in your wireframe pic, there are planes on the branches, so I am assuming that you are planning on breating life into that tree!

Other than that, great work! I'll have to give my rocks a test with that Normal to Cavity map filter, maybe it will help!

*edit* What texture resolution did you use for your rocks/grass? I am particularly impressed with the grass/foliage. Thumbs up!

[adam]

Just for shits & giggles, can I see how your terrain + foliage lights when the camera is down on a lower level - similar to the angles I have in my shots? I like how yours are lighting. We should compare notes!

[Prophecies]

Hmm I just noticed. Did you use a soft alpha for the grass/foliage? The edges look sort of jagged. Maybe it's the image compression?

[alexl]

@Adam: I'm using crossed rectangular planes, I used MightyPea's suggestion in your thread here (http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=1091285&postcount=284) about adjusting the normals to point upwards. I'm not actually sure if it helped, I don't have a before and after but I figured it looked decent so I left it at that. Material is just BLEND_Masked, MLM_Phong lit if thats relevant.

http://alexluong.co.uk/misc/od_grassLit.jpg

@Prophecies: I'm just using BLEND_Masked in the materials editor, I'm pretty sure that option doesn't allow for a soft alpha does it? Not too sure. Rock/Foliage texture sheet is 1024x1024, and the alphas on the tree are the smaller branches that are already there.

[A.Kincade]

Very cool. Both night and day turned out great, but I like the night version a bit better. Its gotta be the camp fire and mood. Great stuff. Foliage turned out nice.