A Plant Model and Material... ideas and comments please.(update1)
TapiocaTundra
Posts: 268
I have been working on a model of a plant leaf type, custom built for Bryce so that I may learn more about creating materials and the way, once the models are imported appear.
Was really trying to keep a happy medium between low poly and smooth curves.
This one was built in Hexagon, the initial idea is to create a model of a New Zealand Flax plant although so far it has turned into an experiment more so with the material, the Flax plant leafs are much more straight, well the leafs on the plant I have outside my little flat in London are..(and the material is not right..yet!)
One of the requirements of the material is to give an edge colour to the leaf, I must say though I do not wish to use an image texture, although it seems the only way to get what is needed is to make sure the model is uv mapped and then in Bryce use parametric mapping, in this case the the leaf model was made with a flat grid that was planer uv mapped before any alterations to it, a technique I believe some use to model hair for characters for Daz Studio.
Also to get the yellow edges was a subtle combination of x scale which turned out to be X 96.5% and 1D noise 126 I wonder why X 100% is too much?
I would be grateful of any comments,feedback and ideas as to improving please.
Here it is for download.
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Comments
Nice Flax. Very well done.
Cheers
GG
If you can get it right with a procedural material, you'll be better off than with an UV map because plant leaves are translucent (particularly when back-lit), which can be done in Bryce (thanks to Rashad's idea). Once an UV map is used, you can't make it translucent. As for the model, it looks great to me but I don't know this particular plant.
@ Horo, The flax is a native of NZ it has very strappy and fibrous leaves. Native one is quite large and when flowering can reach a height of around 3.5 metres. Is now available as many hybrids minature, medium, varigated. We have several in our garden including a red , bronze/cream (var) and a green/cream (var). here's some pics. The bird is a native Tui ( too-ee) which is a reasonably common nectar feeder.
Cheers
GG
That's some nice flax, Tapioca :)
Flax was one the primary exports NZ had back in the 1800s. It grows everywhere here in NZ. It's a hardy, fast growing, fibrous plant used in the manufacture of native clothing, structures, ropes - there was a huge demand for flax during the expansion of the British Empire.
I don't think it's commercially grown here these days, but it remains to be a very useful plant.
Well, you can make it translucent through transparency, surely. UV Maps can come in several layers, from color to alpha to bump. Bryce 7 might kick up a stink over UV maps, but Bryce 6 should be able to handle it.
You can make the leaves translucent, even with a UV map, but it requires that you create a mask. Make the mask so that the parts you want light to penetrate need to be black, while the parts of the map you want to remain solid need to be made white.
Before we go any further I want to make it clear the difference between transparency and translucency. The two effects are very similar except that standard transparency engages internal reflection, making the leaves look like glass instead of looking like a living thing. So the trick is to make the item transparent while not making it reflective. Here are two links to some materials I made for Bryce long ago that explain how this works. You need to create an account at Bryce5.com. There are two examples, one made with a bryce leaf the other made with a uv mapped clematis flower.
When you get the texture home and open it up you will notice the clever means used to enable translucency without introducing any reflection. You will notice that the item has translucency but the transparency slider is at 0. You will notice a procedural named "Black Nothing" which is used to create the magic of the effect. In the case where you have a uv mapped plant where you want only the leaves to be translucent but not the stems and trunk, you will need to apply a custom made map to the transparency channel replacing the procedural I used. A black image works just as well as the Nothing procedural. You will also notice that the transparent color channel and the volume color channel control the degree of translucency and can even tint the "shadows" created by this object.
I know it seems like Spanish but when you see the material in the material lab it will make sense. Keep in mind, you will not need to use any ambient glow since the leaves are already receiving light in a natural way. Render times however, are longer, much longer, so be prepared. Best of luck
Links:
http://www.bryce5.com/details.php?image_id=2040
http://www.bryce5.com/details.php?image_id=2041
http://www.bryce5.com/details.php?image_id=2042
Thank you for the comments
@Horo I am not sure about the uv maps now you say that I cant make it translucent, the only reason for the uv is that the parametric material will not work otherwise, I am not using an image,I will have to find out more.
@Kiwi-gg some great reference pics and I love the Tui bird it's beak is the same angle as the flax flowers,how lovely. Those flowers look tricky to model but I'll have a go.
@Oroboros I am getting a little confused now. Why would 7 have problems with a uv map? I cant get the material to work any other way as parametric mapping works on all the separate objects.
@ Rashad Carter thank you, I shall do as you advise, looks like I better get started then, dos cervezas por favor.
Well it is cold and miserable in London so better I carry on with my Flax model..inside:)
Thanks again chaps
aroha nui
Listen to Rashad rather then me. He knows these details better.
That's a really, really, REALLY good question: one so good it's hasn't been addressed by DAZ since Bryce 7's release 3 years ago.
Basically, the way to get a UV map imported into B7 is through the Picture Library. Many users (including myself) have encountered problems with the Picture Library, especially with UV map imports, where the pictures come out blue. Just... Blue.
It's a bug.
However, you can bring a UV map fairly reliably if you import the model into B6, apply the UV map in B6, save the scene in B6, and then open your scene in B7.
Kia kaha!
I have enjoyed making this New Zealand flax plant, it is more what I had in mind, any feedback welcome as I would like to try to model some more plants so comments do help so test it out and please let me know what you think.
I really want to get to grips with the deep texture editor it is becoming less irritating but time consuming.
Here it is for download.
Phormium_Sundowner.7zip
Thanks for the plant, Tapioca...very nice, and hope to use it in the future. Just added it into the Vegetation folder.
I've never had the need to import an [.obp] file before into Bryce, so wasn't sure how to. However, found this description by Stephen Teixeira very useful, and so simple a procedure...just in case others don't know how to either.
Jay
@TapiocaTundra - thank you for the New Zealand flax plant. It looks really nice in your render above.
Here's a document that should help to understand how and where things have to be added to libraries: http://www.horo.ch/docs/mine/pdf/BryceContent_v4.pdf
You are both welcome, what shall I have a go at next, I could stick with flax plants maybe, to get to know them better, they come in all shapes n sizes, there are a couple of big darkish green floppy ones just around the corner from where I live, funny I had not noticed them before, until I started this one, do I have the patients though.
Any requests :)
pampas grass would be nice
pampas grass :lol: is that a challenge? initially I laughed then had a look at some images, then laughed again, but I must say you got me thinking bigh.
I know what you mean. Since I've started "bryceing", I look much more closely around, the sky, the clouds, the plants, the haze, the shadows, the light ...
It's a spectacular plant known for its large tufting flowers... that is also classed as an invasive plant and noxious weed in New Zealand.
New Zealand has its own native pampas called toetoe ("toy-toy"), or sometimes 'cutty grass' by kids, due to its sharp abrasive leaves. It's not classed as a noxious weed. Like flax, toetoe is an extremely useful plant in tribal textiles.
Toetoe would be great :)
Very nice New Zealand flax plant and I like the gradiation in the leaf color. I'm in Southern California, and a couple of varieties of this plant were very popular in landscaping during the 80s. A cream stripe variegated, and a dwarf as well as the coppery/purple. The Pampas grass was popular in the 50s til 70s. A much longer narrow leaf with wider spread of plant, although I think there were a few dwarfs. The flowers were like large feathery plumes only in a creamy color and overall the plants in a several clumps were very nice for a soft privacy screen. It's very flammable, so it's lost it's popularity. Many California natives are designed in nature to burn in order to propagate so I guess that is why we keep looking at imported varieties of a similar climatic zone. I did not know the leaves of Phormium were used as a fiber source. Always learn something new every day!
@Horo I have always liked experimenting with ray tracing, not just in Bryce, and have found myself staring at jam jars for far too long :) and to sometimes visualise the things around me as if they were made of nurbs or polygon mesh surely is not healthy.
@ Orboros The name Toetoe interests me I have researched it and experimented already, the plant is very busy therefore not sure about how detailed a mesh to use but there are other options with Bryce materials ie. transparency and possibly volume and a more simple mesh that gives the basic shape of the plant or parts of it.
Alas my knowledge is lacking on the material side but I understand the mesh and hope to come up with a suitable shape or shapes, I still think bigh is kidding though, and wondering if I might produce a multi million poly bush :)
@ IceScribe Thank you, it is interesting you mention the dates when these plants were popular in landscaping over there, when Pampas was suggested in this thread I immediately had images of the tall pampas grasses people had in the front gardens of their mock tudor semi-detached houses in west London during the 1960s and 70s.
let see if you can :cheese:
As long as you don't stare too long on the smart phone and you have fun, then it's healthy. ;)
As you can see, I have been busy, this is the first idea for the New Zealand Toetoe, the leaf blade stems anyway, there is a fair bit of work to do yet :) do not know how to start on the flower or panicle, the plant obviously changes throughout the seasons ,have seen some images with a tighter floppy look rather than candy floss that may be easier to model, it would help of course if I could look at a real one, I have not been to Kew Gardens The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for a couple of years, maybe go for a visit.
Aiming to produce an Austroderia toetoe, there are 5 species of Native tall grasses in New Zealand.
good start
now about 5 to 10 stems reed looking in center with the flowers ( kind of like cotton candy ) on top
Love the Toetoe just as it is, download file please so I can add it to your Flax.
Cheers
GG
Just as a matter of interest here are some images of the flower heads showing the difference between Toetoe and Common Pampas grass. 2 & 3 are toetoe, 1 is common pampas. As can be seen the pampas flower is more dense and fluffier.
Cheers
GG
Ha , you like the look of it already then kiwi_gg, I want to make a sort of mix and match Totoe kit for Bryce instead of just the whole thing although am not sure quite which way to do it yet , I have seen that sometimes a Bryce object (.obp) when it is installed, comes in a few separate parts, I think it is done holding the shift key or something like that, I will check, but I want to complete it first :)
where in New Zealand is that beach?? :coolsmile:
The beach could be anywhere, probably the North Island, I pulled those pics off google. I could have driven to Waihi beach and taken some photos myself as it's only about 20 mins away but I worked on Saturday so I had stuff to do around the house and if I had gone to the beach the fishing gear would have to go too, get the picture?!!
Cheers
GG
Edit to add. The colours of the toetoe leaves are absolutly perfect do not change them.
Tapioca Tundra; Thank you very much for your flax plant model it is very real looking...Great work!!
Thank you bullit35744, you are welcome,was trying to create a plant that could be used fairly close to camera, the model can be used without the pot and stuff so can be customised a little, as for its material experiment in the dte :)
I have an idea I don't know how hard it would be but how about a hanging geranium they come in all different colors....just an idea ...Trish