Simple leaf 'sprites' in Carrara

Mosk the Scribe

Curious about a simple way for making leaves in Carrara.

I understand you can make simple leaf models based on an image (and will do that in the future).

But curious if you can take a simple picture of leaf with transparency and use that as a 'sprite' - meaning the leaf would always face the camera while preserving original transparency - so would look like same shaped leaf as camera orbits around it - without ever letting viewer see the 'side' of the leaf.

Or can you paste a png onto a plane and make white invisible -and use those as 'leaves' on a Carrara tree?

(want to get some of the benefits of animatable carrara trees, but lots of other things to work on and haven't toyed with Carrara in years so pretty rusty)

Thanks

Stezza

using a splat would do the job maybe 

DesertDude

And...or, paste your nice leaf with an alpha matte onto a plane and give that plane a 'Point At' Modifier towards the camera (Modifier > Behaviors > Point At)? 

The particle emitter also has a 'Facing Camera' option from the 'Shape' chooser...

Mosk the Scribe

Forgot about splats in Carrara - same idea as sprite in after effects. 

With point at modifier, would i be able to do assign that for leaves on a carrara tree?

3DAGE

Curious about a simple way for making leaves in Carrara.

there's a bunch of premade leaves in your My Objects / Leaves.

 

you could create a plane ,. apply a leaf image (with alpha) to that plane,. then use that as your "leaf" model.

but,, there are some obvious issues with that,. (facing direction)  (lot's of alpha's)  and while camera facing can help,. they'll all face the same way and look unnatural.

 

Sometimes it's a lot more work than simply adding /selecting a premade leaf, or Multiple leaves and flowers/fruit from a list of leaf models,.

 

Make a simple model of a leaf,. it's much easier than you imagine,. it can be very simple,. or use one of carrara's premade leaf models

Have a look at some of the premade leaves which come with carrara as an "example" of how to make your own.

apply your leaf texture to that leaf model,. and you're done.

Splat's won't work well ,.

load one in a scene apply a texture(with alpha) and render.  the image is not using the full space of the splat,. so you'd have leaves floating on the branches

make your own to plane "billboard" (Splat) (in the vertex modeler) and use that,.

Still better to make your own model leaf,. (IMO)

TangoAlpha

Modelled leaves also render faster. All that transparency adds up, especially if you've got thousands of leaves on your tree, and lots of trees. Unless you need a "hero" leaf, leaf models can be pretty simple, with maybe a dozen or so polys.

Mosk the Scribe

ok- thanks to both for that advice.  Will stick to modeling those.

For a) working inside carrara and b) rendering speed - is it preferable to use textures as opposed to procedurals?

And in terms of avoiding transparency, if I'm using a leaf texture on a modeled leaf, is it better do to that as a jpeg with white background and set to ignore white as opposed to a png with just the leaf and the rest transparent?  I assumed those would be equivalent, but don't actually know the inner working of carrara.

3DAGE

on a leaf model,. there' shouldn;lt be a need for transparence/alpha

the model is the shape you need,. Alpha is normally used to make a simple shape (like a plane) appear to have a Leaf shape,. and the rest is transparent

With a model,. you'd export out the UV template,. and use that to create a leafy texture map.

or create a simple green texture map,. or use a procedural shader.

 

As for textures v procedurals,. texture maps will give you great close-up detail,. procedural shaders save a little bit on memory use, but won't have that photo detail.

There's no reason you can't combine both,. have procedural colour gradients mixed with a greyscale image map as the blender.

or have texture maps mixed with procedural functions.

you can also create some nice variation of colours on a tree by using procedural functions such as "fractal noise" and environment functions like "Elevation". so that some higher leaves are a different colour or shade.

TangoAlpha

I normally ise a separate greyscale image for transparency, where white = solid and black = transparent. Shades of grey fall in between.

If you've got photographs of your leaves (putting leaves in a scanner never works that well), you use them in the modelling room as a template, as well as for the texture. You can model bunches as well as single leaves. I usually have several leaf models & textures on a tree, for some variation. And as 3dAge mentioned, you can mix noise etc into the shader for more variety.

Diomede

If using a noise function in a texture for the leaves, check the "global" option, not local in the noise shader.  That way, trees replicated  in different locations will get some variation.

PhilW

Diomede said:

If using a noise function in a texture for the leaves, check the "global" option, not local in the noise shader.  That way, trees replicated  in different locations will get some variation.

You can also use the free Instance Randomizer to introduce variation between duplicated trees. If you are using a replicator for the trees, also duplicate it a few times within the replicator so that it has a number of variations to play with.