tree generator
laverdet_943f1f7da1
Posts: 252
Hello!!! I'm trying to do a tree, oak style, in a shape of half sphere... a sort of mushroom... How to shorten the trunk, I can,'t find that set up!... and also, how to generate leaves in geometry, with a map on them... Not the greenish value of the native leaves... thank you for help!!!
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Hi, I have been exploring the plant modeler with dubious success myself lately, but I think I can point you to some of the parameters that affect the dimensions that you mentioned.
Insert a plant from the top menu. Select the plant and enter the modeling room (click the wrench in the upper right. You will see a menu with tabs for Trunk, Branches, Leaf, Tree Shape, and Experts. Use these tabs to adjust the tree structure, load leaves, fruit, or other objects to be on branches, and other adjustments.
I have included screen captures of the first 3 tabs. The trunk tab has an option to adjust the length, width, etc. of the trunk. I lengthened the trunk, which lengthens the distance from the ground that the first branches appear. You could shorten that distance. I also used the branches tab and leaf tab to lengthen the branches and increase the number of leaves and reduce their size.
To make the oak leaves, I started with leaf images from Art Collaborations that I had bought from the Daz store.
http://www.daz3d.com/leaf-collection-vol-1-2-merchant-resource
In a small scene, insert a vertex object and construct a 3D grid facing upwards (z axis) so that the grid les flat in the X/Y plane. Load your leaf images and apply them sideways to the vertex grid. The bottom of the leaf should appear on the right side (of X axis) and the top of leaf should appear on left side (of X axis). Move the hot point of the grid to the bottom of the leaf stem (right side of the X axis). Use the vertex modeler to morph the vertex grid a little so that it doesn't lie so flat. Save your leaf-grid somewhere you can find it.
Use the leaf tab to LOAD (not add) your leaf grid. Note you could model a leaf obj rather than use the flat grid. You can use the leaf tab menu to change the size of the leaf and adjust how many leaves appear.
I attach a render for a tree with a longer trunk, longer branches, a custom OAK leaf, and I also applied a procedural bark shader.
EDIT: and don't forget the Tree Shape tab!!!!
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but I suppose you can just use the standard Scale tool on the tree. But that scrunches everything including the leaves and stuff.
Personally, I'd tend to model my tree from scratch since I hate the included trees in Carrara. :) :) :)
You might want to look online for the gazillion resources for tree images and even free tree objects.
I think even the free app that starts with a "B" has a tree generating plugin, though it's been a while and my memory could be way off.
And here is the same tree model with different trunk length / tree shape combinations.
By the way, it sounds like you might be talking about my all-time favorite tree in the entire world, the acacia tree... :) :) :)
I'd tend to search online for some photos and model it from scratch. It has a special character that would be tough to reproduce from the Carrara tree generator, IMO..
Instead of modeling a tree, you could apply a photo of a tree with an alpha mask like a candle flame. That is what was done with the leaves in my example, after all.
Yeah, that's pretty much my standard practice, but only if the tree doesn't need to be seen in closeup. Good point. And I believe cgtextures now has a lot of tree images with alphas included. Nice... :) :)
removed - double post
On the main trunk tab, use the Internode Length & evolution sliders to move the main branches up and down the trunk. If you have big trees (mine are typically 60ft +), it's only the lower branches that will likely interact with your actors. If you can see the whole tree, it's a distant shot and detail doesn't matter so much - you don't need "hero" leaves on something that's 100ft away.
Speaking of leaves, build a vertex model of your leaf. You can use a simple planar grid and a transmitted resources (as Diomede described above), but renders will be slow. If you project the leaf image onto the floor of the Vertex modeller, you can add a polygon and click around the outline in Top view. Unless your leaf is a "hero" model (i.e. one that features prominently in your frame) you can be quite crude with the outline. Now you discover why leaf textures always come on a green background - if you have an alpha channel, it prevents fringing, and if you have a shaped poly, it covers any inaccuracies in your mesh. Don't forget to UV map the final polygon.
Leaves are not flat, so regardless of the method you used, bend and twist it. This will also add volume and stop it disappearing if it's end or side on to the camera.
When it comes to leaf imagery, nothing beats the real thing. My oaks are English Oak varieties, and the Art Collab resources won't do, since the leaf shapes are very different. Fortunately there's an acre of woodland just 10 minutes walk from my house, and there's an arboretum within 30 minutes drive, so it isn't a problem for me. (of course it's totally the wrong time of year for green leaves, but that's a different issue, and at a pinch you can gather dead leaves and recolour them in Photoshop). Scan your leaves rather than photograph them, you'll get a more even result. Most domestic printers these days have a built in scanner.
Don't forget to photograph the bark - both trunk and branches - at the same time. Carrara allows a different shader for the branches, so it's a good idea to make use of it. Only use the middle of the bark, where the pattern is fairly consistent, and tile it 3 or 4 times round. The closer you go to the edge of the trunk, the more your tree will link like it's got stripes. There are lots of tutorials about on how to take a photograph and make it tileable.
Carrara trees are note particularly treelike viewed close up. The trunk and branches are always simple tubes/cones and there's no way to introduce the kind of gnarliness or imperfections that you see in real trees. The only real option is a thing called "curve" And all that does is turn your branch into a right/left (but not up/down) whipping tentacle. (put suckers on it and call it an octopus!). Not even remotely realistic looking. But that's what we have.
Sorry, I'm starting to feel like Dartanbeck here!
The included Carrara trees get some bashing, and some of them kind of suck, but sometimes they can be a good starting point to better looking trees.
The first thing I do is get tweak the hell out of the shaders and use my own. For the bark, I tend to use tiling image maps of real bark.
I also use shaped leaves and not billboards with alphas because the alphas take a much longer time to render.
I play around with the leaf size and quantities as well.
Now, the problem is, that sometimes you want a shape that just isn't possible with the plant generator. There is a solution though. make your main trunk and and main branches in the vertex modeler, define shading domains in areas where you want leafy branches, then use a surface replicator restricted to the shading domains you created to place wispy little "trees" that look like branches. I've used this method to create vines and trees. You can also use surface replicators to add objects, restricted to shading domains on the stadard plant models, such as the trunk domain.
The examples below use the method of vertex vines and trunks with replicate "branches" and also objects replicated on the trunks to create completely different look for the plant.
By the way, this is the Burr Oak preset, with leaf size reduced, and quantity increased. I also added some curvature to the trunk and branches. It should go without saying that I added my own bark, changed up the leaf shaders and added translucency the leaves. If you do add translucency it can really slow down a render, so my suggestion is to use it on trees in the foreground or are a focal point in the scene and don't bother with it on trees that are in the background or are in a replicator.
To give the Oak's scale and to see it in a scene.
This tree is a Weeping Willow. The preset for this is also the Burr Oak. I added a lot of elasticity to the later generation of branches. With the advanced tab, you can define the starting angle of the branches and the ending angle. There's also other settings that can control the bend of the branches, and the evolution of the parameter through subsequent generations.