Click for 1024 x 768 of the image above
Let There be Painted Trees
"A Meski TreeDruid
Tutorial"
©Robert Cox (Meski) 2002
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Click for 1024 x 768
of the image above
My secret? Two very simple things. Make very large leaves and fool the eye into believing there are several where there is only one. The tree on the upper left of the image above can be downloaded with mats below. The tree shown above was made with TreeDruid from Zenstar Software ( www.zenstar.com ) and the materials were created in Bryce 4.1. If you are running Bryce 5, you may still use the tree if you follow the tutorial below to create your own leaf mats.
Download Resources - For this Tutorial - obj and mats 1.94 mb
Download Additional Resources - 4 trees, 3 of them double trees, for you. Besure and read readme.txt for tips. 4 mb..
Download
This Tutorial - Unzip to your desktop. Will create a folder
"FireTreeTut".. Open folder and click on start.htm.
1. Go to Bryce File/Import and import "Broadleaf5.obj"
2. You will be presented with a wireframe like this:
a. Ungroup the tree by clicking on the U as shown in yellow.
b. CTRL click on a leaf like shown below. |
c. Then SHIFT click the check mark and de-select Broadleaf42_1. This de-selects the leaves. All wood parts should be selected. |
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2. You should now have all of the wood parts selected. We are going to make them all positive for a Boolean union.
a. Click on the buttons in the order shown.
b. Then click on G to group them again. Should look like below.
c. Now, click on the "A" and name your Boolean union "WoodParts".
d. CTRL click on the leaves. You should get this:
e. SHIFT click on "Broadleaf42_1" and then the "G". You should now have the tree all grouped back together.
3. What the heck did we just do and why? Well, by making
all the wood parts Boolean, Bryce smoothes the intersections of the branch parts with each
other and the trunk. Close ups will be much prettier and more natural looking.
You may have to scale the bark texture a little because Bryce thinks that the bark
is being applied to one object now instead of many. But the texturing will be
seamless. :o)
The secret of the
leaves is that they are not leaves at all! They are made with the Deep Texture
Editor. I am going to try to show you exactly how it is done. I have had to
play with the textures to get the most natural looking leaves at a distance. The
closer the tree is, the more un-natural it looks. But, with some effort, your leaves
will fool the sharpest eye.
Bryce 5 Note:
The texture for the above tree was made with
Bryce 4's Deep Texture Editor. If you have Bryce 5, you may have to follow the path
that I have created to create your own. I do not have Bryce 5 and won't have it
until it is debugged. :oP So, my apologies to you Bryce 5 users... I admire
your patience.
1.a Select the leaves by CTRL clicking on the leaves and selecting
"Broadleaf42_1".
1.b The leaves start by placing a ball into the Diffusion
channel as shown below or importing the Autumn Leaves Mat that I included with the
download. If you are using the one provided, just skip this section and import the
bark mat on to WoodParts. You now have a tree!
2. As luck would have it, I already have my base mat! If you
don't get this, just SHIFT click on the down arrow just after "grid simple" and
choose Grid Simple from the Basic category. Then click on the button outlined by
yellow.
3. If your Noise dialog is not up click on the button indicated by 1.
Then click on the green area of the noise control shown by 2.
4. Change the settings as shown below.
5. Set your color and configuration for 1 as shown below.
6. Select done and get out of there.
7. a. Hold the control key down and click into the second and third ball
positions in the Diffusion channel. Make SURE that the first pallet is
mapped PARAMETRIC!
b. In the second pallet, SHIFT click on the little
down arrow shown in yellow and choose "Autumn" from the "Bump"
category.
c. Play with the third pallet to get the mixing you
want. The third pallet uses the alpha channel to mix the second color shader with
the first. Black areas will be the bottom color and white areas will be the upper
color. I often use an altitude shader here to varigate greens and yellows from the
bottom to the top of the leaves. You have your painted leaves!!!!!
8. And ... don't forget to set Blend Transparency.. Thanks Ali!! See below.
1. Select "WoodParts" and import the bark mat provided. Click on the "M" and go into the texture editor. Click on the first upper left ball in the Diffusion shader pallet and adjust the size of the bark to about 25 in x,y,z. You can play with that adjustment to get the bark you want.
**Well, folks... that is it! You are well on your way
to making some awesome trees!!**
Here are a couple of examples of TreeDruid used in many different ways to create scenes. All plants from TreeDruid.
More TreeDruid tutorials to come. :o) Thanks for visiting us!
