Week Eleven; Stylized Tree Continued... A Lesson to be learned

Much like the week before, I ended up doing double the work that was actually required. However, instead of the Willow tree I tried to model last week, I started modelling a Japanese Maple tree, purely as I love the forms and colours of that species of tree. Although, even now, in hindsight I see where I had started to go wrong – by somewhat disregarding the style guide. The look for this project was meant to be a sort of happy, medieval Euorpean style, whereas I started off with a Japanese Maple tree, and then moved onto a palm tree. However, I'll continue in what I actually did in the week then conclude the lessons needed to be learned from this exercise.

So, after trying and hastily giving up modelling my Japanese Maple tree (for the deadline was approaching fast), I moved onto modelling something I'd consider easier to do and more effective, as I seemed to be struggling with more conventional tree forms. As the palm tree's form is relatively simplistic, I didn't have too much trouble modelling or texturing the tree, only that I should have cleaned up the bark texture to make it a bit more plain so it'd have a somewhat stylized look about it.

Model with Wireframe & Flatshader.

Model with Wireframe & Flatshader.

Model with Wireframe & Flatshader.

Model with Wireframe & Flatshader.

Looking back on the project now I do wish I would have stuck to my Willow tree and Maple tree as they would have exerted my full skills at this point in time to see what I could do, seeming as I was struggling with them. If I had another chance to do the project I'd have spent a lot more time on polishing the textures and figuring a way to place the leaf alphas so they sit correctly on the model. I should have also gone back and referred to the style guide more often, which would have stopped me modelling a tree which isn't in fit with the style guide.

Final Model

Final Model

Final Model

In the future I'm going to set myself a project to force myself to model and texture the trees which I find challenging; more conventional trees such as oak, maple, willow, etc. with the same tri budget and texture constraints as this project.

Leaf Texture

Bark Texture

Week Ten; The Tree Project

So, quickly after we finished our stylized house project and submitted we had the last two weeks of term to complete two trees to fit into our medieval style village. The idea for this project is to have a better idea for creating organic forms in 3ds max, and as games are heavily populated with them, we start with trees. I admit I did struggle with this project in the first week and had to re-do my tree several times as I was not happy with it whatsoever.

Initially I wanted to model a Japanese style maple tree and a willow tree, but during the first week I encountered problems that I couldn't move past, which meant for the hand-in, I had to change what types of tree I was to model.

Flatshader of my Oak tree model

Flatshader of my Oak tree model

I started the week by trying to model a willow tree, but when it came around to texturing and placing the leaves, I didn't have a large enough tri budget to bulk out the canopy of the tree effectively. Therefore I moved onto modeling something more simplistic with big clumps of leave forms that I could model as one oval with alphas sticking out, whilst keeping with to the style guide – an Oak tree. The process started with a mood board; picking out forms of the branches, trunk and leaves. After this was completed I went straight into modelling, and in hindsight it was probably wiser to draw up some concepts and figure out how I was going to model these trees whilst conforming to the tri budget.

Areas of the oak tree look sparsely populated with leaves - should have populated the underside of the canopies
as that is where the player would have been looking at most.

I used the spline tool to model the trunk and pulled around verts to make the tree look somewhat stylized. I also used the spline tool to create a branch, and duplicated this branch, scaled it and rotated it to create the others. We were allowed three texture sheets, two for tiling textures and an alpha texture sheet. Although I utilised all three, using the tiling textures for the bark and the blocky mass of the leaves under the alphas, I feel I should have tried to spend more time stylizing the textures.

Undercoat leaves texture and birds nest detail.

Tiling bark texture

Oak leaf alpha

If I could have done this week again I would have just continued modelling the Willow tree and just have made it aesthetically nicer and spent more time on creating the alphas and texturing and modelling rather than having to rush the Oak tree because I ditched the Willow tree.

I'm definitely going to have to revisit this project and spend more time on modelling trees in my spare time as I am thoroughly unhappy with the outcome and it's vital to improve on modelling organic forms.

Final Render

Final Render