Tree 01

[Rick_D]

Then I fixed the UV:

Absolutely terrible I know, so how can I improve on it?

[edit] I wanted to fill out the foliage more so the "spike" was hidden, there's two branches staggered on alternate sides of the trunk (which isn't as flat and round as it looks) for 3d detail, but I want to keep the polies low anyway (not through laziness, rather performance when there's lots on screen).

Also, the texturing is a 5 minute job to get an idea of the poly usage, the planes are bad, I know that, but what are the good methods for using single polies, and how can I get the best effects with the least polies?

(Also a bunch of the polies disappeared during the compile which is why it looks quite bare, I blame my poor modeling skills)

[Minos]

The texture contrast is weird. It also looks too "photo-ripped" and low res. Try to use photo sources with no direct sun casting next time

Other than that it looks like a good start.

[Rick_D]

Well check my edit

I need to get my texturing skills for this kind of thing up to scratch, I am a bit lost when I don't have any high res photos on me. I lost the software for my digicam and I need to find it before I can get any good textures on there.

[von*ferret]

I personaly would try to make a damned nice leaf model, texture it. Then scatter it on a plane or something 3d and then bake that texture. Better than a photo rip in my opinion and it comes with a handy alpha channel.

[Rick_D]

That's an excellent idea, thanks

[von*ferret]

np

[Rick_D]

So fucked around a little and here is another WIP:

Used a high poly and high res branch model, made a few renders from different angles and went to work in PS. The result isn't amazing, and the tree needs to fill out a lot more than it does, but it's my second atempt. I really like the texture creating method though, a big help!

[PhilipK]

That's quite an improvement since last pics

Perhaps it's a bit too tight right now. Maybe try to go a bit more sparse on the leaves. It all depends on what style you're going for.

I dig the trunk anyway.

[dissonance]

Yeah, that looks a looooot better.

[Rick_D]

It's not really supposed to be anything, I had the trunk modelled before I thought about the leaves (next model it'll be an actual tree, as accurate as possible). So I went with some Indian-asian kinda tree.

[Rick_D]

I am having a load of trouble with lod's, I followed various tutorials on the subject, put in the qc commands, and the compile process cuts out after 7 or 8 lines, just after checking the .smd's, and before it is supposed to check the lod command. This is what I have:

$lod 25

{

      replacemodel "mymodelreference.smd" "mymodel_LOD1.smd"

}

Obviously with "mymodel....smd" set to the correct paths.

Is there any reason it just stops when trying to do the lod? I have tried various things, like compiling the lod model, and referencing that, trying to reference the compiled models, etc etc, the model compiles fine as soon as I remove the lod command, so what's the deal!?

[Zacker]

Rick, your first tree was not that great, but the last two are so much better!

[Rick_D]

Thanks

I learnt a lot whilst doing it.

[von*ferret]

Maybe bend your planes a little bit. I'd need to see the tree as the player would, with the same perspective. Keep going!

[Rick_D]

Yeah, right now I just have a lot of intersecting planes instead of just bending them; bending sounds like it'll help the tree stretch out more too. I will try that with my next model (I want to get an lod on this and call it done, and spend time making better and more optimised trees).

I would host the model and tex's (a 1024 map D: to try and retain quality with the alphatest property) but I'd rather not distribute it. I could PM you a link if you would give me some C&C and pointers on what I'm doing wrong (2nd model, so there's gonna be stuff that's wrong )