Tree leaves best result

[W_Alban]

Hello,

What is the best way to do leaves material for trees.

Thanks
A.

[Grigio18]

It's a complex subject, I will not be short.

First of all, the 3d model.
To have a convincing effect, the leaves must have a certain curvature, which varies from species to species ...
So my advice is to look for well-made models and buy them.

Once you have bought the 3D models, import them into rhino (preferably as a proxy, since they will have a lot of polygons).

For the leaves I have to use the vray2sided material, with only 1 material, if the front and back of the leaf are very similar, or more often with two materials, one more reflective and saturated for the front, one less saturated and less reflective for the back.

The vray2sided material has a parameter for translucency, which however allows only the amount of translucency to be indicated in terms of the amount of light that passes through the leaf, but not the color.

For the color of translucency (usually more saturated and tending to yellow than the color of the front leaf), the correct technique is to put a texture in the translucency section of the front leaf material (specifically in the back side color slot)

So in recapitulating you will need:

- High quality 3d model with leaves that have a certain number of polygons that allows to perceive the curvature.

Front / back leaf material
- Diffuse texture
- White reflection
- Glossy (optional you can set a value)
IOR (you can leave it by default, but you can also raise it slightly to 1.7 / 1.75 for a little more reflection depending on the type of leaf.
- Translucency map (you can use the diffuse map and adjust it with a color correction)
- Bump / normal map

2Sided material
- Assign the material for the front and theback material
- sets the translucency value based on the type of leaf, the more light it passes, the more it will tend to white

Ok, I think I told you everything, I'm sorry for the length of it

[W_Alban]

Hello Grigio,
I think this helps me a lot. I tried to get the transparency through the 2 sided material. that did not work out.
I will try how you describe it to make the diffuse material already with transparency.
Thank you very much.

[Grigio18]

Hello Grigio,
I will try how you describe it to make the diffuse material already with transparency.

Hey man, read carefully: Translucency has nothing in common with transparency.

The transparency map is used for the opacity mask of the leave and it has to be black and white, sorry sorry, I forgot to write it down before.

[W_Alban]

Ok thank you this actually helped me a lot.