Tree Help

[prey1979]

Hello all, I currently use Onyx tree to create my trees and proxy them and im really happy with the results at a distance the trees look great however when close they start to show their cg look. I use plates for the leaves and am wondering how everyone goes about getting the look of the leaves having diffrent shades as to make the tree not look so uniform? I have begun using a 2 sided vray mat for the leaf material to give it some translucency but Im really curious as to how to make the leaves appear more random especially the colour.

Thanks!!

Ryan

[Olli96]

You could try the MaterialByElement modifier on your leafs, this way you can set up multiple colors for your leave and the modifier assigns them randomly or based on a percentage.

[Fekta.studio]

You should look at this amazing tutorial by Peter...

http://www.peterguthrie.net/blog/

[yyk]

You should look at this amazing tutorial by Peter...

http://www.peterguthrie.net/blog/

Wow hadn't noticed that! Nice work as always Peter, very photographic!

[prey1979]

wow amazing thanks everyone just wow...

[3DMK]

you can control the leaf colour directly within onyx as you create the tree.
You have the option of making colours random or directional [Directional is the most realistic] Click on the leaf button & then click the colour button, then move your colour sliders till you get what you want.

I would have to disagree with peters tutorial when he says leaf planes are better than geometry as any one who has had to render large scenes with thousands of trees will know. It's just so much slower when vray is trying to cut out alpha channels of 100's of over lapping leaves.

Also if you use the onyx leaf geometry shapes you can still use an alpha channel for trees that are close to the camera, and no alpha for trees far away.

There is also a way to get onyx to produce both vertex colours & UV maps on the same tree which produces much better realism [normally you get either one or the other] ....BUT I will leave that one for everyone to work out how!!! [Can't give away all my secretes & R&D!]

All the best

[peterguthrie]

yeah i probably should have said that in some cases, when you have a very heavy scene and are on the edge of the available ram, then opacity mapped leaves are quicker (much much quicker in the case of my farnsworth house scene).

go on, tell us your secrets!

[3DMK]

yeah i probably should have said that in some cases, when you have a very heavy scene and are on the edge of the available ram, then opacity mapped leaves are quicker (much much quicker in the case of my farnsworth house scene).

go on, tell us your secrets!

I agree Peter..... like most 3D scenes, it depends on a lot of issues. Some will be quicker with geometry & some with alpha.


Come on Peter, You seem like a very intelligent person.... I'm surprised you haven't worked it out already. [I'll give you a clue....it's done within max not onyx]

I will tell all on another onyx issue though.

When converting onyx tree to mesh there is a problem where the vertex's are created. For whatever reason you usually end up with the first & last vertex that create the branch/trunk round, are very close together forming a hard edge.
I always do a low threshold weld to merge the two offending vertex's, thus getting rid of the bad join. [Just be carefull welding a very high poly tree ...crash!!! Crash] best to detach the trunk bough and branches before doing it then reattach when finished.