Modeling slash Screwing Around

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I was playing with splines and tools to turn them into geometry recently, and considered trying to make one of my favorite trees. Thankfully I got to experiment with this at work at the end of the day. Didn't get very far, but I think I developed a method for myself.

 

I draw the center line of a trunk with a bezier spline. Then I take a second spline, this one a 4 sided "loop" aka "square", and sweep it along the first spline. I'm doing this while tracing over the photograph of the tree, experimenting with then subdividing the object, tapering it, pushing and pulling it this way and that.

 

I think I'll see this one through and ask for help to get a tree into the game as a placeable for NWN.

 

 

 

Some references for future reference (if anyone else wants to dive into arbutus menziesii)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Modelling with splines has been new for me, and so I have not made much progress on this. I changed my method from above. Originally I was using bezier splines, squares and subdividing the mesh. This was way too high poly. Looks awesome if you get it right but is not appropriate for game art. So I dumped subdivision, and beziers, and went with extruding an octogon along a rigid (non-bezier) spline. This seems to work ok for each limb. Then I stitch them together and sculpt the thing with a "magnet" tool.

 

Nevertheless I am going to have to let go of "low poly" on this one. I'm almost at 800 triangles for the main trunk. This is it so far. (the box is 2 meters high)

 

The main limbs are in, but still need some shaping to get right, and I'm not sure how much higher I'll stretch the extremities. I'd also like to add some details like knobs along the trunk, and improve the base. Then after that I'll look at texturing it. Then after that I'll work on leaves, and tiny limbs. So I think I'll relax my low poly thing and go for a mid range (2000) as my ceiling.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

You could always go with a fallen dead tree placeable (or two) as your first in game attempt. You might be able to keep the ploy count a little lower that way.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I did something like that before, Tarot, a long time ago for a different CCC, but didn't know how to get the models into NWN. What you are talking about is more or less a primitive cylinder or maybe even a box which gets reshaped a little.

 

This is different. I'm basically drawing the paths for the limbs and trunk as lines on a photograph, adjusting the path in 3 dimensions, and then sweeping them with octagons while also applying other modifiers like taper and the like. I've only very rarely modelled like this so its more about experimenting than anything else.

 

The stuff I made for a prior CCC, I only have the Cheetah renders of, because I didn't know how to use neverblender at the time and the models never made it in game. Nevertheless The textures are flat and without any special shaders (except the first one which has a bump map, which wasn't burned into the base texture yet) so while the lighting renders much more nicely than in NWN and the texture isn't getting mipmapped, this is more or less what you would get:

 

I wish I could find the reference I was using for that last, unfinished tree. I'd like to finish it. I like that model, and it matches the photo very well. One of the best I've done.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

FWIW I really like those and there is a bit of a lack of placeables like them. IIRC there is just one in the vanilla rural and not that many more in the vanilla forest. Anyway, best of luck with this.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Empyre65]

               

Here's an idea that you can take with a grain of salt because it comes from a non-modeler. You might be able to make an acceptable knot in texture only, saving some polys.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Playing with a smooth red bark. texture is 256x256 and tiled. very much a wip, and evolving. 6 meters to to the tip of the highest limb, and is about 900 triangles.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I think I have the bark textures. Lemme know what you think of these renders.

 

Textures are 256x256. I'm using two. (and for the smooth red bark, I took the advice of others to just make a mess of it. not sure if I will keep that one but so far it seems to work.)

 

Next up is foliage

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I feel like I am taking forever to make any progress. Took some time this evening to work on foliage.

Here's the render (1052 triangles):

Screenshot (mountainous forest):

 

And the texture (256x256)

 

I'm currently using a 5 triangle "pyramid shape" similar but simpler than the thing that six used on his wildwood trees. I am just trying it out to see how it feels. Not sure its the look I want yet really or if the thing i need to do is to redo the texture itself. I'll keep poking at this until i get it right. then i'll have all the pieces worked out finally and be ready to produce several trees.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Adjusted the texture (and more importantly the alpha), and got closer to where I want it to be. I still want the leaves to be brighter, but in the mountain forest scene, they are close to the right color. The tree almost works there. Not quite but almost.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

I feel like I am taking forever to make any progress. Took some time this evening to work on foliage.

Here's the render (1052 triangles):

Screenshot (mountainous forest):

 

And the texture (256x256)

 

I'm currently using a 5 triangle "pyramid shape" similar but simpler than the thing that six used on his wildwood trees. I am just trying it out to see how it feels. Not sure its the look I want yet really or if the thing i need to do is to redo the texture itself. I'll keep poking at this until i get it right. then i'll have all the pieces worked out finally and be ready to produce several trees.

As long as you're working on the leave texture a colour that is different from the leaves' colour is okay because it makes it easier to select non-leave parts of the texture, but when you're finished with it, colour the parts that a yellow now with a colour very similar to that of the leaves. It will look better in game because no matter how far from the leaves the camera is you won't get any yellow edges around the leaves.

You could also make a small texture with transparents parts for use as a decal to blend the two different bark textures.

If you use pure green for your leaves, they stick out. Try some different colour, gamma and contrast settings.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Thanks for the feedback. Its really appreciated. Its why I posted my progress.

 

I agree on changing the yellow background, Z. When I started I was thinking that if I got the alpha just right I could have a very thin yellow margin around the leaf the leaf, but it didn't work out. I couldn't get it as tight as i wanted. So when in doubt being conservative with this stuff works - tried and true as they say.  I cleaned up the alpha to eat in at the leaf margins, and also adjusted the background color to go with the green of the leaves. The screen I posted this morning shows this.

 

I'll look at decals when I do other trees.

 

What you say about desaturating, and darkening the leaves is interesting. But I'm going to take that with a grain of salt. I do need to adjust the color, but I want to get it to work for this particular species. It will be brighter than the other trees we are used to. I think the problem I have now however is that the green is too uniform, and not yellowish at all. I'm going to adjust toward a more mottled appearance, and a more yellowy look and see what that gets me.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kuronue bloodlust]

               

That looks amazing! what program are you using to make the tree and texture if I may ask?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Thanks.

 

For migrating the model into NWN I use Blender with the NeverBlender plugin. But I do not usually use Blender to generate geometry or UV map or much of anything because the UI has a very steep learning curve and I don't have the patience for that yet.

 

For polygonal modeling, UV mapping, procedural textures (which I did not use for this model), rendering, and rigging and animating (which I have not yet done for NWN) I primarily use Cheetah3D which is an OS X only app that costs about $70 and puts 3DS max to shame. The only problem is that apple for the past 5 or more years (maybe 10 years) hasn't been able to develop a decent OS so when my ancient mac laptop dies again I'll sadly stop using this amazing application, and learn blender and simply be a linux only guy.

 

For the textures I have used GIMP, Photoshop CS 2, and Pixelmator (an OS X commercial extension of GIMP that cost me about $25 back in the day).  Mostly I use that old copy of CS 2 which I run in Wine on the Ubuntu box, or have a copy of on my temporarily resurrected mac laptop. And these textures were painted from references I download from the internet (mostly all i did was made them tile and cleaned them up so that they don't look like photographs).

 

I've also used in the past Sketchup, Bryce3D for its heightmap terrain generator and sky box generator (both of those are very fun to play with and exportable for use elsewhere), and I had a few unusual apps that used for awhile when they were opensource (terragen for example) for various purposes. But most of these tools have been collecting dust since I stopped making games with Unity some years back.

 

 

 

And at all that… I'm taking a break from art again for a bit. I've got some ideas for quests that I want to implement and am reminding myself how to code now. Lots of fun.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kuronue bloodlust]

               

Hnn sadly for me I need to keep my Manga crafting skills up and my materials for such up as well I think I will only be able to do portrait bundles for a while. I have been meaning to update my laptop to take advantage of the better processing ability of newer options as well as get rid of the overheating issues this model has.

 

on top of that i really want a Cique for my digital art but they are liek 1k+ a pop not cheap artist tablet Also I was wondering how well 3d sculpt would work for NWN module items.