Tree color variation

[bigben]

OK, this is placement issue is getting a bit weird but I think it's worth a separate post so as not to distract from the original subject of this thread.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3269.msg33334

[Mr_Lamppost]

Offshoot  from some work I have been doing elsewhere with multiple Perlin applied here as the colour function of the leaf shader.  The clours come from two Power Fractals one yellow and ochre the other cyan and sea green.  Not tree by tree but I think even this rough test gives an acceptable result   

[JimB]

Offshoot  from some work I have been doing elsewhere with multiple Perlin applied here as the colour function of the leaf shader.  The clours come from two Power Fractals one yellow and ochre the other cyan and sea green.  Not tree by tree but I think even this rough test gives an acceptable result   

It sure does. This is a big step forward and looking great 

[bigben]

When I made my autumn leaf surfaces I found it easier designing the surfaces on the terrain using the alpha mask of the leaf at the correct size, and tiled over the terrain. This gives you a much quicker render of the leaf to leaf variation, especially when tweaking the fractal scales..

[Bidmaron]

I didn't understand that last one.  Can you explain in a little more detail?  Why would you be using a leaf alpha mask to render terrain?
--Dale--

[bigben]

There are two key problems with trying to create a procedural surface for leaves.

1: Positioning the camera close to a tree object when you only have a bounding box AND getting a clear enough view of the leaves is a real pain.

2: Rendering a tree at high quality takes a long time.

So instead of creating the surface on a tree object, I simply created the same surface on the terrain. The problem with that is that you need something to get a sense of scale so you can set the size parameters of the fractals.  To do this I simply took the image used for the alpha mask of the leaf and and used it for the fractal break up on the surface (Plan Y, repeat X and Y) and you get a whole set of leaves showing the variation you can get on a leaf by leaf basis.



http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=730.msg6446#msg6446

Once you've got the settings you want you just transfer the nodes to the internal network of the tree object.

[Mr_Lamppost]

I did wonder what you were getting at