Hero tree

FrankB · April 03, 2009, 04:37:48 AM

Hi,

I have been playing with the trial version of xfrog and made my first tree with it.
I have borrowed the textures from xfrog's outstanding cracked willow from the european tree library, but the tree I have constructed by myself.

It hold's up quite well, even on close-up (although I should have probably moved the camera away another meter). Next thing I'll do is buy the full license of the modeller. Great software. And in combination with TG2's outstanding renderer... well, you know it

BTW: the displacement map for the bark ...made by me :-)

Cheers,
Frank

Tangled-Universe · April 03, 2009, 05:19:26 AM

Hi Frank,

Very cool tree and I love the bark!
The displacement is a bit "hairy" if you know what I mean.
I made textures and displacement-maps myself once and I had the same problem.
Blurring the displacementmap certainly helps but it also reduces detail.
I then only made displacements for the largest patches of bark and that worked fine.
Next time I'll see you online I'll send you those textures (~3500x2000px

)

Great work and cool you're going to be into tree-modeling.
I have some medium-exciting news in that regard as well, but will share that along with the bark

Martin

FrankB · April 03, 2009, 05:31:13 AM

Hi Martin, thank you very much!

I have reduced that "hairy" displacement quite a bit already through the self-made displacement map. Also, only the trunk is displaced, although it maybe seem to you that the branches have some level of displacement as well (which is probably due to the rough looking texture).

I'm probably on IM tonight, not 100% sure yet. but we'll meet eventually ;-)
Looking forward to your other news.

Cheers,
Frank

Tangled-Universe · April 03, 2009, 05:34:10 AM

Ah I see...the main trunk indeed has very little "hair" (haha...that sounds ridiculous).
I meant the branches the most actually, so that's probably just a texture-issue then.
Also, did you mention that the first level of branches is textures, but the second level and further isn't?
Don't know if you can solve that?

Martin

FrankB · April 03, 2009, 05:52:44 AM

no, the second level branches and further have a different, much less rough texture. I suppose these are much "younger" than the trunk and first level branches, hence are much smoother still. Probably to be more realistic, one would need to make texture shots from more than just two branch levels, to mimic how the roughness decreases as you go deeper in the branch hierachy. The xfrog model only had two levels of texture, which may be a little too coarse for close-ups like this.
Eventually when I have my full license, I'm going to take pictures of more than two textures per tree, to allow for real close-ups. That will certainly increase my "outdoor time" - which is a welcome side effect ;-)

Frank

domdib · April 03, 2009, 05:54:42 AM

Exciting to know that FrankB and possibly TU are going into the tree business. Does this mean we can expect some more TG2 packs from you Frank?

FrankB · April 03, 2009, 05:58:44 AM

Quote from: domdib on April 03, 2009, 05:54:42 AM
Exciting to know that FrankB and possibly TU are going into the tree business. Does this mean we can expect some more TG2 packs from you Frank?

yes, most probably :-)
... once I have developed the required skills for that. XFrog is a pretty complex application on its own, there's lots to learn. At this point, I'm still wondering how far one can go in making truly realistic looking trees with it.

Frank

inkydigit · April 03, 2009, 09:02:56 AM

nice looking tree....

FrankB · April 03, 2009, 09:11:41 AM

a quicky, showing the tree in a population.

Frank

Tangled-Universe · April 03, 2009, 09:22:28 AM

Looks good man!
I'd only tone down the specularity a bit, slightly darken the diffuse color and increase the translucency.
Although the tree really looks alive I think this could improve it even further.
Great work! *gets itchy fingers*

Martin

rcallicotte · April 03, 2009, 10:30:07 AM

Frank, this looks better from a distance and not just better - GREAT!

Luminos · April 03, 2009, 10:47:11 AM

distibution with these trees are excellent. Doesn't look shabby at all

Zylot · April 03, 2009, 11:41:29 AM

Looks amazing.

Seth · April 03, 2009, 11:48:37 AM

for a first try, that looks very good... i wait for evolution and wonder what you'll be able to do with the complete version

btw how does this software works ? is that user friendly ?

cyphyr · April 03, 2009, 12:18:29 PM

Great tree you got there, looks kinda willow like, have you decided on a type for it to be yet?
richard