For my final week of Easter I have managed to fix my computer issues by replacing the motherboard so work has moved a little bit faster. I have been working from a reference board of plants Amber created to make some trees for our level.
I had to watch a couple of tutorials to refresh my memory as it's been a while since I've made foliage, this helped me learn some new modelling techniques in 3ds max like using loft with splines which allows a lot of control over the shape of the tree trunk compared to other methods like path deform.
Below is the first attempt at the tree, experimenting with the texture on the alpha planes and the overall shape of the tree, I used a reference for the tree which is an acer but this first attempt seemed a bit to messy to me. The tree needed more of a shape with the leaves pointing downwards.
The second attempt at the tree was based from a technique used by Airborne Studios https://simonschreibt.de/gat/airborn-trees/ I thought this would work better but it didn't seem to work too tell for our type of tree and felt too blobby.
Below is a screen in level with a tree shader I created
The final attempt at the tree is what I went with which used overlapping branch planes pointing downwards in loose dome shapes which seemed to work a lot more, I used normal thief to get consistent shading all over. At the start of next week I return to uni where I will create a texture for the trunk.
