Collab2021 - WIP - danitufi

controlled by changing the viewport object color

danitufi  Eureka! I should have been able to figure that out 😅 Thanks for clarifying, I get it now - clever work 🤝

I LOVE your sculpted tree trunk detail! Exactly the aesthetic I hoped to see for the trees. Very nice work, sir 👏

I'm going to talk about your tree during the stream tomorrow so catch that live (or recording) for some feedback on the shading!

Amazing work! I also really love that trunk. My only suggestion for going forward would be to have each one of those leaves be a group of textured leaves in that same general shape rather than one giant leaf. In the concept art it looks like each leaf is pretty big, but it only works because the concept art will only be viewed from that exact distance. It also means that you could save on polys by making them basic planes. For this project, try that out and see if it helps. We'll also need these to interact with light, but until you get to the texturing and materials phase, previewing it with an emission is totally fine. Keep up the good work! 

Edit: Just saw Kent's message about talking about it on the stream. I'll go back and watch that so we're on the same page 

Wow, great work on that trunk and on those leaves! I'm checking out the file now and it looks *gorgeous*. 

We do still need to refrain from using any emission, since keeping shadows consistent throughout all the assets will be super important. 

Using some SSS was a great idea. I like it! Turning on Subsurface Translucency in the material helps even more. 

I would recommend adding some specular back in, since that helps give it shape. 

Mixing in some translucency like this also helps to make it more painterly:

Lastly, even though the vertex count is pretty low thanks to instanced collections, the amount of transparent planes makes the compiling take a bit longer than is probably necessary. See if the middle of each clump can be an opaque sphere of leaves and delete all the planes inside of it to help this render faster:

Keep up the good work!

Edit: Oh, and I do still think that the scale of the leaves is a bit off. I think the size of the clumps you have is perfect, but in terms of the leaves themselves, something like this would work much better:

if the geomtry is good cause of the intant collection, would it work if I switched back to a leaf shape ngon instead of using a quad plane with alpha? would it be more efficient?

Even with instancing, it appears that the render time is much lower overall if all the plants use planes with alpha instead of leaf shaped geometry.  One tree by itself might be faster with geometry, but with the number of plants we're supporting in one scene we need to go with image planes. 

I agree with Matthew - that second render is looking NICE! The only thing that sticks out to me is that I think the SSS is a bit more extreme with less geometry and is a bit overpowering in that one. I would also enjoy seeing some small branches connecting those leaves so that some aren't floating off in space. A color map to go along with the alpha map would allow you to add those in as well as add some color variation and detail to each leaf without the need to do it procedurally. 

Top notch work here, and full points for week 3! 

I wanted to reiterate what I said during the stream when I integrated you tree: You did an amazing job! Your tree looks fantastic in the assembly.

Thanks for joining Collab2021! It's been a pleasure working with you danitufi 🤝