Collab2021-WIP-ullreym

Assets: Nature E: FG Tree B My Work in Progress

• I started the tree with a vertex and manually extruded the trunk, branches, and roots.
• I added the Skin modifier and adjusted the vertex width with CTRL+A to taper the branches.
• I collapsed the modifier stack to make the tree "real" and then created a collection of leaves. 
• I then selected the ends of the branches where I would like the leaves to sprout and made a vertex group from the selection to use in a particle system.

I have had a little bit of a "hiccup" with the particle system, though. My copy of Blender 2.92 crashes as soon as I switch the modifier from Emitter to Hair. So, I downloaded a fresh copy of Blender and it still crashes. I will try some other things and see if I can populate the branches with some leaves before the due date. 

🙄🌳🍃

Homework Submission - Week 1 - FG Tree B

@theluthier 

Assets: Nature E: FG Tree B My Work in Progress

• I was able to learn what caused the crash and not do that anymore.
• I am still uncertain as to why it crashes.

While the tree geometry has vertices selected in edit mode, I added the Particle system in object mode. This is not a problem, but once I selected the hair particle type.... crash. To avoid this problem, I enter edit mode, create the vertex group I need, deselect them and then add the particle system with the hair type while still in edit mode. If I add the particle system in object mode, it crashes once I select the hair. Anyway.... here is the FG Tree B with leaves. 🙄🌳🍃💥

Nice job, Matthew!

Thanks Dave, I told Jenny that I needed to spruce up my tree before I turned it in. She said that it looked more like an Oak tree to her. 😳🤣

ullreym it looks amazing!

and, to my understanding, it's modelled "manually" (?) which makes it... even more so!

: )

inspires me to learn (foreseeable future) in this general direction (organic stuff, opposed to my 'comfort zone' of predominantly manmade artefacts)...

rationalrats Thanks Peter! I felt that to get the tree to do what Vadim had painted I needed to manually place the tree limbs. The Sapling tree generator is great and makes fantastic procedural plants, but I needed more control. I then used the particle system to place the leaves and quickly lost that control. Ha ha.
Going organic in Blender is not as expensive as it is at the grocery store. It also has a certain freedom that comes from the random nature of the subjects. The sculpting features of Blender are so much fun too. I’m still amazed to have the modeling power of Maya and the digital clay of Zbrush all in one free package. 🤯

ullreym you are the second person I noticed, living in the past ;)

It's 2021 (title!)

Yikes! I must have had a spasm while typing the two and the one. Ha ha! Okay, it is now fixed and I am in the current decade. :-)

Thanks, that is a lot easier on my eyes :)

(I should have noticed it earlier, but with so many WIP threads, I tend to just open them, without looking at the title, because I want to see them all!.)

Assets: Nature E: FG Tree B My Work in Progress

• The chaotic topology left by applying the Skin Modifier was reworked to clean up the model.
• The addition of some viewport coloring to the trunk and leaves brought better visibility to the Tree.

I spent some quality time simplifying the "geometree." 🙄 I separated the parts of the limbs that the Particle system uses to emit the leaves on the branches. I also added some large simple shapes to fill in some leaves in the upper branches. I duplicated the tree and used the vertex group for the limbs in a decimate modifier to further reduce the number of vertices. Now I am all set to switch over to sculpt mode and start carving some details into this TreeD model using the Multires modifier.

Here is a work-in-progress shot of the hand-painted texture being used as a stencil for the Sculpt Draw brush.

@theluthier Thanks for the kind words and all the experience points! Those examples looks so good, I’ll start simplifying the texture and post some more screenshots.

Hey ullreym,

that bark may not fit in this scenario, but I'd still like to compliment you on this one. It looks so awesome to me and very realistic.
Since I don't understand how you did that, could you explain it to me? Or maybe give a link to something where it get's explained?

Regards,
tobles

Assets: Nature E: FG Tree B My Work in Progress

• Using the stylized samples, I smoothed out the bark of the tree with a combination of the scrape brush and smooth brush. 
• The Draw Sharp brush came in handy adding creases and gouges by alternating with the CTRL button.

The process of sculpting has a calming effect as I created the twists and swirls in the tree trunk. I took inspiration from the sample art that @theluthier provided in my critique. I am really looking forward to the finished product once the UVs are created the texture painting is complete.

Hello ttobles,

In the video example, Kent used a Voronoi texture to add a hammered look to the metal of the wall lamp. I figured that if I painted a rough greyscale image of bark in Blender's image editor, I could use it the same way as the Voronoi texture on the Sculpt Draw Brush. I tried the Anchored  Stroke Setting, but I found using the Texture Mapping as a Stencil and Stoke Method set to Space, allowed me to rotate and scale the painted texture as I needed to in order to add variety to the bark.

Homework Submission - Week 2 - FG Tree B

@theluthier 

Assets: Nature E: FG Tree B My Work in Progress

• I used the provided art direction to alter the style of the sculpted detail. Knocking down the higher frequency cracks and crevasses, I used Smooth, Crease, Draw Sharp and Scrape Brushes to achieve this goal.
• There is a bonus woodland creature hiding in the hollow of the tree unseen by the render camera.

I had to do some traveling this week and was working on the project remotely. The little squirrel is the result of four hours on the airplane. I do not recommend 3D modeling with the trackpad emulating a 3 button mouse. It will work, but it is extremely difficult. When I wasn't in the air, I found the time to do the sculpting with the graphics tablet. This I highly recommend. 😁

The squirrel looks great in there!! 👍😃 I love little hidden additions like that

beefkeef Thanks my friend, the little fella is inspired by Bob Ross’ pocket squirrel “Peapod.” Sometimes Bob would paint Happy Trees with Peapod tucked into his shirt pocket.

 Video clip of Peapod