Back to Work

So Christmas and New Years is over, Been a busy couple of weeks with family and such but it's now time to isolate myself permanently from all sources of human interaction to get some work done.

I took the time also to study trees a bit more so i can familiarize myself with there shapes and structures and realized that branches and the main core section out into 4-5 parts ending with leaves as the 5th or 6th from smaller twigs. all splitting from the beginning getting smaller and smaller.

My next Phase will be Getting Branches and Leaves on the tree in a way that seems random.

So to do this....

First i'll be modelling simple Branch planes with splitting branches on either side, i'll do a few in various lengths and sizes for variety.

Once I've done that, i'll get a basic leaf from the internet in high res, and re color it multiple times in the autumn theme so it's not just one plane color, set it up for integration with alpha's and such, and import ready to place on a 2-sided plane. i can then paint the leaves with the object painter on the multiple branches i have, with multiple selected leaves in various shades of orange and red for that autumn look.

Obviously...this is insanely un-optimized, having a tree with a gazillion leaves and branches as separate objects and planes rendering at the same time is not efficient and no game ever does it.

So the final plan will be to render the branches once they are painted with leaves into an alpha'd image and have the render placed on a 2D plane with ambient occlusion maps and bump mapping baked in, i can then paint the planes onto the tree. I may duplicate planes and rotate so they seem more full but hopefully this in the end will turn out great, will have to wait and see.