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tree trunk basic tester

Discussion in 'Made With Unity' started by boxy, Oct 23, 2005.

  1. boxy

    boxy

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Posts:
    675
    Howdy, just started messing with seeing what kind of detail I can get with the parallax shader. So far the displacement map works better than the normal map and I'm hoping I can suss a way to make the poly count less but still make it look good....anyway its just a start.
    Boxy

     
  2. NicholasFrancis

    NicholasFrancis

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    1,587
    hi Boxy...

    Looks good... Here's what I picked up on:

    Looking at your polygonal mesh (the 2000 face one) I can see several subdivisions running across the branches you don't neccessarily want. Remember, it the branch bend turn where you have a ring, you don't need it.

    Also, How many polygons do you have in the circumference? You could very likely reduce that to 5-6 and save a significant number. You can probably get that all the way down to 3 near the tips. They are so narrow anyways (and likely to be joining the leaves), that no-one will notice ;-)

    Also, You will probably want to make the tree longer near the root, so placement becomes simpler (Think of it standing on a steep slope)...
     
  3. boxy

    boxy

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    Good advice Nicholas. There are 8 quads in the circumference - the model was started off as zpheres which are 4 poly circumferences at the lowest level of subD but I felt that was too low for the main trunk on a high res hero tree (for close up) - and in fact ZB doesn't really give you much control of polycount in that respect. I will optimize it as you suggested though, try and get it so I can keep a high poly count around the main trunk. Also for this test I let ZB apply its AUV tiles, but I think it'd be better if I optimize the geometry first then create a more user-friendly uv map. Oh yes also the base would actually look nicer with roots extending down for sloped placement.
    Thanks
    Boxy
     
  4. NicholasFrancis

    NicholasFrancis

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    What you could try woul be to pull a good-res object from ZBrush into your dedicated polymodeller (Blender, Maya, C4D, whatever) and then model it up around the highpoly. That's how create our characters - works a treat.
     
  5. guategeek_legacy

    guategeek_legacy

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    Jun 22, 2005
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    659
    Looks great, Also for you programers out there we are looking for someone interested in working on the UniTree project (an LOD system that we want to put together for vegetation but could be used for other things as well).

    OTEE has even agreed to build it into Unity if we can get it together and release it under the correct kind of license, something like BSD. We will put together a more formal request latter, and are happy to answer questions to the best of our knowledge (seeing as we are more artists than programers). Jeff
     
  6. boxy

    boxy

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    Ah well, good thinking and that has just reminded me, before Xmas ZBrush 2.5 will be released and it will feature a new way of re-creating topology - see the second movie at this link:

    http://pixologic.com/zbrush/media_links/movies2.html

    Looks like this tool exactly does what you are describing!
    Thanks
    Sav
     
  7. boxy

    boxy

    Joined:
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    Thanks Jeff. I think this would be an amazing feature - built right into Unity too, it would be so unique. I currently don't know how far we can take it but I hope it will enable us to easily add LOD vegetation and animate it according to wind settings etc - kind of like the auto animation of veg in Vue Infinite 5. I for one am determined to get this up and running, but yes we would need programmers.
    Best
    Boxy
     
  8. NicholasFrancis

    NicholasFrancis

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    Just wanted to point out that in order for us to release it, it not only has to be under the correct license, it also has to be good ;-)

    Now, the real reason I went to do this post is to give a piece of more general advice: once you are at a certain quality level, don't spend too much time making it perfect (esp. if it's the first time you do something), but go ahead and get it complete.

    In this specific case, the tree trunk is fine. Instead of getting lost in poly reduction of the trunk, try putting on some foilage. Once you have some foilage, maybe it turns out the top part of the tree isn't seen (or something).

    Now, once the foilage is ok, Don't go back and tweak the trunk until it's perfect. Instead, try making a lower LOD of the same tree, using half the number of polies. Then make yet another LOD again with half.

    Once you've made the low LODs, you can go back and look at the highest LOD again.

    Granted, it does make the flow somewhat harder to get into, but this way, you won't get bogged down and make The Perfect Tree Trunk then hate trees the rest of you life ;-)

    After a few trees, you'll know enough about tree modelling to go deep into detail straight away.

    Just my 2c
    \Nicholas
     
  9. guategeek_legacy

    guategeek_legacy

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    659
    Thanks for the advice nick.
     
  10. boxy

    boxy

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    Aug 10, 2005
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    :) well I for one wouldn't use it if it was anything less than good. Great advice though as I naturally lean toward getting bogged down in detail before the rough outline is complete - you sound like someone who has done this before - or maybe even someone who learned it the hard way ;)
    As it happens I am not sure whether I would ever get sick of modelling trees, but maybe after the 5000th I may think different!
    Thanks Nicholas
    Boxy