So making Trees aint easy

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

I’ve been dabbling at trying this bonsai tree type deal and have been trying to rack my brain on how the heck to get the particle system to work for me. I couldn’t find a way to do it, so i went with a way that I knew might work.

This is for sure a WIP since i don’t have anything else in the scene yet, but any thoughts on the current image would be great. Also, if anyone seems to know a good method of making leaves on branches without the leaves sticking up and about like they got struck by lighting would also be appreciated.

A render and a Clay render…

Bonsai Render 1.jpg2300×2300 344 KB


Bonsai Render Clay.jpg2300×2300 122 KB

#2

Rotate them all so they are essentially more flat from side to side - look at a real tree and the angles that the leaves are at - probably means doing it by hand, or at least tweaking by hand.

Nice project!

Cheers, Clock.

#3

Yeah, definitely making trees isn’t easy :), but I think it’s looking quite nice so far.

I would agree with clockmender’s suggestion of doing the leaves by hand. I’ve been working on a project lately that I have had to hand place the leaves, so I didn’t know if this would help at all. I have found it works quite well to create like 3 or 4 clusters of leaves, with each cluster being one object, then do alt-D to duplicate the clusters as instances, and place those instances on the tree. Since it’s leaves, you really don’t notice the duplicate clusters, and since they are instances, if you have to change something in one of the clusters, you only have to change one instance, and it will automatically change the rest. So it’s easy to modify. It also saves time because you can add clusters of leaves instead of one leaf at a time.

I hope you’re able to figure out something that works!