Creating a realtexture plant [example: syringa]

[Born²Modificate]

Creating a realtexture plant [example: syringa]

Hello everybody,
this tutorial is meant to help you to learn creating a model with realtextures, and i hope after submitting this some more people will change their style from comicstyle to realstyle.
This tutorial isn't a beginners tutorial, and i won't explain every single step in detail, i expect that you have already basic knowledge of using Photoshop and 3d studio max. Also it's not the only way to create a realtexture model, but i think it's at least a good inspiration.

Requirements:

Skills:
As i already mentioned you need to have some basic knowledge means you should know how to:

1. Cast a frost nova (No, actually you don't need to do that, but it would be cool, wouldn't it? :) )
   
2. Edit a mesh in 3d Studio Max, unwrap it etc..
   
3. Basics of Photoshop (or the programm you use), means how to create an alphachannel, how to use the erase pencil and so on

Tools:

1. 3d Studio Max 4/5
2. Photoshop or another image editing tool that supports Alphachannels
3. A tool that converts *.blp files to *.tga files. (For exampe Image Extractor II, Magos Model editor or Warcraft 3 Viewer)
4. [optional]Access to a searchingservice (google)

The Concept

Well, in this tutorial we want to model a syringa plant, and we will use the billboarding technique for the leaves.
In the end it will look like that:



Because it's a plant we can make first the texture and THEN the model itself. Some might think it's better to make first the model and then unwrap it and give it a texture that 100% fits to it and in case you make a humanoid model or a creature this might be right but in this case it's better this way, because of the simplicity and the shape of the model. The only thing you need is a good well structured texture. Before you go on you should search the web and look at a few pictures of a syringa. You should look for a picture that shows the whole plant, not only a few branches or the blooms, so that you get an idea of the structure. This is your reference picture you should keep in mind. This is important when you want to make the model look realistic.
An example for a good reference picture: http://www.plantyfolia.com/photos91-...lemoineens.jpg

In opposite to the reference picture it is important for the texture pictures that their size is big enough and that they show at least one of the needed parts (leaves, branches, blooms).
An example for a good texture picture:
http://www.redwoodbarn.com/images/syringaprpl2.jpg

Finding a good picture to make a texture of is sometimes quite difficult.
But there is nearly always a way to get a picture you can use for a texture.
At first you can search in some open source picture archives. Some good examples are:

http://mayang.com/textures/
http://textures.dmsdesigns.ca/
http://www.afflict.net/option_1/option_1.htm
http://www.bencloward.com/resources_textures.shtml
http://www.planit3d.com/source/textu...s/textures.htm
http://www.strangefate.com/textures/sf.html
http://www.escrappers.com/textures.html
http://www.animax.it/animax/Textures.htm

Another way to get a texture is google. The textures for the syringa we use is also found by google. ;)
If you want to find a good picture you can make a texture of, you sometimes need to search a bit. At first of course you enter the name of the object you want to model, "syringa" in this case. If you cannot find any good results try it with the dictonary and search after it in different languages, think of synonyms you can use or try it with the Latin name (by plants).

The best method of course is to use your digicam. ;)

For this tutorial i will give you this two pictures:

DOWNLOAD


Create the Texture:

Now that you know where to get a texture we will start with the texture.
Open Photoshop (or something else), open the two pictures and create a new 512² image with a colored background where you can see easily the different parts of the texture (i chosed black).



Use a selection tool (personally i like the polygonal selection tool best) to extract a few leaves that look fine for billboarding and copy it into your 512² picture. Every time you do this, photoshop will create a new layer.




Now erase the uneeded parts of the leaves that are not needed (the rest of the background for example) either with selection and deleting or with the erase pencil.
After you have done this chose another region of leaves in the texturepicture and repeat the whole procedure.







Now do the same with the blooms and the branches! Maybe you can resize them a bit.



After you have enough material we beginn alpha channeling.
Chose layer one( the leaves you first copied into the picture).
Use the magic selection tool, set the tolerance to a rather high value (i used 60) and click on the black background.
The selection will select everything except of your leaves.
Now use "reverse selection" and only the plant will be selected.



Now switch to the channel menu and create a new alpha channel.



Use the pencil and make the selected are white.



Repeat that procedure with every single layer (branches, blooms etc...) until every layer can be seen in the alpha channel.
When you're finish the result should look more or less like this:



Now save the texture as an 32-bit *.tga file, close it, and open it again.
Resize it to the half (256*256), use the sharpen tool and save it as "name"_mip1. Repeat that 3 times so that you have 4 mip maps:

"name"_mip1.tga
"name"_mip2.tga
"name"_mip3.tga
"name"_mip4.tga



Mip mapping is a sort of antialising warcraft III uses and because the mipmaps warcraft creates while the game runs are bad we create our own ones to prevent that the model will look blurry and yellowish.


Create the Model:

Now that we have our texture we will start 3d Studio Max a beginn with a 3 sided cylinder with 2 segments.



Edit the mesh so that it looks like a big branch, copy the object a few times and modifiy them and then give them the texture of the branches.



Now create a plane put the texture of the smaller branches on it, copy it a few times and make a few variations. Now spread those plane branches over the whole tree.



Now create a plane and give it the same hight and length params. The plane only need 1x1 segments. Give it the X-rotation -90,0. (This is needed for right billboarding) Now open the User Property Editor and give it full billboarding. Then give it the leaves texture, copy it, and give the copy the other leave texture so that you have 2 different variations.



Now copy the billboarded planes and spread them around.



The last step are the blooms. Make a new plane, give it the Bloom texture and them copy it by pressing shift and rotating it around the axis of the other plane. After you have done that, create a second variation and spread those around the tree again. Now the syringe tree should be done. :)




I attached my syringa as an example so that you can look at it if you're not shure whether you did something wrong.

*.Max scene and *.tga files:

DOWNLOAD


Born²Modificate

[Born²Modificate]

Well... uh... id like to know your opinion and whether it'll be approved and so on..

[PitzerMike]

*Approveled*

[Pyritie]

Personally, I suck at modelling, but this is a very useful tutorial for people who want to get away from that whole... cartoony... style of wc3. Like your doodad pack :D.

+rep

[Meai]

I really pondered for a long time how to do this. Thank you for sharing ur knowledge

[TheSecretArts]

gj man! Not much of a modeler but you really helped.

[Born²Modificate]

Thank you very much, i hope to see some more people making realtexture models soon. :)

[Zapp90]

Clean tutorial. Nothing really I learned from it, I think, but it's really useful for many people.

[Oglog]

Nice tutorial although most of us don't have 3dsmax (u know the whole not having $x000 lying about)
Ill try to do this with gmax and milkshape :).
Well thanks for sharing your knowledge .

[AirHead]

thanks this is great i wanted to learn how to do this and thanks to you now i know i really first saw this in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and ever since i wanted to do it in WC3 so YAY now i know how. thanks alot.

[abriko]

Really nice tuto, man, high quality.