Flat Trees

This tute will help you create nice flat poly trees that will still cast the appropriate shadows, look great and not chew up valuable system resources.

1.  Load up the tree we made earlier, and set yourself up a nice lighting scenario (preferable identical to the one you will use in the scene you would like the trees in). You should also frame your tree through the camera so that you will get a fairly orthographic view of it with the top and bottom of the tree as close to the frame edges as possible, you will have to decide on the resolution, I use 512 for the height and adjust the width to encompass the volume of the leaves.
2. Render your tree and save the image as a 32bit png file or anything with alpha information, like psd etc.
   
   
   
   
3. Load it into modeler as a backdrop image, this will allow us to create our flat polygon, using the box tool, to match the proportions of the image.
   
   
   
   
4. Once this is done, surface the flat polygon using planar image mapping on the z axis, hit automatic sizing to fit the image. Make sure the polygon is double sided.
   
   
   
   
5. Save off your flat tree and load it into layout. Using the same technique as you did for the tree above, clone the tree image and use the alpha only option for the clone.
6. Use the cloned image as a clip map for your tree object, don't forget to invert the layer.
7. Back in the surface editor, crank your flat tree surfaces diffuse setting down to 0% and crank luminosity up to 100%. Do a test render and you should be pleasantly surprised.
   
   
   
   
8. As a way to add some dimension to your new flat tree, render a side view of the original tree and create a second flat polygon (in it's own layer) to use as a side view. Texture and orientate this on the x axis in much the same way as you did the first one in (on the z axis) , but set it up so that it intersects the other polygon. Parent the two layers in layout and ensure you have the clip maps on both layers, now you can move around the tree and you will be hard pressed to find a problem with it. Clone a bunch and build your forest!!!!

As a final note, I will point out that I did not go into great detail on texturing your tree with bumps or specularity etc... You can create your maps from the existing images with Photoshop or a similar image manipulation program and apply them in the same way that you did with the colour uv map, or, you can experiment with the vast array of procedurals, hell, why not combine the two. I will also add a localized area light beneath each tree to recreate radiosity, turn of the lights shadows and use a low setting, say 10 or 15, and use a tint of colour to recreate reflected light. The scene will render like greased lightning....unless you have some elaborate lighting set up that defies imagination, or a 486....