Make an Environment Scene in Speedtree And Use Maya Rendering

Natural vegetation is an indispensable element in games and scenes in the film and television animation industry! The production of some vegetation can almost add true feelings to the film. Fox Renderfarm, your TPN-Accredited cloud rendering service provider and safe render farm, shares with you a tutorial about how to make an environment scene in Speedtree.

For the game masterpiece "Mysterious Sea", the scene production, from plants to objects, including objects, stickers and other details are close to the real, comparable to the general production of film and television movies.

There are also many scenes with vegetation in the film. For example, in the movie "Fantasy Forest", the large-scale vegetation scenes in the lens brought shocking visual effects to the audience, and almost all of them came from the realization of CG technology.

Compared to the realistic vegetation of "Fantasy Forest", the fantastic scenes of the movie "Avatar" many years ago have shocked everyone.

Then let's have a look at the technology behind the vegetation scene!

Tools used: Speedtree

At present, there are much vegetation making tools. Speedtree is definitely one of them. It has been used in many games, movies, CG animations.

The working principle of Speedtree is to generate branches through bones and generate trees through node connections. For example, the trunk is generated first, then small branches are generated on the trunk, and so on, and finally leaves are grown on the branches.

Its editing function of upstream is powerful and convenient. It can quickly adjust the length, thickness, bending, quantity, and random deformation of vegetations through parameters; it can create almost any type of vegetation in reality with a good model. At the same time, Speedtree also provides the animation function, which can generate the effect of natural wind and growth animation; the new version also adds the adjustment of the four seasons, which can control the process of leaves from green to yellow.

Speedtree is a really good tool for the environment artist!

Zhang Wei is an environmental artist and vegetation artist of a film and television animation company. He has participated in the production of many animation projects. He is good at researching and producing any kind of film-level and television-level special vegetation. Here, he will introduce the production of a single tree.

ZBrush High Model Creation

In ZBrush, the blockout of the trunk, roots, and ground is quickly made. After the shape of the tree is completed, the overall posture of the tree can be adjusted and details added. These details include bark, bumps, etc., all of which are completed with a basic brush.

The final thing vegetation needs are the shape of the tree. It is best to mix several different shapes together to make the shape of the tree more natural.

UVS and Textures

Use ZBrush's plug-in Decimation Master to reduce the surface of the model; export it to RizomUV VS; adjust the problematic points with Maya; split the UV and map in Mari; texture the stone and bottom and moss in Substance Painter. Then the production is completed.

Creates Assets in Speedtree

I use Speedtree to modify unique shapes. Leaves, vines, roots, grass, and other local shapes can also be made, including adding details to the tree, making realistic plant maps, etc.

At first, I only made the texture of the tree, but in order to make the tree and the ground better, I added some vines to the tree and planted some grass around the ground, and added some decorative stones around the stone and grass.

Maya Rendering

Then all the files are combined into a MAYA file. After the texture of the trunk and stones is built, the atmosphere of the scene can be adjusted while performing the light test.

After determining the final effect, it’s time to carry forward layered rendering. The last step is to put it into Photoshop to adjust the color and contrast.

Conclusion

Now you should know how to make an environment scene in Speedtree. Fox Renderfarm is an excellent cloud rendering services provider and CPU&GPU render farm, so if you need to find a render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users.