We will start by identifying what was wrong or not liked about the original, and go from there.
The tree had texture seams, a very old generic bark texture and looked rather basic. Knowing we do not want a repeat of the lollipop style tree, we jump straight into the development of the tree-trunk to try define a shape.
Overall we were very happy with this, and thought it offered much more than the old shape. Next we have to put a bark texture on it, and this meant creating one from scratch!
We created a base texture to make sure we have the colours we like.
We then proceeded to outline some patterns that could be used for the bark. This design looked promising but we decided to try again and create something curlier.
Once we had our base lines in place we move on to identify highlights and shadows.
After we make sure the highlights are in place and tile correctly, it is time to add the shading and start wrapping up the texture.
Excellent! With our tileable bark texture finished we can then apply this to our new tree-trunk.
Things are progressing smoothly and the next task is to create the canopy. Thankfully we had created some leaf textures at an earlier date which could be applied here.
After finding our old texture we were then able to move things around and create a canopy plane.
The canopy plane was then used to create and flesh out the canopy of the tree.
All done! We were very happy with how this model came out, and believe it looks fantastic in game!
We hope you enjoyed this insight into our development process, and if you have any feedback or think we could have done something better, be sure to let us know! Next we will cover how we created all the new rocky formations that surround Mendel's Farm.
really nice
That is a great looking tree. I am amazed you were able to pull off the canopy using just a plane. And it looks like you just added a little height to some of them, giving them a little bit of a pyramid shape. Is that really it? Great effect for a pretty simple process.