Minor Western Fixes

Just a few updates today.

• I updated the tree for a few more branches.  I also added some segments and roughness to some of the larger branches.  I added a bump map to the bark as well.
• I angled some of the branches more toward the focus of the scene.
• Adjusted the Final Gather lighting a little.
• Adjusted the ground plane texture a little.
• Changed the texture of the mid-ground wagon.  I made it grayer and older looking so it did not blend with the buildings behind it.
• Added a few extra shrubs in the background.

Just a little change...

Updated the wagon, moved tree around.

Last update for the day.

Some more work this evening.

• Aged some of the buildings a bit more.
• Modified the texture and model of the foreground wagon.
• Moved around tree a bit

New Trees!

So I came out the weekend with some great ideas.   I really liked the Mesquite Tree.

I found that the Mesquite was a native Arizona desert tree and that it often served as a nursey for new cactus, protecting them from the sun:

http://lowenddslr.com/photos/sabino-canyon-nursery-tree.php

I had also found some free script plugins that helped create the base tree shape.  One of them did not work well with 3dsmax 2012 and I had to adjust the script some.

Using the script, I was able to get the basic shape and branches of the tree complete very quickly.  The resulting mesh was a bit messy so I ended up doing a lot of editing and cleaning up.   Soon I had my mesquite tree, modeled and textured.  3 Hours!

I was on a roll, so I added some cacti and this is what I ended up with:

Cactus and Mesquite

Trees ... A tragedy

At first I wasn't going to work any more on the tree that I had in the scene.  But after some unwrapping and texturing difficulties in Mudbox, I decided to take the tree further and add leaves.

I had done some research and looked up Arizona Trees and had chosen a Black Walnut.  Using reference, I made my tree a black walnut.

This was the result of about 5-6 hours work.  A good portion of the branches were hand created and placed.   I placed about 80% of the leaves manually, with the last 20% I used particles to fill in the tree.  This was a crazy amount of work that was fairly tedious.  

I posted this tree on CGtalk and got some comments back:   'Wrong kind of tree!  Doesn't look like a desert."  It was suggested to make the tree look more scraggled and thin, less leaves and shorter.  Maybe swap out for cactus.

This was great criticism.  I can't believe I had missed it, but my heart dropped.... that was 6 hours of work!  I went into the weekend and did some research....