Vegetation reference thread!

[trezza 10]

Here we are, this thread may be very useful for people creating brand new vegetation! In here people can post up reference pictures of different trees bushes and plants. Things like photos of bark, branches, leaves, grass and I think pictures of the ground, EXCITING :p. I haven't got any material at the moment but I'll go and grab the camera then edit this post with some pics!

I took these in my back yard, then it rained so i had to come in.

The bark on a limb of my lemon tree

A branch of the lemon tree

Trunk of a small fern

A leaf from the fern.

Edited April 23, 2010 by trezza
added pictures

[mikebart 1]

nice one trezza, I find it can be really hard to find good reference photos of vegetation online, especially for modelling reference, here are some pics i took in the Uruwera National Park NZ, sorry about some of them being a bit dark.

Heres a some information: http://doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/te-urewera/features/

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/dsc08240.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08241i.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08248h.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08247v.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dsc08247r.jpg/

http://img15.imageshack.us/i/dsc08246v.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dsc08245x.jpg/

http://img532.imageshack.us/i/dsc08244o.jpg/

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/dsc08243.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08249e.jpg/

http://img217.imageshack.us/i/dsc08250.jpg/

http://img256.imageshack.us/i/dsc08251q.jpg/

http://img256.imageshack.us/i/dsc08252e.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08253y.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dsc08256.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08257b.jpg/

http://img256.imageshack.us/i/dsc08264l.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08263u.jpg/

http://img532.imageshack.us/i/dsc08262k.jpg/

http://img217.imageshack.us/i/dsc08261.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08260.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08259.jpg/

http://img217.imageshack.us/i/dsc08258m.jpg/

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/dsc08265v.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08266.jpg/

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/dsc08268j.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08271.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08272.jpg/

http://img217.imageshack.us/i/dsc08274j.jpg/

http://img15.imageshack.us/i/dsc08275x.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08287m.jpg/

http://img15.imageshack.us/i/dsc08286b.jpg/

http://img256.imageshack.us/i/dsc08284y.jpg/

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/dsc08283f.jpg/

http://img217.imageshack.us/i/dsc08282y.jpg/

http://img15.imageshack.us/i/dsc08279s.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08277.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08288.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08289d.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08290.jpg/

http://img339.imageshack.us/i/dsc08293z.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08295p.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08296k.jpg/

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dsc08297b.jpg/

http://img256.imageshack.us/i/dsc08304y.jpg/

http://img530.imageshack.us/i/dsc08303k.jpg/

http://img685.imageshack.us/i/dsc08302q.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08301i.jpg/

http://img687.imageshack.us/i/dsc08299n.jpg/

http://img687.imageshack.us/i/dsc08300w.jpg/

http://img293.imageshack.us/i/dsc08298.jpg/

http://img530.imageshack.us/i/dsc08307f.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dsc08308.jpg/

http://img718.imageshack.us/i/dsc08309e.jpg/

http://img685.imageshack.us/i/dsc08311c.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dsc08312i.jpg/

http://img213.imageshack.us/i/dsc08313l.jpg/

http://img718.imageshack.us/i/dsc08316e.jpg/

http://img213.imageshack.us/i/dsc08325z.jpg/

http://img685.imageshack.us/i/dsc08324a.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08323k.jpg/

http://img530.imageshack.us/i/dsc08322r.jpg/

http://img219.imageshack.us/i/dsc08321l.jpg/

http://img687.imageshack.us/i/dsc08320x.jpg/

http://img293.imageshack.us/i/dsc08318.jpg/

[trezza 10]

Wow that's a lot of pictures.

When i take my dirtbike out I usually go up to Murrindindi, Toolangi and Narbethong to ride, Seeing as you're from melbourne too you probably know those places mikebart.

Here's some pictures of the area, for anyone who doesn't know the tree trunks are black because of a huge fire that went through early in 2009. Sorry for any photos with a blue tint.

This hill, evil. photo makes it look small.

[cctoide 0]

I hope it's OK to bring this back up, since it's a reference thread... here are some photos I took. They're probably a bit useless for textures since I took them before I started modeling and knew what I needed, but I think they're OK for reference purposes. I can get you the original 10MP images if you want them.

Walnut tree trunk and scars (thumbnail, click for full size):

Walnut branches:

http://xs.to/image-02D2_4BEBFE4C.jpg

http://xs.to/image-7839_4BEBFE4C.jpg

http://xs.to/image-4E79_4BEBFE4C.jpg

Freshly cut chestnut tree stump:

http://xs.to/image-2453_4BEBFE4C.jpg

Edit: Also, I noticed a previous thread about the Arbaro tree generator, I found one which seems to be slightly more user-friendly, it's called tree[d]: http://www.frecle.net/index.php?show=treed.about

Edited May 13, 2010 by cctoide

[mikebart 1]

@Trezza, Nice pics, im from NZ origionally, I've been in melbourne for 4 years now and ive had a pretty good look around, but I don't know those places :), I haven't really ventured too deep into woods here, we got to make some gum trees!.

Best of all tree[d] is free to use, and the trees you make you can include in your own projects, commercial or free, as long as they are not model packs, texture packs, 3D model generators, or texture generators.

@cctoide: thats pretty nice of them, sounds good, I still havent used a tree generator for my trees yet, I've been making them by hand which is pretty insane really, but this looks quite good, ill try it out thanks!, nice pics too, try and get some good references of the whole tree as well if you can.

The foliage photos are big enough, when you consider how small the leaf will end up in game

[cctoide 0]

Hey again. I've been playing with tree[d] since my Max attempt turned out rather crappy, and it's a lot better than it seemed at first glance.

Branches look a bit mechanical sometimes, but that's probably due to the settings used. The images above seem to me like they could be used on a polyplane right away. Only issues are that the lighting doesn't seem to be editable, the built-in RTT is limited to 512x512 for some reason, and you can't really do the normal/spec maps properly off of the above images.

It exports fine to OBJ and I was able to load it up in Max. After some fiddling with the alpha on the leaf textures it looks just like the tree in the program, however I can't seem to recreate the lighting. It also seems like you lose the random leaf color variation when exporting, as they're all mapped to a single texture. I'm not too experienced with Max, though, so all of that might be fixable, and then you could use your projection baking method to get polyplane textures.

It generates pretty good trunks and branches, too, so you might be able to use the exported mesh as a base for the ingame trunk model.

It's a pretty awesome little program and it's great they're giving it away even though it's apparently been worked on for close to ten years.

Edited May 14, 2010 by cctoide

[mikebart 1]

looks really nice cctode, I just quoted your post over here.

[trezza 10]

Are you able to choose if the leaves are made as models or just a plane with a texture applied to them?

[cctoide 0]

Unfortunately no, but you can choose how many subdivisions the leaf planes should have. ngPlant is slightly more flexible when it comes to that (it even lets you use .obj, apparently), but it's also harder to use than tree[d].