FMP- Tree and Branches

 I am deciding what outer trees to model for my level.

 I prefer to keep it simple but effective, because the important organic assets would be in the focus within the level.


So I am going to aim for creating those tall straight trees to give a enormous scope of the player and the terrain.


I decided to create a simple base mesh in Max and import it into Zbrush to sculpt from.

 However, a friend suggested a better way which is to use the Zspheres in Zbrush to create your tree and the branches.

I remember using Zspeheres before and it was good to familiarize myself with it again.

An screen capture to demonstrate using Zsphere and how I was creating the branches.

So I was just pulling across and adding spheres to the mesh.

 A variation of branches I created from the result, I didn't spend to long on them, about 10 minutes generation different variation.

I wanted a four branches to give more variation.

My branches with bark detail

 I was using Zremesh on my branches to try to get a reasonable tri count, that would not deform the silhouette of the branch. 

However it was not possible and when it was too low, it would remove some branches and the roundness of the branch would be blocky and squared. I can retypo this manually which would give me better control but I realize a better approach

So I created some simple straight branches, which is much lower in cost of the tri-count and then I can now create a couple of small attachable branches.

Here is the Outer_Tree that will surrounding the perimeter of the forest, combining and attaching the branches, to really give some diverse modular set-up. Then I will add alpha tree leaves to those branches.