Nira's VFX Blog
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Tag: Palm trees

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Advanced & Experimental Personal

Week 8: Palm Trees & Foliage Modelling in Maya

For this week, I modelled variations of palm trees and foliage to fill up the scene and make it look more like a rainforest.

Palm trees references & models

I needed a palm tree reference that was not too tall, with a thick trunk, and with some coconuts showing in between the leaves. I think this style will suit best my scene as the pyramid will need to stand out in the final long shot above the jungle, so it would be better to keep the palm trees at around the same high as the trees are. I found the below references with similar characteristics I had in mind:

Palm trees reference (Gerisima, 2020)
Palm trees reference (Lubilub, 2009)

The palm leaves were made using the same technique I used for the tree leaves previously. I created an alpha and a normal maps in Photoshop from a picture of a palm tree leaf I found online, and then linked them in Maya.

Palm tree leaf base colour
Palm tree leaf alpha map
Palm tree leaf normal map
Palm trees topology
Palm tree leaves render in Maya with textures
Coconuts between leaves
Palm tree variation 1
Palm tree variation 2
Palm tree variation 3
Palm tree variation 4
Palm tree variation 5
Palm tree variation 6
All palm trees variations

Foliage models

These are some references I took as inspiration to create the foliage to fill up the rainforest scene:

Big leaves reference (Jorge Castillo, Lucas Bustamante, Frank Pichardo, 2022)
Ferns reference (Dewi Nurjuwita, 2018)

I also made the alpha and normal maps in Photoshop for the foliage leaves, to then link them to plane shapes in Maya.

Big leaf base colour
Big leaf alpha map
Big leaf normal map
Fern leaf base colour
Fern leaf alpha map
Fern leaf normal map
Plane reshaped for a more organic look
Big leaf render
Big leaves gathered together to shape the plant
Big leaves plant render
Big leaves plant variations
Big leaves plant variations render
Plane reshaped for a more organic look
Fern leaf render
Ferns gathered together to shape the plant
Fern plant render
Fern plants variations
Fern plants variations render

Additions of new models to environment

Once I finished the models, I placed them in the main environment scene to see how would they look. I also used referencing in Maya, so when I add the textures to the original models, it would update in the main scene too so I do not need to place everything again.

I also had some problems trying to see the textures of the trees leaves in the main scene when I switched from my personal computer to the university computers. Researching in forums online, I found out that when .ass extensions files were exported, these needed to be exported without ‘Absolute texture paths’ option ticked, as it would always take as reference the same path assigned originally, so when changing computers, these will not show. I reexported these as mentioned before, and relinked the assets with a ‘relative path’ so it does not have a fixed route.

Render settings to remove absolute paths from .ass files
Main scene with palm trees and foliage added
Close up of palm trees and foliage

References

Castillo, J., Bustamante, L., Pichardo, F. (2022). Why is Ecuador the best tropical country for nature photography? (online). Available at: https://www.tropicalherping.com/articles/why_ecuador_for_photography.html [Accessed 3 June 2023]

Gerisima (2020). Coconut Palm trees on white sandy beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. stock photo (online). Available at: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/coconut-palm-trees-on-white-sandy-beach-in-punta-cana-dominican-republic-gm1270732523-373579722 [Accessed 3 June 2023]

Lubilub, 2009). Beautiful palm trees by River Dulce in Livingston, Guatemala. stock photo (online). Available at: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/beautiful-palm-trees-by-river-dulce-in-livingston-guatemala-gm117952546-9032250 [Accessed 3 June 2023]

Nurjuwita, D. (2018). Where to travel in 2018: The best rainforest destinations (online). Available at: https://www.lifestyleasia.com/sg/travel/travel-2018-best-rainforest-destinations/ [Accessed 3 June 2023]