I've
seen a few people create some trees in
3D which all had the same problem. The
eas way to create a tree would be just
to take a box, and start doing some extrutions
on the top face, and then extrude out
some branches. The problem with what I
usually see is that they have the main
trunk going all the way to the top. That
would be good only for an evergreen tree.
For a normal tree however, I've put together
this small tutorial.
First
I will start off with a simple box and
convert it to an editable mesh. If you
have 3DS Max4 then go with the editable
poly since they tend to make a better
mesh in the end.
In
the polygon sub-object mode select the
top polygon and lets start extruding.
The trick is to have a shorter trunk.
It doesn't go all the way to the top.
I usually like to divide my trunk in two
and then go from there. The first division
of the trunk can be any amount you want.
Remember
that its a 3D tree so when extruding faces,
don't work in one viewport. Give your
tree some depth.
When
you have extruded the faces you want to
create the shape of your main branches,
add a meshsmooth to see what your final
tree will look like.
As
you can see the bottom of the trunk
looks kind of silly. Lets work on the
roots a bit. First I select the bottom
face of my tree and extrude down twice
to create this look. That will stop
the bottom from being rounded out like
it was before.
Now I take the side faces of our original
box and extrude those out to make the
roots. its always good to have your landscape
turned on so you can see how the roots
will look resting on the surface. In this
case im just using a box to be my landscape.
