I
can't tell you how many times I've
been asked, "How did you make
those flowers?" or "Can
you tell me how to model a good plant?"
This is probably for a couple reasons.
First, when an image contains plants
and/or flowers that are pleasing to
the eye, they immediately stand out
since it is still somewhat uncommon
to find photorealistic greenery in
images. Second, I also think that
it's still pretty daunting for a lot
of people when they see tons of little
leaves and all of the parts that make
up a flower or a plant.
In
this tutorial, I hope to demonstrate
how easy it is to create detailed
flowers and plants that will add a
great deal to an image (assuming the
image calls for them, of course).
This tutorial requires a thorough
awareness of the tools in Lightwave
and Photoshop as well as a basic knowledge
of how to use them.
When to Use Greenery
The
most common place to find greenery
is going to be outside. One would
be hard pressed to go anywhere outside
and not see some sort of vegetation,
whether it be the giant oak tree in
your backyard or the nagging weeds
growing in the cracks of the sidewalk.
For the most part, an outdoor image
that doesn't contain some sort of
greenery is probably going to look
like it's missing something. So we
know that most outdoor scenes need
greenery, but what about indoor scenes?
Now,
obviously you're not going to place
a big pot of flowers on the console
of your intergalactic space cruiser.
However, there are many other places
in life where various kinds of plants
or flowers can be found. Take a typical
office building for example. The first
thing that comes to mind probably
isn't the fake tree sitting in the
corner. However, if you take a look
at 75% of the office buildings in
America, you're most likely going
to find some sort of foliage or flora.
The reason for this is that plants
and flowers give indoor environments
a much more pleasant atmosphere. In
a 3D image, they greatly reduce the
perfect, "sterile" look
commonly found in many indoor scenes.
They also add tremendous photorealistic
credibility to the scene.
Figure
1: Example of plants
in a scene
Take
a look at Figure 1.
This is a good example
of how plants add life
to a scene and really
increase the overall
realism of the image.
Plants
and flowers can add
a lot to an image, so
a good 3D artist shouldn't
be afraid to include
them where they would
naturally be found in
reality. OK, enough
with the lecture, let's
make some flowers!
When to Use Greenery
Figure
2: Reference image
The
first basic rule of
modeling anything found
in life is to have its
real-world counterpart
available for study
(or at least a picture
of it). Since we'll
be creating lilies in
this tutorial, a picture
will suffice. Take a
look at the reference
image in Figure 2
Notice
the way that the petals
are curved. Also look
at the arrangement of
the leaves along the
stem. They appear to
be staggered down the
stem almost all the
way down to the very
bottom. We're going
to slightly alter our
lily so the flowers
and buds will not be
angled downwards as
they are in the picture.
Now
let's move on to the
fun part - Modeling!
The Modelling
We'll
be doing things a little differently
in this tutorial than you are probably
used to. Instead of assembling everything
in Modeler, we'll only be modeling
the parts. Then, we'll load them into
Layout, surface them, clone them as
necessary, and assemble the actual
objects. By doing it this way, we
can accurately apply texture maps
and still be able to load the entire
lily object into a scene as many times
as we want by using the 'Load From
Scene' command in the objects panel.
Creating
the Flower
Let's
open up Modeler and turn on the OpenGL
Smooth Shaded preview. I have my units
set to Metric, so for this tutorial
you'll want to do the same. The first
thing that we'll create will be the
actual flower. If you had actually
scanned in various views of lilies
or sketched out your own, you could
load it in as a background image.
But for this tutorial we'll just wing
it.
Let's
get started
Figure
3: The petal before
Metaforming and reshaping
1.
Drag out a rectangular
box in the top view that's
about 800mm long on the
'Z' axis and roughly 250mm
wide on the 'X' axis.
Before you hit to create
the box, open up the numeric
options and give it two
segments along the 'Z'
axis. All right, now hit
'OK' and make the box.
2.
Now, in the Surfaces panel,
turn on 'Double-sided'
since we'll need to be
able to view this from
all directions. Then subdivide
the box using the Faceted
setting. Now select each
row of points starting
at the top working down
and resize them along
the 'X' axis until you
get a shape similar to
the pre-Metaformed petal
in Figure 3.
Figure
4: The five columns
of points
Figure
5: Petal in face view
3a.
This next part is a little
tricky, so pay close attention.
First, switch to MetaNURBS
mode and Metaform the
petal one time. What we
will do now is give the
petal some shape. You
can see in Figure 4 that
the petal has five columns
of points running along
the 'Z' axis; the two
outer columns, the one
middle column, and the
two columns in-between.
Select the middle column
of points that runs down
the center of the petal
and drag it down a little
bit on the 'Y' axis. This
will be the center crease
of the petal. Now deselect
those points and select
the outside column of
points on each side of
the petal and drag them
down slightly farther
than the center column.
At this point, the face
view should look like
a squashed 'M' as shown
in Figure 5.
3b.
Now rearrange the two
columns of 'in-between'
points in the top view
so that they are closer
together towards the base
of the petal and further
apart up towards the tip.
Figure 6 shows my results
using the Taper 2 tool.
The point in doing this
is to accentuate the center
crease near the base of
the petal while making
it less pronounced towards
the tip. If you like,
you may now adjust the
points towards the tip
of the petal so it ends
in a tiny droop. Be careful
not to get too crazy with
the droop though, because
now we're going to add
a bend to the entire petal
so that it has a nice
arch to it.
Figure
6: Tweaking the shape
of the petal
Figure
7: Applying the first
bend
4.
Before we bend it, save
the unfinished model
as 'metapetal.lwo'.
We will use this basic
shape later on when
we make the leaves.
Now we're ready to use
the Bend tool. Check
the settings first just
to make sure that the
"sense" is
set to positive. In
your face view, apply
about a 45° bend
to it. This gives the
petal a nice flowing
curve to it, just as
it would have in nature.
Rotate the petal so
that it's relatively
parallel to the 'Y'
plane. The easiest way
to do this is to numerically
rotate it 22.5°
along the 'X' axis.
The petal needs to be
in this position so
that when we go to texture
it, we'll be able to
apply a detailed planar
image map on the 'Y'
axis. Also align the
base of the petal with
the origin (the intersection
of all three axes) in
all views. This is done
so when the model is
saved, the pivot point
will be at the base
of the petal for accurate
rotation in layout.
See Figure 7 for a visual
on this.
Figure
8: Final petal, bent
and aligned with origin
5.
Now, simply freeze the MetaNURBS
object with a patch division of
four. OK, looking at our petal now,
it looks a little too smooth. The
key is to add a bit of randomness
to the petal surface. The easiest
way to do this is to apply Jitter.
I applied 5mm of Gaussian Jitter
on the 'Y' axis, but feel free to
experiment. After Jittering, Metaform
the petal once to smooth it all
out. Now that we've Jittered it,
the final step in modeling the petal
is to bend the petal one more time.
Bend it 60° and then rotate
it 30° to get it parallel again.
Figure 8: Final petal, bent and
aligned with origin.
