Christmas Tree Scene
 

Hey all, it's been a while again since I last posted.. Just wanted to show ya somethin' pretty simple that I'm working on. I'm going to create a scene where the camera is kind of zoomed up on a few christmas tree branches, where a glass ball ornament is hanging and you'll see a couple christmas tree lights.. I'm feelin' the christmas mood so I've been achin to model a scene. I also thought it would make a great wallpaper :D. I got the glass ball done as well as the hook, modeled the hook and everything by the one hanging off my tree right now. Nothing special at all, done entirely out of NURBS.

I'm going to start on the branches now. Any suggestions? I was going to model the branches probably in polys and then use paint effects for the little leaves coming off the branches.. And then probably convert those to polys because I'll probably render in Mental Ray (I'm in love with Final Gather and GI :D ) but thats something to think about later.

nice job with the modeling. :)

ill be waiting for updates, looks interesting

gettin' in the mood! :)

Nice idea, cant wait to see the final scene :)

Sounds good, show us as many updates as you can! :)

Thanks guys-

Yeah I'm tryin to find time to work on it, but this is finals week so time is quite scarse. I'll post an update on the branches I've got made up asap.

Alright, finally my finals are over and I have plenty of time to finish this. I quickly made up some limbs for the christmas tree, since itll only be showing several limbs at the most.

My new stump is how I should go about making the needles on the limbs. Modify a current Paint Effects brush to look like one or find some custom made one?.. It's either that or do them individually out of polys as well, which would be "fun".. But if that's the only way I'll get it to look realistic enough, then I'll get to workin on making a bunch of needles. Just wanted to see if you guys had any other ideas, before I tried.

In the meantime, I'm goin to read up more on paint effects, first time using them ;)

Oh, about the attached image, I will smooth out the limbs before I start to place needles on, as well as will be adding many more limbs to the scene. I took quite a bit of time and studied the branches on my actual christmas tree, they are more complex then I thought haha. I can't help it, Im a perfectionist.

I think you should make the needles out of polys, It will take forever but you will have more control over it and you will get a nicer effect.