We look at mapping all relevant paramaters for more believable shaders via diffuse, bump, reflection and translucency, including how to organize UVs into tiles for variety in our leaf textures. We take an in-depth look at creating ivy with Paint Effects and the Ivy Generator tool and incorporate the discussed techniques for plants and ivy into a cliff scene. All relevant Paint Effects settings are then discussed so that we can create our own custom plant library, all of which culminates in a photorealistic forest trail. We create a variety of plants from scratch including ferns, ground cover clover, spider plants and more, demonstrating how to incorporate them into a complex environment.

Topics Covered
    Paint Effects
    Leaf Shaders with miaMaterial
    Double Sided Materials
    Physical Sun/Sky
    Photographic Camera Exposure
    Final Gather
    Randomizing Leaf UVs
    Ivy Generator
    Custom Plant Techniques
    Ferns, Bushes, Ivy, Spider Plants and more
    Photoshop Compositing Techniques

Chapters
    Paint Effects Introduction
    Creating a PFX plant library
    Converting to Polygons
    miaMaterial & exposure, part 1
    miaMaterial & exposure, part 2
    Double-Sided materials
    Randomizing Leaf Textures
    Paint Effects Ivy
    Ivy Generator StandAlone
    Cliff: Integrating Plants into a Scene
    Custom Plants: Bush, part 1
    Custom Plants: Bush, part 2
    Forest Path Overview
    Spider Plants
    Leafy Fronds
    Ground Cover: Clover
    Fern, method A
    Fern, method B
    Conclusion


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