The art of landscaping in SpeedTree & GrowFX(botanically correct plant modeling)

[TheCoronaUser]

Hey guys,

I recently did a course for creating realistic plants (botanically correct) in SpeedTree( and soon GrowFX) I thought I'd share some of the
final images with you.
A little about the scene : Over 120 different species of plants was specially built just for this this scene from scratch,
which include moss, grass, flowers, plants, ivies, vines and trees. I ended up using about 30 different species for the scene.
I did use both Corona and V-ray to render out images. There are more than 400 billion polygons in the scene via instancing
(Using forest pack pro) and over 100 million unique polys. I also did use over 400 textures for the scene ranging from 0.5 k to 4k images.
Opacity is used for most leaves. All in all it took less than 8 hours to render the scene on an i7 4 core(8T) with 12GB of memory with over
60 render elements . (There are 2k and 4K renders)
Here's a link to the course if anyone is interested : http://shlece.com/product/the-art-of-landscaping-with-speedtree/
I'd appreciate any feedback :)
(P.S. I couldn't post high quality 4K images here, if you are interested you may check them on my website)

[PhilippeCV]

You got a great attention for detail! The trees on the left are a bit too green, but the rest looks good, good job!

[TheCoronaUser]

Thank you for your comment. I do agree with that, and it's not the only thing that I left out. There are still some more things that had to be done, but since this was
only a cover image I didn't bother fixing. :)

[CiroC]

Did you take a course or it was trial and error? I am taking the first steps with SpeedTree Cinema Edition and I find it very flexible and easy to use. I still have some doubts and I just wish they covered some topics that are needed to create trees.

[TheCoronaUser]

Did you take a course or it was trial and error? I am taking the first steps with SpeedTree Cinema Edition and I find it very flexible and easy to use. I still have some doubts and I just wish they covered some topics that are needed to create trees.

I did not take any course, as there's not one out there. Reading the manual a thousand time and experimenting until you eventually find out what every command does. However, if you are a cinema user, they do have a special support, so you can e-mail them directly. I have the Studio version, but even in that case, you can write on SpeedTree's forums and they will respond. Also, I'm usually there, so if you needed anything post it there or you can post in on my website as well and I'll definitely reply back.
Ashkan

[CiroC]

I am not looking to create just some generic trees. What I am looking for is replicate real trees in a way that make them believable. I am checking the manual and will definitely check the support.

By the way: do you use Sub-D trunk and branches?

[TheCoronaUser]

I am not looking to create just some generic trees. What I am looking for is replicate real trees in a way that make them believable. I am checking the manual and will definitely check the support.

By the way: do you use Sub-D trunk and branches?

There's nothing you can't do in SpeedTree to make believable trees. Even though there are some minor lack of features, but there are always some workarounds.
I do occasionally use SubDs, however, its technology is not quiet there yet, I'd say. Probably in the next whole version update of SpeedTree, we'd have a more advanced Sub-D features.
If you do want to use Sub-D, then try to use it for the trunk and first level branches (or level 2 branches maximum), since not only it'll slow down the computation, there's always some glitch there. On top of that you may need some additional memory. Then you can use standard branches for level 3 and up.
Having said that, the techniques would work for hero objects, but if you need an extreme close up shot, you might want to have some sculpting and/or hand paining as well (in an external app).
If you had any other questions, please let me know.
Ashkan

[CiroC]

In case you are interested I found a very nice training with SpeedTree. Is from the FxPhd guys and the course is: PNT205: 3D Plants and Digital Environments

[lightmansor]

PlantFactory 2015 Have Subdivision Surfaces -> See this http://www.plantfactory-tech.com/overview/
Perhaps an alternative to the SpeedTree.