Low Polygon Tree Creation

This is a short demonstration displaying a method of creating low polygon trees inside of Maya. I use Photoshop to set up a tree and bark texture and then use simple primitives inside of Maya to set up the rest of the tree with the texture.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Polygon
• Maya
• Photoshop
• 3D Trees
• 2D Trees
• Game Art
• Game Trees
• Game Environment
• Low Polygong Trees

[zkittyz]

I used this technique, but when I rotate my view, one of the planes darkens as my view gets closer to the side edge. The other planes don't darken when I rotate my view, just the one. I was wondering if there was a setting to prevent the plane from darkening as my view changes.

[PolyNurb]

@zkittyz - This happens when you're using a dynamically lit shader/material or dynamic lighting is on in the viewport. The trees in this tutorial are very low poly, so their target platform was like a DS or other mobile console. When using these trees you would use only a vertex colored shader or unlit shader....don't use any dynamic lights. If you want to see it correctly in Maya turn on "Use No Lights" in the viewport window. You can shadow it and color it using vertex coloring/paint.

[vidhyasukumaran]

Hi, I'm having issues when I render the tree cuz it looks really flat and the edges of the tree seem too sharp and it really doesn help when i add more polys for density. can someone please help?!!

[PolyNurb]

@vidhyasukumaran - Could you put up a link to a screenshot of what the trees look like so I can see the issue and help diagnose the problem? There might be an issue of dynamic lighting on it, normals, UV range, etc...but I can't tell from this description.

[JONIMASAKIS]

can you make tutorial for low poly clothing? A cape with hood for example... Thank yyou

[PolyNurb]

@JONIMASAKIS -Sorry for the late reply , but I will do one of these tutorials this week!

[mobeid3]

Hey PolyNurb,

can you please note how you imported the tree edited in PhotoShop to Maya, you kinda skipped this part.

My Best

[Annaaa693]

Thank you so so so so so much, I really can't thank you enough. I was looking for a good low poly tutorial on this, this one is fantastic! Again, thank you!

[vidhyasukumaran]

Hi!! thank you so much for gettin back to me so quickly. i really haven got that for ahead into lighting! i just threw in a basic ambient light to check. there is a clear edge that runs right down the middle of the model when i render and it is the edge of my plane!

[exaggerating]

nice !