Spring break was spent learning SpeedTree, learning a process for converting Houdini fur to cards, reprocessing the big tree stump and creating a bridge to support the stump. Good news for the mouse, I have a rigger and animator locked in for the mouse. I will be checking in with my rigger this weekend to see how things are going, or when he plans on starting.
SpeedTree was very fun to learn and I definitely hope to use it more in the future. The interface is a little different than most programs, but after a few tutorials, it was simple enough to use for basic trees. I really like the feature to create animations for wind blowing through the tree. This definitely adds some life to the environment.
Some improvements that could be made with these trees: variation in leaf color, tree type, age, and animation. I hope to add some small saplings to the village within the walls, and I plan to look into if vines are possible within SpeedTree.
Converting fur to cards was a simple process within Houdini, but prepping them for texturing has been difficult. Unreal does not accept UDIMS therefore I have to find a way to either stack the cards properly or assign multiple materials to sets of cards. I have worked out a texture within substance painter that looks alright for the fur, so once the UVs have been figured out, then it should be able to be textured right away and sent to Unreal.
Improvements: variation in the cards, higher quality hair texture
Reprocessing the stump provided a much better looking mesh than before. When bringing this mesh into Zbrush to close holes and sculpt the top and bottom, I normally use Dynamesh to create a better topology and fill holes, but in this case, Dynamesh destroys a significant amount of the detail in the stump. This meant for me that other methods of closing the mesh will be necessary. I used booleans and extrusions to create the top of the stump, but the bottom will be left open. I decided to hide the underside of the stump with a natural bridge which would also support the stump over the homes. This way, it took me a day or two of modeling the bridge, whereas figuring out how continue modeling the roots in a way thats consistent with the rest of the stump, texturing it, and shaping it over the river would take much more time than I am willing to give to it. Many other things must be done for this environment so time is very valuable at the moment.
Improvements: clean mesh on the stump without detail loss. More detailed bridge or root system. Will be adding the interior crystals soon.
Next check in: I hope to have a sapling modeled and fully textured with a wind animation as well as the fur fully integrated.