[tutorials] PNT205 - 3D Plants and Digital Environments

Highly detailed animated 3D trees and plants can make a huge visual impact in digital environments and matte paintings, as seen in movies such as Avatar.
Yet the complexity of trees and many plant species makes them notoriously difficult to recreate, and requires a move from traditional modeling techniques to unique procedural methods.
Taught by Emmy and VES award winning VFX supervisor Eran Dinur, this course explores the process of creating and integrating 3D plants, from modeling and texturing to lighting and compositing.
Working with SpeedTree (available on the VPN), the industry's leading plant creation application, we will progress from the basic concepts of plant design and node-based modeling to advanced procedural techniques.
On the way we'll cover such topics as leaf meshes and fronds, forces, real-time brush sculpting, texturing, managing poly counts and LOD's, animated wind effects and physical plant-mesh interactions.
After establishing a solid modeling and animation foundation, we will move on to look at the bigger picture.
By using Maya, Vue and Nuke together with SpeedTree, we will create a full shot that will enable us to incorporate a variety of our own created trees and plants in a coherent, realistic digital environment.
We will explore lighting, shading, compositing and matte painting techniques to avoid the pitfalls of "the CG look" and achieve photo-real look and integration.
In addition to all this, we will also take a sneak peak at e-on's brand new (and much awaited) Plant Factory, and explore its most notable features and its integration with Vue.
MP4 H.264 / 1440 x 900 / 5 hr.58 min. / + Exercise files