Help with Plants

[thingfishs]

Hi,
I've been having a go at making some flora and have found it much more difficult than the building I've been working on.
I decided to make it simple and have modeled an Australian Grass Tree (Yacca/Blackboy), a plant with simple straight leaves.
This is what it looks like in gmax...



But in the LE it looks like this...

   

• The first problem is that it's a solid block, which I assume is because of a lack of alpha maps or something (or is it purely the render quality?). I understand making an alpha map of a 2D image, but am a bit at loss with how to approach it with the above model.
  
  
• How do I make it look less like a green blob and have some definition to the leaves (any help on how to improve it much appreciated.)
  
  
• And lastly, something that I've wanted to do many times already (but am unsure whether it's possible) is erase an entire area containing multiple objects as in the red highlighted area on my first shot. As it is I am using compound objects/boolean mode to remove one item at a time. Is there an easier way?
  
  Thank You

[SimGoober]

To make the leaves stand out more, delete some of them.. GMAX doesn't have a very high resolution, so putting too many things in a tight space just makes a blur. I never did too much with alpha maps; it works well, but I always forget how to do it, as I don't do it very often..

Once you are done, you can merge all the pieces together (the leaves), and do a boolean on the one object to remove the bottom part

[thingfishs]

Thanks for your advice simgoober ,
I removed roughly half of the leaves, as well as adding a non-single colured texture and it has improved a lot.



Now they are recognisable as what they're supposed to be. If anyone can offer any further advice to make it even better that would be sweet.
Are simfox's trees in HD?, they just have so much detail.

GMAX doesn't have a very high resolution

Does this mean if it was done in 3DS max that it would turn out better? (I assumed they would both turn out the same in game)

As for your last comment, I understand merging one scene into another, but with a bunch of objects in the same scene like this I have made groups (which I've found then have limited editing possibilities) or turned one into an editable mesh and attached the rest (which can still be edited-but I've still had some problems with) Is this what you are referring to or is there another joining technique I'm unaware of?
cheers

[mattb325]

Some things can help with plants this small in GMAX when you are not using an alpha map....

1) Make your texture semi transparent; or
2) Stretch the plant vertically a little; or
3) Force contrasts in your textures (because GMAX doesn't have high resolution) - grab every 4th or so leaf and give it a blue-brown texture or a very dark green texture; or
4) Download the HD script for GMAX.

However - with option 4 - I would advise you to get the models looking good in Standard definition first (high definition only makes so-so models look any good at the closest zoom: they still look so-so in the other zooms) - making plants/buildings/anything for SC4 is about 1/3-1/2 actual modelling and the rest is texture work.

[thingfishs]

thanks matt ,

I've given your advice a go, well suggestion number three at least, and this is where I'm at in zooms 5 & 6.

     

I've also made flowering (too yellow), spikeless and trunked versions (unlike the yellow flowers these trunks aren't just a solid colour, but they might as well be with how they've rendered).

How do I stretch it vertically? Kwakelaar told me about the scale function at one point but I haven't been able to locate it, can anyone tell me how that is accessed? Is that how I would do it?
I also don't know how to make textures transparent (yet)

As for alpha maps should I be using these? will they make much difference to a model of this size?

Thanks

[kwakelaar]

Hi Thingfish, I think your plants are looking very good already, I would have no problem with using them on my lots.

Scaling is this button in gmax. There are three tabs, if you want to scale vertically only you need to use the non-uniform tab. Group everything together and you can fill in a percentage how much you want to scale your object.


I am not sure if Matt is referring to opacity (transparency), but you can change the opacity in the material editor in gmax. I use this function for window glass.