Environment: Trees

The desert in Flight is filled with grasses and camel thorn trees.  While I should be able to use the grasses in Vue and simply recolour them, the Camel Thorn Tree is a bit trickier.  Vue has an Acacia tree which looks similar.  This gives me the option of using this tree to populate my desert, or altering it slightly.  This will be a simple option for trees further away, and will allow some subtle movement of these trees as they can interact with the wind effects in Vue.

Figure 1: Desert and tree experimentation using Vue.

However my characters also need to interact with a tree close to the camera.  The trees branches and leaves will need to shake as my character climbs it.  I've been doing some research into how I could rig this tree and come across a few ideas.

If I model the tree in Maya I should then be able to attach a rig to the tree.  I had thought about using the skeleton system for the branches.  To get the leaves to move I might need to consider using a simulation- this is something I will need to test ASAP.

Here are some examples and tutorials I found for both modelling and rigging trees during my research:




Designing and Animating a Tree using Paint Effects - This tutorial shows how to alter a paint effects tree for your own purposes


Modelling and Rigging a Palm Tree  - In this tutorial a palm tree is modelling using nurb circles and then rigging with joints.


I have also now found out that I can rig the tree by using a curve and attaching clusters and controllers to the control points, rather then needing to build a skeleton; or even animate the tree simply using a lattice deformer.