Walk-Through Tutorial - My method for how to make 3D trees and bushes with very realistic shadows, royalty-free from your own 2D tree photos!

Last crawled date: 1 year, 9 months ago

I was unsatisfied with all the walk through tutorials I found in the 3D warehouse for making 3D trees and none of them handled the lack of correct shadows issue so I decided to figure out how to get past the wrong shadows issue myself and made a tutorial for the entire process. A tutorial on how to convert 2D photos into 3D trees in SketchUp and how to make their shadows look real instead of ridiculous by a cut-out wori-around for the crippled Alpha channel compatibility problem of SketchUp. Incorporates examples with notes for each step. Works best if you work alongside this in another document you create rather than to work on the document itself.unless you wannt create a parallel tract in the document for each step to do your own tree as you ready through the document... then that would work much more swiftly for you and probably leed to a lot of avoided accidental cross manipulations with nearby objects etc...or work on a copy of the document so you don't have to redownload it if it gets messed by workin on it.. NOTE: Edge Style: Edges must be turned on in order to do the first 8 steps of the tutorial, then turned off for a pure view of your final 3D tree creation. NOTE: Items of the tutorial have been categorized and separated by using Layers to help declutter the screen as you work through the tutorial. NOTE: This entire process is not documented elsewhere to my knowledge, so this may be the only tutorial which will teach you my method, for all its faults and strengths. My method for dealing with SketchUp's lack of true alpha image processing where it relates to casting accurate shadows of trees (or anything for that matter) are disclosed in this tutorial and are what takes the majority of time in creating these 3D modles with accurate shadows. Additional note: For enhanced realism, take two perspective side photots of your tree, 90º apart and use this method to put the two together respectively for your first 3D tree with the first converted tree perspective filling the pair halves at 0º and 180º and your second perspective tree photo (90º apart) taking the position of the tree halves shown at 90º and 270º. This helps reduce the look of repetition in your tree model for a better look and greater variety. You could technically produce an 8-angle tree like the optional last example using 4 original perspective photos taken at 0º, 45º, 90º, and 135º... so even that tree would have no repetition as viewed from any side. Use, learn, and enjoy! -Matt No Name Solar Company #3D #build #bushes #convincing #DIY #howto #make #outdoors #plants #realistic_looking #shrubs #toscale #trees #walkthrough