Environment Development - Tree Creation

So I also had a go at creating a tree that could possibly be used in my environment, below I'm going to do a short break down of how it was accomplished.

First I created a trunk with the quick use of a 'nurb circle' and the 'CV Curve Tool'. Once I had that I duplicated and shrunk them a few times for extra branches.

Next I arranged and resized even more branches, taking the edge tool to manipulate each one to ensure the tree was unique. I also tried to think about how a tree would actually grow and how to branches would intertwine.

 The UV mapping of a tree is super easy, especially with this method. Because they were a replica of the original trunk before hand I took a mapping and the rest sat perfect on top, now any high quality bark texture will look great all over the tree.

After the basis of my tree was completed, I then went into to Photoshop so I could start to created my branches and leafs. I got a simple PNG of a branch and cut out a few leafs from photos.

 The process took a little time but I was sure the result would look great, I added extra effects like bevel and emboss along with drop shadows to give it that realistic feel. I also changed the hue on some of leads and warped a small amount so all look unique.

When it was done I ensured I had an alpha channel on the image so it would work fine in Maya. I placed the texture on a small plane and activated 'live object' on my tree.

Finally it was just the simple but time consuming process of placing the leafs to fill out the tree and here was the final result.