Twisted Tree

This tree is being modeled as part of an environment for a game project called "Animancer," led by Josh Nadel from UPGRADE at the University of Pennsylvania ( Read More About The Project ). One of the levels of the game features a civilization of bird people who live in the branches of this massive tree. This model shows the tree from across a bridge in the distance. A more extensive environment will be built as well showing the villages and civilization hidden within the branches and canopy.

The concept art for the model (drawn by another member on the team) is shown below:

The roots of the tree are huge and spread out, and the roots wrap around massive stone spires coming out of the ground. A bridge leads over a canyon to an entrance at the base of the tree. The branches and canopy provide a dense cover for the villages of the bird people at the top.

The base "skeleton" mesh of the tree was sculpted with ZSpheres. This skeleton was then be converted to a sculptable mesh, and details in the shape of the tree were sculpted on.

Next, the leaves will be generated using the Fibermesh tool, and the mesh will then be reduced and retopologized with the ZRemesher. At this point, bark texture and wood grain will be sculpted on via alpha channels and applied to the model using a bump map. Finally, the model will be imported into Substance Painter for more detailed texturing.

Substance Painter will be used for the arrows and other more intricate textures. The leaves will be generated in Maya either through the use of a transparency map, Paint Effects, or some other tool.

After the larger tree is completed, I will begin working on the actual villages within the branches.