Tree Modeling Anim8or Tutorial

8/7/2019 Tree Modeling Anim8or Tutorial

1/23

All Original Content Copyright 2004 James Dickson

Here we learn how to model a passable tree in Anim8or and then

texture it, in the process going over many of the fundamentals

of Anim8or.


2/23


First, open up Anim8or. Simple enough, right? Now, draw a

simple cylinder. The required button is circled in red below.

The cylinder doesnt have to be of any special size, just make

sure its more or less straight up and down. Its hard to tell,

but when the selection box (the yellow lines around it) is

straight, the cylinder is straight.


3/23


Now we can change the cylinder to be the size we want. Go to

the cylinder and double-click on it. This should open up a

dialog box that looks something like this:

The Location values are the coordinates of its physical

location in the three-dimensional space of the editor. The

Diameter section allows you to control the width of the ends

of the cylinderif you wanted a cone, you would just shrink one

of those values down to zero. The Divisions arent really

important, Length controls just what it sounds like, and the

Cap part controls whether the ends of the cylinder are closed.The Material section well deal with later, when we do

texturing. For now, lets enter a value of 15 for the Start and

End Diameters and a value of 75 for the Length. Click OK.


4/23


Now we find ourselves back at the object editor. Now, lets

make sure we can keep track what part of the tree this is going

to be. Go to the Settings menu at the top of the screen, select

Object, and name this object Trunk. Just an FYI, Id save

this whole business periodically if I were you. Dont want it

all going up in smoke if something goes wrong, right?

Before we can manipulate the cylinder much further (at least the

way we need to) the cylinder has to be a Mesh. So select the

cylinder, go to the Build menu, and select Convert to Mesh.

The selection box on the cylinder should change from yellow to

white.

Now we get into the real nitty-gritty of making this tree trunk.

Lets form the roots, but not out of a separate object. We can

pull them straight out of the base of the trunk now. So lets

go to Point Edit mode. In the upper left hand corner are the

four mode buttons. The one that looks like three dotspointsis

the Point Edit button.

Things ought to look kind of strange now. Everything is inwireframe. This is perfectly normal. Since you cant see the

individual points on the cylinder (indicated as little black

squares) normally, this is the mode used to move them to and

fro.


5/23


Select the cursor tool (it is circled in red and is what you

have been using up until this point) then go select an

individual point on the very bottom part of the tree.

It is hard to tell that Ive selected anything at the bottom of

the trunk, but the selection is there and the point is white.

Here, how about we manipulate it a little bit so you can see it

better? Select the Move tool (directly beneath the cursor tool,

it resembles a plus sign with arrows on all the ends) and move

the selected point straight out to the left.


6/23


What do you think of that? We have a root coming out of the

base of the trunk! If you want to see it better, go up and

choose the Arc Rotate tool (circled in red in the next image)

and spin things around by holding down the left mouse button and

moving the mouse. Do so in different areas to cause different

kinds of rotate. Experiment!

You can always escape Arc Rotate by deselecting the tool (by

clicking it again) and then return to the front view by going to

the upper left hand corner of the edit window where it says

User1, clicking on it, and selecting Front.

Now, repeat that same sort of business with a few other points,

making as many (or as few) roots as you like. Keep in mind that

after you have selected a point with the cursor and switched to

the Move tool, the only point you can move is the one you have

already selected. That means that you can move the view in all

sorts of directions and still, when you click on the point to

move it, no matter how many different points are between the

cursor and the one youre aiming for, that is the point youll

move. As a consequence, you can select a point in Front view,

go up to the upper left hand corner of the edit window where it

says Front, switch to Top view, and from there pull thepoint out in any direction you like, even though there is a

whole bunch of points between the Move tool and the desired

point. It looks about like this:


7/23


So long as you can keep track of which point you selected when

you switch to Top view, of course. Clicking on the little green

squares in Arc Rotate mode that I mentioned above will limit

the rotation to strictly one direction, and you can use that to

very cleanly rotate the trunk to get to points on different

sides, instead of just the front.

After you are finished making the roots of the tree by pulling

points out from the base of the trunk, switch back to the basic

editor by choosing the mode button with the cursor on it, as

indicated below.

When I was finished making my trees roots, the trunk looked

something like this, in a sort of birds eye view shot:


8/23


Of course, you can add as many or as few roots as you likemore

would probably make it seem more organic, but I think Ill try

to keep it kind of simple for the purposes of this tutorial.

Now we can make the trunk seem more tree-like by doing one

important thing: add a texture to the model. This is a fairly

easy process, and there is a separate tutorial here on

Singularity Five that tells of how to make a tree bark texture

in the GIMP. Lets double-click on the trunk and open up the

Mesh Editor dialog box.

Even though this is a different window from the one we got

before when we double-clicked, this one shares the Material

section. That is where we choose textures.

Select the drop-down menu where it says -- default - and

choose -- new --. Then click the button next to it marked

. This opens a window like this:


9/23


Ignore the button marked Textures. It isnt important. To

map a texture to your object, click on the button marked

on the same row as Diffuse. This opens another window:

From here, click Load Texture and choose the image you want to

use as a texture. It will show up in the list under CHECKS.

For best results, Id suggest making the bark texture in the

GIMP and selecting that. Highlight your chosen texture in the

Texture Selector window and hit OK. If you like, change the

name from Material1 to something more descriptive. Enter 0 as

a Specular valuethis sets it up so no light reflects off the

surface of the tree. After all, this is a tree, not a pane of

glassor something like that. If you ever do want more light to

reflect off of a surface, increase the Specular value, just notin this case. Now hit OK again. OK out of the Mesh Editor, and

youre back in the editor with a nicely-textured tree trunk.

Heres what mine looks like:


10/23


Dont mind the top of the cylinderthe texture there is a little

distorted, but there will be foliage covering it here in a

while. But now we have a full-fledged tree trunk with bark!Isnt that nice?

Now, we move on to the next part of this tutorial and make the

foliage.


11/23


Now, to do this, we have to make a new object. Go to the Object

menu and select New. Here in the new window, we need to make

a simple old sphere. Notice how everything seems to start out

as a fairly simple shape? Thats usually the case. Heres how

we start out:

Now, once again, we have to be able to manipulate individual

points on the sphere, but we cant, because it isnt a mesh yet.

By the way, right now the sphere is a Primitive, meaning that

it is a built-in shape in Anim8or. Most of the simple shapes,

including polygons, are primitives. You can see whythey are so

terribly simple, it does seem primitive. Im wandering from the

task at hand, though. Remember the steps to making a primitive

a mesh? Go to the Build menu and select Convert to Mesh. The

selection box should turn from yellow to white, and you have a

mesh!

Now, lets go to Point-Edit mode and start working. Begin

selecting a few points and just start pulling them out slightly,

making the surface of the sphere sort of bumpy, like this:


12/23


Lets switch back to normal object edit mode (using the mode

button with the cursor on it). Now, we dont want our tree

looking like a medieval spiked mace, so we have to do somethingto smooth it out but keep the irregularities weve introduced to

the surface of the sphere. The answer to our dilemma is in the

Build menu. It is called Subdivide Faces Notice how the

sphere didnt start out perfectly round? It had a set number of

distinct facets to it. All Subdivide Faces does is increase the

number of facets on the shape, thereby smoothing out the sharper

edges of the shape.


13/23


Okay, lets make sure we have our deformed sphere selected and

go to BuildSubdivide Faces Leave a value of 0 in the Tension

field and just click OK. Heres what mine looked like

afterwards:

Nice, rounded, not spiky, kind of organic looking. Just what we

were aiming for. Now, the only thing missing is that a trees

foliage is traditionally green! We can fix that, too. Double-

click on the foliage and open the Mesh Editor dialog box.

From here, we can select -- new -- for the material and click

on the button, just like we did before with the trunk. Now

that were in the Material Editor, dyou notice the little box

full of colors in the lower left-hand corner of the window?

The little cursor in the middle of the box indicates what the

default color of the objects surface is. Move it into the

green area and see what kind of colors you can find. The slider


14/23


bar directly to the boxs right, the one with the arrows on

either side of it, allows you to select even further from a

narrower range of colors determined by where the little plus-

sign cursor is located in the color box. When youve found

something appropriate (you will probably have to use the slider

bar) hit OK, and then OK again to get out of the Mesh Editor.

And voila! You have a nice lump of green foliage to set atop

your tree.

Finally, in order to keep track of the object, you should

probably go to SettingsObjects and name this one Foliage.

That finishes off the foliage portion of our trip! The next

section details how to make a branch to place on your tree, but

you officially have everything you need to build your arborealmasterpiece. As a consequence, you can skip the branch tutorial

and go straight to Part IV: Building the Tree, if you so desire.

Otherwise:


15/23


Here we are again, and we need a new object. You know the

drill, Object menu, and choose New. Make sure youre in Front

view, as this part is kind of tricky.

Here we have our first introduction to polygons, or, as Anim8or

prefers to call them, N-Gons, because they can have N number

of sides. I hate algebra. They should never have mixed letters

and numbers. But I digress. Go to the Build menu, go further

to the Primitives submenu, scroll all the way down to the

bottom, and choose N-Gon. It will open up a dialog box that

is very simple, so I wont show it here. You have a simple

choice of how many sides. Enter 5 and press OK. This doesnt

draw anything, but it automatically activates the N-Gon tool,

circled in red below.

Now, when you click and drag your mouse across the editing area,

it draws a simple, completely regular pentagon, as such:

Now, we can switch to Point-Edit mode (I trust you remember to

do that; if you dont, just scroll back in the tutorial a bit

and you can find it) and make this pentagon completely

irregular. You can manipulate the points on an N-Gon just like


16/23


on a mesh, even though the N-Gon is only a primitive (for every

rule theres gotta be an exception, am I right?). Play with it

until you get something like this:

Looks reasonably branch-y, right? Except theres one problem.

Its in two dimensions! If you dont believe me, look around

with the Arc-Rotate tool. That cant work as a branch if its

one dimension short! So we have to make it three dimensions.Lets switch back to normal editing mode and work a little

Anim8or magic. First, you have to have the origin (the little

crux in the middle of the editing field, if you didnt know)

centered somewhere in the shape, or things will go really weird.

Select the N-Gon with the cursor and then move it with the Move

tool to a position about like this:

Now, make sure you have it selected and go up to the Build menu.

Near the bottom, there is a choice called Extrude Choose it.

A dialog box like this should come up:

Origin


17/23


Right off the bat, tell it to Cap the Start and End by checking

the appropriate boxes. We dont want a branch with sides

missing, right? For Segs, or Segments, enter a value ofone. That makes it easier to deal with, because if we left it

at ten for each flat side that was extruded we would have ten

faces to deal with, even though the surface is completely flat.

Think of how the cylinder from earlier was segmented up and

down. That would be the sort of thing that would happen, but we

dont want that here. The Axis along which we want to extrude

the branch is the Z-axis, because it is the one that extends

straight back in three-dimensional geometry. If you chose any

other it would slide it up or down and make really strange sort

of shapes instead of sliding it straight back and making a clean

3-D object. Now for the lengthId say about ten would beappropriate. We dont want it too big. Now hit OK, and your

two-dimensional shape has been extruded into a three-dimensional

figure.


18/23


Still doesnt look quite right for a branch, does it? Well,

thats what the Point-Edit mode is for! Lets switch to that

and play around a bit. Ill give you some freedom here to do

whatever you think it needs to make it irregular enough to look

real. Or, if you so desire, you can skip fiddling with it and

go straight to the texturing, which works pretty much the same

as the tree trunk.

By the way, the three buttons I have circled below, which are

only active in Point-Edit mode, allow you to manipulate

different things. The first button, on the left, allows you to

manipulate points (what weve been doing), the center button

allows you to manipulate edges (the line between two points) and

the third one lets you modify whole faces to whatever suits you.

Here, the edge button is depressed because I used it to modify

my branch.

Heres how my branch came out looking:

It can look any number of different ways, so find one and run

with it. Now we can texture it the same way we textured the

tree. If you dont remember how, just glance back at Part I:

Making the Trunk for directions.


19/23


Now, if your version of Anim8or works like mine, the caps on the

two long sides are not textured. This can be fixed fairly easy

by selecting the UV Mapping tool, circled in red:

This calls up a yellow version of the Arc-Rotate tool, and youcan suddenly adjust how the texture lays on the object. Usually

merely selecting the UV Mapping tool makes the texture appear on

the sides that are untextured, but you sometimes do have to

fiddle with it. When you have your branch textured to your

liking, you can go up to SettingsObject and name it Branch

so you can know on a glance precisely what object it is. Now,

we move on and put it all together in the next part of the

tutorial.


20/23


21/23


the entire tutorial and have a Branch object, you can add that

as well. Keep in mind that if any object, when it is initially

added, comes out too big or too small, there is a tool to change

its size so it matches the other objects. It is the Scale tool,

and here it is circled in red:

Heres how my finished product looked:


22/23


Keep in mind that nothing you do to manipulate objects in the

Scene Editor has any effect on the actual objects themselves.

Those are perfectly safe and you can go back to take a look at

them any time by going to the Mode menu and choosing Object.

Also, you can move the camera itself by selected it and

employing the Move tool. A useful trick is selecting the

camera, choosing the Rotate tool (indicated by a curved line

with an arrow on its end), and switching to Camera view. From

here, you can roll and pivot the camera to your hearts content

and always be aware of precisely what it is pointing at.

Now, you have your tree built and your camera pointed at it just

the way you like, so lets make a JPEG out of this so you can

remember it forever! Go to the Render menu and choose

Preview Youll be confronted by a dialog box like this:

The Width and Height are measured in pixels, just so you know,

and you can change the background color by clicking the

button. The business about Alpha Channels and Depth Channels

isnt important; we just want a nice image of our tree. Click

OK, and behold your tree! Click the Save button on the leftside of the window, pick a name, choose JPEG format (BMPs are

kind of big bytewise), enter a quality of 100, and hit OK. Your

JPEG will be saved in the same folder as your copy of Anim8or.


23/23

!!!!

There you have it! You finished the tutorial, and have a nifty

picture of a tree to show for it. Hopefully, this helped

introduce you to all the wonderful things Anim8or can do. Keep

experimenting, trying different things, and if you get really

stumped, go do something completely unexpected: read the manual!

They never see it coming, and it makes you look really smart!

Im kidding, of course. I know yall read the manuals already.

Anyway, if the manual doesnt help, wander about the internet

until you find somebody who can explain it better. Or, perhaps,

there might just be a chance that right here on Singularity Five

there is a tutorial to help. Maybe, but probably not. With

that semi-comforting thought in mind, I say good night.

Tree Modeling Anim8or Tutorial

Documents

Transcript of Tree Modeling Anim8or Tutorial