How to Create Stunning Trees

How to Create Stunning Trees

Posted on 29. Jun, 2009 by Andrew Price in Tutorials

In the last tutorial we created killer grass, perfect for any outdoor scene. So why not top it off with some realistic trees? No nature scene is complete without it!

The tutorial will take you approximately 30 minutes to complete.

During the tutorial you will learn how to:

  • Efficiently use bezier curves
  • Use the curve to tree script to generate complicated twigs
  • Create low poly leaves
  • Properly texture a tree
  • Hand paint displacement onto an object

You will need:

Ready? Let’s begin…

Watch in HD!

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I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Be sure to post your results in the comments section below!

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86 Responses to “How to Create Stunning Trees”

  1. Miguel

    31. Aug, 2009

    Hi yout tuts are awesome just im stuck :’(

    At the 15:43 when u press generate from selection everithing goes good, but when i do the twigs disappear :|

    I hope u can help me

  2. cg4god

    07. Sep, 2009

    when u press generate material u must have the tree unselected, the, before pressing generate from selection, select the tree again. It hapenned to me too. If u have already done that mistake, came back to a previous version of the file, and then repeat the operation, or else it won’t work. I hope it can help u , bye.

  3. Miguel

    07. Sep, 2009

    Thank u for u response cg4god But i have the same problem i adjunt an image and the archives if u wanna to check i really apreciate that

    The image (if doesn’t admit Html here is the link)

    http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/26/1884747/problem.gif

    And the blend’s

    http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/26/1884747/Images_

  4. Karim

    13. Sep, 2009

    hey cg4god i followed your instructions and it didn’t work , every time i generate from material i loose all the twigs . I have applied the material to the mesh withouth using the script and then tried adding the leafs using the script and the twigs dissapeard again .

    Can anyone help me please ….!!!

  5. Jami

    15. Sep, 2009

    Hrm. What’s odd is that I don’t have that script in my library. Newest Blender and all. Haven’t found the script yet but…it would be appreciated if you could point me in a general right direction. Thanks.

  6. Rhali

    26. Sep, 2009

    thanks for very clear step by step instructions, i just started blender3 wks ago and appreciate it even more.
    would it be possible to draw the curves with grease pencil? or import paths from illustrator or corel draw?

  7. Rômulo Jordão

    29. Sep, 2009

    Hy, this is really a great tool to make good trees, and the tutorial is really good to, but i have a doubt, im following the steps of video and when i try to make the UV and texture, i dont know what happen, but the twigs that i generate before vanish… What i can do to fix it?
    Thanks again for the amazing tutorial, and i will wait for some answer.

  8. Rômulo Jordão

    29. Sep, 2009

    Well, i was making some tests and figured out what was happening… i deleted the shapes that make the branchs,so, when i generate the UV, the script need to generate everting again, so, if you delete some shape to create the leaves or the twigs, they will gone… Well, thats it. Hope this work for other people :p

  9. HolyDiver42

    11. Oct, 2009

    When i click to add the leaves, it adds them, but it rotates the plane by itself, so i can’t follow the directions when you talk about how to rotate the plane so the leaves look right. When i try to clear the rotation, it does nothing. I guess it will look ok if i render it, but how do i fix this?

  10. Matthew Adams

    16. Oct, 2009

    Those having problems with twigs disappearing: notice that when he makes this stuff (the twig spheres namely and perhaps the leaves), he names everything, then hides them in other layers without using undo (which closes the wizard on me). Leaving the wizard open with the base generated tree selected, all the values all filled in. This is a requirement, otherwise it regenerates the entire tree without twigs. I had trouble with this at first.

    I didn’t want to sign up to download the leaf texture, so I went to Google images and found a free leaf texture (with a green background), used gimp to create a black and white version of the image for the alpha map like you did.

    http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/8140/tree1j.jpg
    (I know it’s not the best. Blender 2.46 (Ubuntu package))

    Thanks Andrew for this tutorial! I can now make decent trees if I put more time into making the base better. Now I just need to figure out exporting to md2 or Ogre.

  11. shariff

    19. Oct, 2009

    nice tutorial i’ll definately be needing this. Thanks a lot this is what i’ve been looking for for a long time regarding easy tree modelling. Probably the best and easy way so far.

  12. DMRankor

    27. Oct, 2009

    Thanks for providing elightenment on creating trees.
    I was sitting there in jaw dropping awe as to how you did it.
    Before, I was busy scratching my head on a way to
    create trees to add into a scene.
    I’ve had Blender a couple months now, but have come along pretty well on the learning curve.

  13. MattMoult

    08. Nov, 2009

    Thanks for the brilliant tutorial.

    this is the tree I produced:
    http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9286/treem.jpg
    I was trying to go for a bit more of a dusty african vibe, so I aimed roughly for a CG acacia tree!

    It is for a scene which is currently still in progress but has made use of two of your tutorials so far. Still loads of work to do but here it is:
    http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8720/africarender24.jpg

  14. Andrew Price

    08. Nov, 2009

    Fantastic Matt! Your scene reminds me of Far Cry 2. Keep up the good work, and remember to post your final image on blenderartists.org I’m sure they will love it :)

  15. Dennis

    14. Nov, 2009

    That was a great tutorial!

    There is a problem with my tree, however.

    This is the reference image I used:
    http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8484/deadtree4.jpg

    This is my completed tree:
    http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4384/tree1.jpg

    My problem is with the leaves. I’m seeing the entire plane, and not just the leaf:
    http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/2410/tree2r.jpg

    My leaf texture:
    http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1176/leaftexture1.jpg

    And my leaf alpha mask:
    http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/6691/leaftexture1alphamask.jpg

    I checked the video again to see if I got all the leaf material settings right, but I couldn’t find where I had gone astray. Some help would be appreciated.

    Thanks!

  16. Dennis

    15. Nov, 2009

    Nevermind….. I realised that my alpha mask texture was using the original texture coordinates rather than the UV texture coordinates. Silly me!

  17. Dennis

    15. Nov, 2009

    I set up a scene for my tree:
    http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/5705/tree7.jpg

    Once again, thanks for a great tutorial!

  18. Jacob Olsson

    20. Nov, 2009

    Hey you can just right click on the picture with the yellow leafs and then press save as i think.. :D

  19. Makers_F

    04. Dec, 2009

    http://img705.imageshack.us/i/render1ao.jpg/

    Great Tutorial!!!

  20. Lord_melvin

    16. Dec, 2009

    Why the leaves not casting a shadows? only the trunks and twigs are having a shadows?

  21. Lord_melvin

    17. Dec, 2009

    I already figure it out… it is better to model the leaf instead of just a simple plane. then enable the “traceable” button.

  22. spiderspy

    20. Dec, 2009

    Thanks a lot! used this and the grass tutorial for the enviroment in my project :) heres a still

    http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5851/collossuswithtree.jpg

  23. Todd McIntosh

    10. Jan, 2010

    Hi Andrew, thanks for the great tutorial on using the Curves to Tree script. Have you found any way to decrease the UV tiling effect that is apparent on the smaller limbs of the tree. The main trunk on my tree looks ok, but as soon as you get up into the skinnier large branches, the texture tiling is very noticable. Thanks!

    http://www.resonancemedia.ca/blender/tree2.png

  24. therealnoz

    19. Jan, 2010

    When I press “fill twigs” after following all of the steps, it says:
    “Select one or more curve objects” What am I doing wrong?

  25. Moody

    26. Jan, 2010

    Eh, I don’t have any scripts :S .. I have the window. I open it, click on scripts, then add and go to Wizards.. But it’s empty.. so are all the other ones.. Help please

    Awesome tutorials by the way

  26. Arno

    28. Jan, 2010

    Thank you Andrew for your brilliant tuto.
    For people who loose twigs for the next generations, I have some answer : when you save blend file and re-open it, you loose tree script parameters. So you have to re-write it in the fields.
    Unfortunately, this script in encapsulated in blender, so we cannot change it, for example to save user parameters (twig name, leaf name, …). How can we change it ?
    A question : according with your tuto, my leaves are with an Alpha 0, so I have no shadow for them in the soil I created !
    Have you an answer ?
    Thank you and best regards.
    Arno from France

  27. bobo

    28. Jan, 2010

    Thanks for this great tutorial. I used it to create the following picture.

    http://www.yafaray.org/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=2064&mode=view

  28. Andrew Price

    29. Jan, 2010

    Thats amazing bobo! Just tweeted it! ;)
    I love seeing what people create from the tutorials. Thanks for reading and keep up the good work.

  29. Andrew Price

    08. Feb, 2010

    @Arno
    Hi Arno, sorry for the late reply. You need to make sure your plane material has enabled “Transparent Shadows”. That should get it to work :)

  30. fabianjul

    09. Feb, 2010

    Where did you get the sky picture of your render from?

  31. Andrew Price

    09. Feb, 2010

    @ fabianjul
    http://www.cgtextures.com/

    It’s all you’ll ever need :)

    I think it’s in the forth row down on the Skies Partial category.

  32. fabianjul

    09. Feb, 2010

    Thanks. I looked there too, but didn’t find anything :-)

  33. Alex

    15. Feb, 2010

    When I try to extend the bezier curve, it moves the bezier curve back, and not to the top.

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