So far I have continued look development for the remaining assets. For the ground, I will be using a surface asset from Quixel of fallen leaves, however I wanted to find a way to separate out the leaves from the dirt underneath as I wanted to control them as two separate shaders. I brought one of the existing maps into Photoshop and adjusted it to get a black and white opacity map, and then duplicated the ground geometry so that there will be two layers: the bottom dirt layer, and then the leaves layer with the opacity map. This will allow it to function as an actual layer of leaves on top of the ground. The texture maps for the bottom layer will be a separate texture set from Quixel.
I plan to use this asset from Quixel for the lower dirt layer:
As several of these assets are meant to be the same tree type as the existing trees in the scene, I used the same shader settings as those assets.
Reference
White Oak Bark (Image from https://libraryexhibits.uvm.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/uvmtrees/item/1145)
White Oak (Image from https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/1544)
Red Maple Bark (Image from https://thetreeauthority.com/1171/red-maple-tree-facts/)
Chattahoochee National Forest (Image from https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/ga-chattahoochee-headwaters-mark-trail-wilderness-chattahoochee-national-forest)
Chattahoochee National Forest (Image from https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/ga-chattahoochee-headwaters-mark-trail-wilderness-chattahoochee-national-forest)
Image from Unsplash
Image from Unsplash
Image from Unsplash
I also created the base shader for the close up maple leaf, using the opacity map from the Quixel maple leaf texture set from the previous post. I will be adding more textures from this set to the shader, but overall I wanted to create the base shaders first and then selectively add and adjust texture maps as needed.
Reference
Red Maple Leaf (Image from https://www.hickerphoto.com/picture/red-fall-maple-leaf-picture-38025.htm)
Red Maple (Image from https://shop.arborday.org/red-maple)
I also made some adjustments to the lighting, such as getting more fill and bounce light. I also decided to add a few more tree assets to cast more shadows and fill the space up more, and so that there was a less noticeable line at the horizon where it was illuminated since there will be a set extension behind it.
Before
After
Lighting and Composition Reference (from Unsplash)
Once I had a pass on the shaders and the lighting adjusted I updated the assets in the scene with the materials. There are various changes I want to make after seeing the shaders in the scene. First, based on the macbeth chart I think the lighting is overexposed so I will bring down those values. I also think the tree leaves need far less subsurface scattering, and want to bring down the IOR of the ground to help with the very bright hotspot. I think displacement/normal/specular mapping will also help break up this hotspot.
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