Want to create realistic trees within Blender? No problem. In this post you will learn to model and texture a fairly realistic looking tree inside Blender. Blender is a completely free 3D program so if you want to have a go at this, you can get it HERE.
Launch Blender.
Hit the X key and delete the standard cube. While at it, also delete the light and the camera as we’ll be setting up our own camera and lighting for the scene.
Go to Blender Preferences and enable the Sapling Addon. Hit Save User Settings and exit the preferences.
In your viewport, hit SHIFT+A and got to CURVES > ADD TREE. This will add a spline tree which we are going to use as a base for our tree.
Now we’re going to edit the look of the tree. To do this we will be using the tree menu to adjust the curve settings. Make sure not to click anywhere in the viewport as this will get rid of the settings menu for the Tree curves.
In the geometry settings, click to activate the bevel and set the bevel resolution to 3. The bevel basically adds a mesh around the curves we created earlier and the resolution gives the mesh a specified resolution. You can go higher than 3 but we’re going for a low poly tree for asset creation. While at it, also set the scale to 6 as the default tree is huge for the scene.
Now head over to Branch splitting menu. From the brach splitting menu, set the levels to 3 and base splits to 1. Everything else can be set at default value.
In the Branch Growth menu, use the settings show below.
We’re going to leave Pruning option alone. Let’s move straight into the Leaves section! The settings we used are shown below.
Next, we’re going to want to convert the tree trunk into a polygonal mesh. To do this, select the tree trunk (this will also select the branches) and hit ALT + C. Select Mesh from Curves option as shown below.
Time to create materials for our tree. Before doing so, make sure that you have selected Cycles render engine as that’s what we’ll be using to render our tree.
We used simple leaf texture from cgtextures.com, feel free to use any textures with an alpha background. If you don’t know how to add Apha Maps to textures then check out How To Use Alpha Maps In Blender Cycles.
Leaf texture node setup.
Select the tree trunk and hit tab to enter editing mode. Hit A to select all faces and hit U to unwrap. We’re going to use smart UV Projection.
We’re using a simple bark texture that can be found at cgtextures.com. Apply this texture to a new material slot.
In the UV editor, select all section and hit S to scale them up. Scale until the texture looks about right in the rendered view. You may need to rotate the UVs, in that case just hit R then 90 or -90.
Bark texture node setup.
Now you should have a fairly realistic looking tree that you have created inside Blender!