Sunday, February 20th, 2022 Posted by Jim Thacker

Discover how to create hi-res custom trees with SpeedTree


The Gnomon Workshop has released Creating High-Resolution Custom Trees Using SpeedTree, a complete guide to creating believable-looking trees with SpeedTree, IDV’s tree-generation software.

The intermediate-level tutorial, recorded by digital artist Jean-Michel Bihorel, comprises over three and a half hours of video training, covering Houdini, Maya and Redshift as well as SpeedTree.

Create hero-quality 3D trees in SpeedTree and Houdini
Tree-generation tool SpeedTree is widely used for VFX, feature animation and game development. Bihorel explains how to use it in conjunction with Houdini to create a hero tree asset suitable for use in a cinematic.

Workflows covered include creating a set of hand-drawn branches extended by procedural generators, applying mesh forces, and hot to set up and export a leaf as a point cloud in Houdini to make it possible to control leaf placement and orientation procedurally in response to the direction of the sun.

Bihorel also explores how to export SpeedTree trees to other DCC applications, using Maya as an example; and how to get shaders working in other software packages.

About the artist
Jean-Michel Bihorel has been working in films and commercials since 2008, primarily as a 3D generalist and as a look dev/lighting supervisor, at studios including The Yard VFX, Supamonks and Mathematic.

Pricing and availability
Creating High-Resolution Custom Trees Using SpeedTree is available via an online subscription to The Gnomon Workshop. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $490/year, and provide over 300 tutorials.

Read more about Creating High-Resolution Custom Trees Using SpeedTree


Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.