Monday, December 27th, 2021 Posted by Jim Thacker

Discover how to create complex vegetation for games


The Gnomon Workshop has released Creating Complex Vegetation & Foliage for Games, a detailed guide to creating real-time 3D vegetation recorded by Naughty Dog environment texture artist Peyton Varney.

During the intermediate-level workshop, which comprises over three hours of video training, Varney reveals how to model and texture 3D grasses and trees using the games-industry-standard tools Maya, ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter and Substance 3D Designer, and set them up inside Unreal Engine.

The tutorial follows on from Varney’s previous workshop, Introduction to Creating Game-Ready Foliage.

Model and texture 3D grasses and trees for use in Unreal Engine
In the workshop, Varney reveals how to create a variety of grass and tree assets and place them inside Unreal Engine to create a realistic environment.

He begins by reviewing reference images and blocking out a scene, then creating the trunks, branches and leaves of the trees, and enough different clumps of grass to give the scene an organic quality.

The tutorial covers the creation of a savannah scene, but the same techniques can be applied to other types of environment. As well as the tutorial videos themselves, viewers can download Varney’s scene template.

About the artist
Peyton Varney is an environment texture artist at Naughty Dog, where he worked on The Last of Us Part II. He previously worked on Marvel’s Spider-Man while interning at Insomniac Games.

Pricing and availability
Creating Complex Vegetation & Foliage for Games 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 Complex Vegetation & Foliage for Games


Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.