VFX: Post Production: Modelling and Texturing the Jungle

I found the jungle very hard to wrap my head around how I was actually going to model it in the first place but eventually came up with a good way of getting around it. For starters I took out most of the bushes and plants which were going to be sat around the edge of the clearing which the time machine would land in, as this would just produce unnecessary work for me. I then also just used tall tree trunks so that I would just have to add the tree trunk textures, making it a lot easier to texture as well.

The jungle was actually pretty easy to model and texture. I used a plane and moved different faces of it up and down so that there were a bit wonky and I used 3 different variations of trees and then duplicated them around after adding a texture. I then gave them even more variation by altering the angle of a few of them and then rotating others to ensure that the textures weren't repeated. I was very happy with how they looked, and how my time machine looked when sitting there as well. I just had the problem of the distance and how I could make it look like the jungle goes on for ages.

I really liked how it was looking but next I had to add in the background to ensure that you could see into the distance. I found a really nice background that worked really well and looked good as a background in the distance, just in case you get a glimpse through the trees. I then went onto adding in a few rocks on the floor so that it looked a little more jungle/forest-like. Then added an area light so that there was sunlight coming from above.

I'm really happy with the end result as I think I've got a good amount of light coming through into the jungle, as well as a couple of scattered rocks hanging around. I think if I have more time towards the end of the project I will go back and add a foliage gobo into it so that I get some of the leaves that are at the top of the trees coming through. At the moment you can't tell too much that the tree trunks don't have tops but I think adding in the foliage will give it a nice finish.