Custom Shape Creation Suggestions

[Hatch]

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if someone had any suggestions about how to best tackle the Boxwood-like bushes as seen in the photos?

I've managed to create a couple of single bushes by themselves and thought I could potentially achieve the same effect by just overlapping them in-engine but the result is rather lackluster.

My original thought was to use a custom force mesh but so far that hasn't worked out so well, I've also toyed with the idea of using the 'Zone' node.

I'm still quite new to SpeedTree so any suggestions about which direction to head in would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

(Currently using Maya & UE4)

[SarahScruggs]

Hello,
The fastest way would be using shape control, just sink the circle on the main trunk (seen with hints) so that it's sitting very low or negative even for the low arch shape. Add some variation to the % of size and prune anything on the ground to save polycount.
If you want just a shape with leaves coming off the surface, you could add a mesh generator> leaves...flood the area and orient them so they hide the shape underneath.

[Hatch]

Hi Sarah,

I've begun playing with the shape control node as per your recommendation and have managed to start getting a result closer to the one I was after.

I'll carry on building on top of this,

Thanks for the reply.