i've already started on a few dod:s maps, and i need foliage for them, so instead of waiting for official or custom models i decided to make my own. these are all the ones i've made so far, that are just a low poly tree-trunk with flat textured planes for the leaves. i used the call of duty trees as a reference aswell as a few photos, and created everything from scratch. hammer won't work properly for some reason over the last 2 days (probably linked to HL2DM taking 16hrs now to update), so i haven't been able to make a map to test them ingame, so i've just got a screenshot from HLMV.

as i said, they are based off the call of duty trees in the way they've been made, and CoD has the 2nd best foliage i've ever seen in a game, after BiA. they look high-poly enough to me, without being too high, but i just wanted some opinions or ideas how to improve them. i'd also like to know if anyone else has made foliage models/textures and could give me some advice on skinning the leaves. for these i just drew some branches, then painted the leaves on in PSP with a custom paint-tube. the leaves look ok but the branches just look like flat brown sticks.

http://img54.exs.cx/img54/9839/trees0dz.jpg

those trees reminds me a little bit on cod

They look good. I might suggest darkening the trunks and limbs just a bit. They seem a bit light. Other than that, I really like how they look. Very full without being an eye sore. Nice work :)

Originally posted by floMatic
those trees reminds me a little bit on cod

no kidding?

those a quite nice Surgeon, all those need is a bit of colour matching and they'd fit nicely in DOD:S. :)

bah COD!


looks good

Actually that reminds me, i need to convert all my HL1 trees to Source.

please do jed, I personally would like to use them, and soon :)

And, nice job surgeon keep it up. I'm also working on some foliage models myself (bushes and trees0 but it will be some time before they are done as I have a full list of props to do.

Improvements? Maybe add some color burning to a few areas to have some darkened and lighter spots. some shading to rid yourself of the "flat" look. Even though HL2 will add shadows, adding a few of your own will only enhance the effect.

nice trees, makes me want to run around em

Would there be any enviormental effects in dod? Like trees swinging in the wind or something. That would cool.

Gingerlord and I talked about this and I don't think trees and such are effected by the wind settings in a map. As far as I've seen its just wires that do it.

You *could* in theory make a tree as a jointed ragdoll prop with limits on the bone movement. That would allow a certain ammount of sway as a reaction to nearby explosions, etc. The only trick you'd have to figure out is how to "glue" the tree into thr ground so it doesnt jus fall over.

Of course, ragdoll trees would be expensive client side because of all the physics so I'd keep the idea as a theory and not actually try and implement it.

TheSurgeon, they should look good in game. The main improvements should be focused on the texture.
As for animations, ragdolls are way too expensive performance-wise. On the other hand, with $staticprop removed from the qc and the model placed in the map as a prop_dynamic_override point entity, it rocks.