After being inspired by some bush 3D models I saw online, I wanted to try and recreate the same style and effect which these low poly models were giving off.
The First task for creating the textures for the bush was creating a simple leaf shape which I could scatter around to create different shapes and use it as the base shape for the stylized bush
Using a circular splatter node, I was able to generate each layer of the bush adding more brightness to each layer to add depth. Each leaf has a random size and luminance modifier, this is to make the bush look more natural and adds more depth to the texture.
After Creating each layer of the texture I combined them using the blend node. This allowed me to stack each layer on top of each other. Lastly, between each layer I used a simple shape with a blur to add a shadow between the different layers to add more depth.
Adding some simple noise to the texture made it look less flat and plasticky.
Putting all of this together I made the top layer of the bush texture.
Using the top layer graph as a layout, I modified the graph removing layers of leaves, and darkened the texture of the material. This texture will be used for the middle layers of the bush.
Using the same technique as before I was able to create the rest of the layers of the bush.
To add volume to the bush I will need leaf clusters to put on the outside of the bush to make it more 3D and have more volume. I used the same method of creating the bush layers but in a smaller version and made the leaves closer together.
To create the shape for the bush I used dome shapes and layered the on top of each other to create a overlapping effect for the leaves. It also helped create the volumetric look of the bush I was going for and adding simple planes the the edge of the bush for leaf clusters to give more volume and break up the layered look of the mesh.
I unwrapped the model to fit onto the textures I created for the bush, there are 6 different materials, 3 for the different bush layers, 2 for the leaf clusters, and 1 for the sphere in the centre which stops the player from seeing through the bottom of the model and fills any gaps
The final result came out really well, this is my first model made completely from scratch.
