Trees

[Kevin Thorp]

Do you not want to use the trees that come with Max because you don't like the way they look or because you think that would be "cheating"?

I think it would be okay to use all the tools that come with Max, including the trees.

But a couple years ago we created trees by just making some planes and applying tree photograph texture maps. The maps had a transparent alpha so the trees didn't look square. We used a coulple different maps and resized & mirrored them to add a little variety.

The planes were at a right-angle to the camera so they didn't look flat. If your camera moves it's more of a challenge. You could use 2 planes at a right-angle (a cross from the top view). That sort of looks good to a moving camera.