Custom Leaf photo/UV map tutorial.

[Patrick210]

Start by taking a digital photo of a leaf. Rotate it so that the
leaf is vertical and crop to a square format. Resize it
to 500 pixels x 500 pixels and save as jpg in your photo
program.

[Patrick210]

Open Carrara and insert a vertex object. Set views to all four,
and load the leaf image into the left/right grid under the
“global” tab, check the “enable “ box.

[Patrick210]

Select the “polygon” tool which is the bottom icon under the
“sphere” icon list, far left in the top row of icons. In the “right” view
section, trace around the outside edge of the leaf. The screenshot shows the "left" view, change it to the 'right" view or your map will be reversed. Add a couple of
points to create a small stem at the top of the leaf. Press enter
when you have finished.

[Patrick210]

Select the Shader room icon and see the default texture there.
In the “Color” channel, select “Texture Map” and load the same
leaf image as before.

[Patrick210]

Now return to the Vertex modeler and select the “UV Map” tab,
and “Box Face” under Mapping. Then press the “UV Editor”
button. You should see your UV map outlines here overlayed
on the leaf image. The points should still be highlighted in
red.

[Patrick210]

Now, click towards the side of the leaf image to deselect the
points. Then, one by one, grab and drag the points sideways
to the edge of the leaf, until they have outlined the leaf.
Then hit OK.

[Patrick210]

Return to the assembly room. Under the “Modifier” tab, select
“Bend & Twist”. Set the “Bend Angle” to “90” and set the
“Bend Axis Angle” to “180”. Make sure the “Z” axis is the
one selected.
Now your leaf should look like this. Save this file
as a Carrara file, place it in the Eovia Program folder under
Carrara 5 Pro/Data/Plants. This is for PC, I would appreciate
it if a Mac person would chime in about where to place the
plant data for them.

[Patrick210]

Then click on the “Shaders” tab and drag the leaf shader into
a shader folder in the browser.

[Patrick210]

Now you can close the file and open a new Carrara file. Insert
a plant object. Change the setting to ones shown in the
screenshot. Then in the drop down for “Leaf Type”, select the
leaf name that you saved in the plant data file. If you saved it
correctly, it should be in the list.

[Patrick210]

Now back in the shader room, drag the leaf shader from the
browser to the shading domain for the leaf part of the plant.

Another tip for shading: Take your leaf texture into your
photo program and lighten it a little and increase the intensity
a little and put that image into the translucency channel of the
shader. You might want to darken the original image also. This
will make for more realism when rendering with light through
transparency. With some leaf images it is possible to create
a bump map from the photo also, depending on the image.
Play with the shininess and highlight also. This type of leaf
is quick to load and render and is good for a wide range of
small plants and trees. Even complex shapes can be used.

[Thomas]

Great tutorial Patrick !!

[BilloX]

This is wonderful Patrick - thanks for providing such great tutorials to the community!

- Laurent

[Grendel]

Great job on the tutorial, very well done and organized as simple as possible

[Doug.S]

Thanks for the tut, much appreciated and well done. A really good addition to our toolbox.
Doug.S

edit addition: just found this source for scanned leaves along with masks:

http://www.ridercustompainting.com/free_stuff.htm

[Turnburn]

As a beginner I just got a headache from trying to resolve this problem with the help of the Carrara manual. Now thanks to your tutorial I was able to get into UVmapping
Thank you

[behzad]

Your the king of UV mapping

[Digger]

Thanks Patrick. Would the UV mapping steps be essentially the same for Carrara 4?

[Patrick210]

Should be identical.

[Aunty Betty]

Very generous Patrick - thanks for taking the time out.
I've added your tips too my notes for future reference.

As yet I've not used Carrara for plants so this should give me a kickstart should a project require it.

[Aunty Betty]

Patrick you said in a previous post " Carrara has many parameters for single leaf distribution which allow the leaves to have a more natural placement."

Have you any key suggestions on the parameters to use for this kind of specific control?