Tree with Fruits

Author: GKDantas

Tools Needed

• Carrara 5 and content fruit pear

This is a simple tutorial of how to build a tree and use different kind of leaves. You will use the pear object from Carrara content.

The overall idea is how to do a simple fruit tree using only DAZ Carrara this time. I did this example using the version 5 (not Pro) and you can do that if your version support to load leaves (I never tried other version then 5).

The first step is create a new empty document: File / New

When the window is loaded it is time to add a PLANT (that's your tree now): Insert / Plant

For this example I will use a preset to get a better result, just click in the Preset: Load button in the plant editor (Model Room)

I like to use the Willow preset, so choose and then click OK

Now that you choose Carrara will ask you to import this shader, answer YES and close the Model Room to not use as much memory. Every Room that is opened is better to be closed before continuing, this way you can have more memory free to work in the Assembly Room.

Back to the Assemble Room it is time to do two things: first we need to choose a fruit to use on our tree, and it needs to be in the right orientation in the 3D space to work as a leaf…YES the fruit will be a kind of leaf to create the tree.

Go to your Content Browser and in the Objects tab find the Misc folder and click twice on the Pear object:

The Pear will open in another window, not in the window where your tree is. The default orientation isn't good for doing what we want to do, so we need to orient it along the X axis, with the stem pointing to the positive side. Here is how it looks when loaded:

Select the rotation tool in the Tool Bar. Look at that to orientate the pear along the X axis; we need to rotate it in the Y axis (pure geometry), the green circle:

You can rotate by hand or enter the value in the tool options window in the Motion tab:

And now this is how the pear NEEDS to look after changing the orientation. It doesn't need to be parallel to the ground.

Time to save our pear. Open up the Content Browser again and find YOUR objects folder:

Find your pear in the object list in the right side of the main window and just click and drag it to the browser:

Carrara will ask you for a name and a comment. You can put what you want to better find it latter.

Now you can close the pear window and go back to the tree… Answer “don't save” to the question about saving or not the file changes (you already saved it after dragging to the browser!)

Now that you have a tree with leaves ready, it's time to DUPLICATE it, we will use a copy of the original tree to put the fruits on. Select the tree and go to the menu Edit / Duplicate (or Ctrl + D in PC) and now you will have two identical trees superposed!

With the second tree selected click in the Model Room icon to edit the leaves, or click twice in it. Carrara will ask what you want to do now: Create a new master? Or Edit the Master? The right answer is “Create a New Master”. If you use the second choice Carrara will apply the changes to both trees and we will get only fruits. The idea is let one tree with leaves and the other with fruits, but as both are duplicated in the same place we will be the illusion that only one tree is there!

Click OK and go to the Leaf tab

In the Leaf tab choose the button Load From File:

Now is the hard part… where is your saved pear? If you don't know, just click in the icon for the Assemble room, click on your pear in the content browser and in the menu icon (look at the screen below) choose File Info:

The file location will be shown between the name and the comment of the file!

Back to the model room we now can load the pear as a leaf.

Click OK when Carrara ask to import the shader. And now you have a tree with many and many pears! This is ugly…

And here are some tricks that need to be done to get a better result:

1- Reduce leaf quantity to about 0, 3.

2 - Set leaf twist to zero, so they can be more natural.

3 - Set the Leafless Margins to a higher value so the fruits will be more faraway one from another, here is the basis of this trick, try some setting to see what best works. For the image that I generated I used a low value of 0, 22 and a high of 0, 4

4 - Increase the size of the pear in the Leaf Size to about 1, 78

5 - Adjust the angle that the pear has from the branches in the Leaf Orientation I used 151.

Always look to the preview to see what has happened to the “leaf” so you can better understand the parameters that are being changed.

Now back to your Assemble Room and put the camera in a better position and do a render to see what your plant looks like

For my render I'm loading a Realistic Sky, the Californian Sky. Click in the SCENE in the Instance list:

Go to the top of the screen and in the Effects tab and add a Realistic Sky to the Atmosphere:

Now select the presets button:

In the window that you open choose the realistic sky presets in the side and choose the Californian Sky or other that you like and click OK.

Go to the Render Room and turn on the Sky Light and set the intensity to 200%, but this will take a long time to render. Without the Sky Light you can render more quickly…

… and this what you will get in the end:

Now it's time to try something different: use a flower or a xmas ball and create your tree. Try different variations to see what you can devise.