Star Citizen: Spruces (Picea)

As part of the Microtech biome rework there was need for a new and updated Spruce set that could better fit the new needs of the biomes, mainly trees with a shape language that could be used both in open grasslands, as well as forest edges and dense forest cores. Another extremely important thing for me with this tree set was to achieve a very strong silhouette read that would not only benefit the tree in daylight scenarios among the wide grasslands and tundras of the planet, but also a silhouette that would create a strong visual identity for players when walking or driving around the planet surface during the night or during sunset and sunrise. This was achieved by not only creating an obvious macro shape language that easily resembles a spruce, but also by adding a lot of high frequency noise with small and dried branches that help sell the natural feeling of a tree.

Besides creating a new Spruce tree set that would fit the mentioned requirements, this was also a first step in our updated foliage approach where each set should encompass, as much as possible, all life/growth stages of the plant or tree, as well as stumps, logs and debris if and when necessary.

The approach for this tree set was fairly traditional as far as creating vegetation for games goes, with the whitebox stage being done with Photoshop and SpeedTree, the Highpoly developed almost fully inside of SpeedTree with the help of Blender for specific parts, the bakes of the atlas were done in SpeedTree and the textures were created using those bakes as a base within Substance Designer, with the trunk materials being mostly sourced from Megascans.

Where the pipeline was quite new and different was in regards to the rotten tree logs and stumps, where Houdini was heavily used to transform a simple input from SpeedTree (essentially a very basic cylindrical log with the needed dimensions) into the rotten logs that can be seen in the screenshots. This is a tool I developed not only to create the logs and stumps for this set, but also as a sort of vertical slice for future needs in different trees sets. I could not have achieved the results I did with this tool if it wasn't for the amazing guidance and help of Sebastian Schroeder, our Principal Technical Artist and Lead, as well as extra help and insights from Lukáš Chovanec, our Environment and Tech Artist.

Creative Director: Ian Leyland
Planet Content Art Lead: Sebastian Schroeder
Planet Content Environment Artists: Maximilian Keilich; Patrick Gladys; Özlem Gladys; Pascal Müller; Niklas Rüffler; Hasbi Adenan; Lukáš Chovanec;

https://www.artstation.com/sebastiansch
https://www.artstation.com/maxikeilich
https://www.artstation.com/patgladys
https://www.artstation.com/miu
https://www.artstation.com/schnibbsl
https://www.artstation.com/niklasrueffler
https://www.artstation.com/hasbi
https://www.artstation.com/miroxs