COMPANY: AsileFX | URL: www.asilefx.com | TYPE: Videos | PLATFORM: Mac, Windows | PRICE: $44 (DL), $49 (CD)
Have you ever felt that your creativity is being limited by the number of limited plants available for Vue? Are your third party imported plants taking too long to render? Are you interested in learning how to create your own Solid Growth plants?

If so, this is the tutorial for you! It's instructed by Nicholas Pellegrino, master of Vue and Photoshop.

Advanced Custom Plant Creation is a cross-application tutorial. The tutorial will show you how you can use programs like Photoshop, together with Vue, to create new and completely custom Solid Growth plants and trees.

If you are not a current user of Photoshop, then you will be happy to know that the techniques in the tutorial can be used with almost every image editing application.

Even if you don’t plan on entirely designing your own plants, you can still learn how to use existing images maps, like the ones found in the AsileFX Leaves Collection and AsileFX Seamless Bark, to customize Vue plants and trees. Samples from these collections are included with the tutorial to aid in the learning process.

The tutorial is taught in Vue 6 Infinite, but it can be used with any version of Vue that has plant surface editing tools. Photoshop CS2 is used to demonstrate all image editing tools, but most earlier versions possess the same tools, and can be used without restriction.

First you will start out in Vue and learn how plants and trees are generated. By examining and dissecting each surface, you will gain the knowledge needed to understand what it is that you need to create, in order to modify each plant species.

Next it's over to Photoshop were you will learn to use painting tools in combination with images, to make branches and leaves for your Vue trees. Learn to quickly and easily apply realistic color blends and variations. Once the color map is complete, it's time to learn how to make your, Alpha/Clip, diffusion, bump, specularity/highlight, and luminosity/luminous maps.

Then it's back to Vue, where you will use the Function Editor, with your created image maps, to edit various Vue plant and tree species. Apply realistic bark textures to the trunks of your trees. Learn to create generic leaf surfaces, which can be applied to any tree or plant, and saved for later use. You can also use these methods to improve the quality and realism of existing Vue plants.

Then it's time to take a look at single leaf plants (plants that are created using only a single leaf). You will be taught to use existing leaf images, like the ones in the Leaves Collection, to directly modify Vue plants for immediate results, with no image editing required.

If you are interested in painting your own leaves, you will find the next part of the tutorial particularly useful. Learn what things to consider, and what tools to use for painting custom leaves. Discover how you can create more foliage for denser plants, just by making changes to your image maps.

Once you have created your own leaves, you can use the knowledge gained from the previous sections to compile your custom plants and trees, and make something entirely your own.

Includes an HTML Autorun Menu UI for easy navigation through the tutorial.

Run Time: 142 Minutes
Tutorial videos are 1024 x 768 pixel resolution.

Tutorials Presented in the QuickTime 7 Format