Creating a natural-looking landscape
Intermediate | Rating: 6.86 Votes: 7
Views: 14161 | By: DaN  |
| Category: General Subcategory: Misc | Date: 2006-05-09 08:56:27 |
|
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 |
(: This page still in progress 
Bear with me!
2. Plant life (flora)
So we've gone through the physical geography, or geological aspect of creating your landscape, now we can start to think about the biological side. It is easy to see the way that flora is affected by it's surroundings just by thinking about the varying climatic conditions on Earth.
(Of course, for scifi flora, you may have to use your imagination a little more)
For example, Jungle plants are generally found in warm tropical areas, and are unlikely to be found growing in Arctic tundra!
So first of all, when considering the use of flora, we must first think about the climate and local weather conditions and other factors which they would be subject to, and which plants would best suit those conditions. The best way to do this is to know a little about the way plantlife has evolved and adapted to suit these conditions.
Biologically speaking, all life needs to be able to derive energy from somewhere, in order to survive and reproduce and differing species of plantlife go about this is different ways - either through photosythesis, the conversion of sunlight to energy, the uptake of minerals in the ground, parasitic or symbiotic relationships with other plant or animal life, or a combination of these to name but a few.
So firstly, let us take a brief look at how some species have adapted to varying climatic conditions.
Cold conditions
Let's start with the plantlife found in the coldest conditions, such as the Arctic tundra and windswept mountains; plants that grow here need to be able to survive extreme cold, and possible low levels of both sunlight and (liquid) water (Due to it freezing).
When looking at the kind of plants that survive in those conditions here on Earth, we can see that they generally don't get very tall, due to the limited resources.
Therefore, trees and tall bushes are not sustainable in such a cold environment. Vegetation is limited to grasses, shrubs, sedges and lichens. In summer months, when some of the groundwater thaws, large areas become sodden and marhsy, In these areas, mosses and swamp plants thrive.
So let's have a look at some of those plants and see how we could best model them.
 Above: This particular vegetation has small white flowers, And might be modelled with clump foliage with small dots of white paint to represent the flowers. General grassy/gorse areas are probably best modelled by using poly fiber. |
|
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 |
Squirrelsquid
07 January 08 |  |
Rating: 8
kudos! that's a great article although I didn't read it completely yet... I will sure give it a read when I'll be building my terrain.
|
DaN
02 November 07 | |
@Cog - thanks for the idea - it's in with the rest of my never-ending WIPs  lol
@Liz - Thank you I've been busy with other things at the moment, but I will get round to finishing this quite soon - I have it pretty well planned out now.
|
lizcam
30 September 07 |  |
Rating: 8
I know you're not done yet but this a great resource. Thanks!
|
COG
29 September 07 |  |
Rating: 8
i think this is a really good article. it helps give ppl better ideas when basing, so hopefully we will see less plain jane cork board or sand bases. Congrats you have a made a good starting point for basing and effects on basing article. next maybe include a bit on rust and chemical effects to metal and other materials.
cheers
|
DaN
20 September 07 | |
@Starks and Pishkin - yes there will be some examples of what I've been explaining
|
Pishkin
02 January 07 |  |
Rating: 7
I love where you are going with this, and I really hope you finish it. Something to consider when you do, I would show examples of mini bases with different types of rocks and suggestions of how to achieve each look. I would also be interested in learning what type of flora tends to grow next to what type of rock.
|
Starks333
15 November 06 |  |
Rating: 5
I know this is for scenery, but theres just mostly factual info anyone can find, its not really put into play as useful related info, ok, so we know how things work...but how do you build it so it looks that way? if you plan on covering this later on in the tutorial then ignore this score
i mean anyone can search google for random photos, but figuring out how to build it properly is completely different
|
DaN
05 June 06 | |
More pics will be added presently, I am currently looking on google, etc for relevant pics
SOMEDAY this article will be finished...
|
freakinacage
03 June 06 |  |
Rating: 7
more pics would be nice
|
DaN
02 June 06 | |
It's for terrain... What else would it be for...?
|
Tony Manero
01 June 06 |  |
Rating: 5
what's the utility of this tutorial? i simply can't understand it: it's for photoshop? it's for painting rocks? what "creating a natural landscape" means? Minis generally don't have a landscape, they are on a small base with a gradient background. Don't add another kind of background on them (as u did in ur tutorial) it's simply distracting.
i rate it 5 because simply i can't understand the utility of this
|
DaN
30 May 06 | |
I hope this isn't too technical - I've tried not to sound TOO dorky  lol
But there again, constructive criticism always welcomed.
|
|
You are not logged in. |
If you would like to leave a comment and don't have an account, please signup.
You'll get access to Vote tracking so you will never see the same miniature twice (unless you want to) and many other enhancements to your browsing experience.
|
|
|
