STEP BY STEP
DESIGN A TREE WITH INSYDIUM’S TAIAO
01 SET UP THE SCENE
This tutorial is created in Maxon Cinema 4D R25 with Insydium Fused 2022 Q1. To make a plant in Taiao, first access it from the Insydium menu, where there is a range of choices. There are three main creation options: ’toplant’, ’totree’ and ’tograss’. For this tutorial select the generic ‘toplant’ object, which will be added to the scene’s Object Manager. Make sure to save the scene to a chosen file directory.
02 BUILD THE TREE
To make the trunk and branches of the tree, with the ‘toplant’ object selected in the Object Manager and in the ‘Plant Layers’ tab, use the ‘Add Part’ dropdown to first add a trunk and then as many layers of branches as you deem appropriate; in this example three are created. There are many options in the Main attributes tab to adjust both the trunk and branches to the required shape.
03 CREATE LEAVES
When the trunk and branches have been created, a leaf layer can be added using the ‘Add Part’ dropdown. Leaves in Taiao initially look like rectangles. Using the Leaf Shape options in toplant>plant Layers>geometry, a profile can be created using a spline curve. The ‘Main’ section of this attribute’s palette has controls for setting different parameters such as leaf curl and variation.
04 ADD MATERIALS
While there is a range of preset trees and plants that come with Taiao, for this tree the materials were added from the Cinema 4D asset library, as they were not explicitly shaped to any specific geometry. The materials are then added to the respective tree geometry via drag and drop in the Plant Layers>materials tab. The material for the trunk and branches does need to be applied to each branch layer.