Kristine Dickson: Week 6 Serial Slicing - Tree

For my serial slicing project I decided to try something organic and irregular. The first thing that came to mind were Southern Live Oak Trees--much like the kind you see outside of old plantation homes in the south. These trees did not grow up so much as they grew outward, forming a web-like mass of limbs and branches.

Reference Photos:

For my model, I did most of the modeling in 3ds Max initially. Then, I brought the model into Mudbox to push and pull some detail out of the bark of the tree so that it would not be perfectly smooth. Unfortunately, this upped the poly count a lot, but I liked how the surface of the model turned out.

Ghosted Images:

Because time and resources were a concern, I decided to trim the serial slices down to 32 cuts. Originally it had around 42 or 43 cuts, but the uppermost cuts had very small pieces that would have required more material and time. Overall though, the silhouette of the tree is still there and it's a bit more compact.


Keyshot Images:

In Keyshot, I chose to use the Old Oak wood material where I blended it with a dark green to control the hues. I wanted a darker, more-aged looking wood. I also reduced the specular and reflective qualities of the material. The default material was too shiny and I wanted the wood to look more natural.