Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Architectural Design with SketchUp
Figure 5.86: Adjusting a tree for rendering
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Leaf transparency—When you hold a leaf up to the sun, it lets light through.
Therefore, in SketchUp, it also helps to add a slight transparency to the leaves.
In the Materials window, adjust the opacity slider to 80%.
Leaf reflectivity—In my rendering software, I gave the leaf a slightly reflective
preset. Don’t go overboard with this setting—unless you are modeling a
rubber tree (or wet leaves), of course.
Leaf and trunk bump—As always, some material bumpiness helps a lot. This
is true especially when we have something as coarse as bark. I gave both the
leaves and the trunk texture a bump, reserving the higher magnitude for the
trunk. You can see the result of this in the bottom-right image.
You can evaluate the result of these setting changes in the bottom two images in
Figure 5.86. You can also see that, although the tree model works well at the distance
shown in the bottom-left image, the bottom-right image is too close and would require
some additional modeling of secondary branches. It is also not realistic that leaves intersect
the stem—this would need to be fixed, too.
Adding Grass
Grass is a rendering component for which quality and preparation effort are very much dependent
on the distance between the viewer and its blades. Imagine looking at a lawn from
several houses away. The lawn (at least, if it is well maintained) looks like a uniformly colored
and textured green plane. As you get closer, you see the individual blades of grass—especially
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