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Modeling a Plant

Modeling a Plant, and Cloth is not only used for clothes!

This tutorial will show you how to use basic tools to create a plant in XSI. Also very quickly, I will show how to use Cloth to help create the leaves to get more of a weight feeling… I love to use Cloth other than clothes, it offers a lot of possibilities.

Step 1.

Creating the Stem (or small trunk)
-        MODEL > Get > Primitive > Polygon Mesh > Cylinder
-        Change the U/V/Base to 4,3,1 under the subdivisions section
-         Select some points on the cylinder to give it a skewed look
 

Step 2.

Creating the leaves

-        MODEL > Get > Primitive > Surface Mesh > Grid
-         Change the Subdivision level for U/V to 1,4
-        Select the topmost points and scale them in X to bring them to a single point (Scaling of 0)
-        Select the next few sets of points below it to make a good looking curve
-         Change to Center mode and bring down to the bottom of the grid
-        Go back to object mode and type in 0 in Z (this will bring the grid back to the center
-        Select some points (press T for point mode), the 3 upper most sets
         (this is to use in the future) and then go back to object mode (press Spacebar)
-        For those of you who will want to put a texture later on, now is the time to put a UV
         (RENDER > Get > Property > Texture Projection > UV)

 -       In the MCA/MCP, EDIT > Duplicate/Instantiate > Duplicate Multiple
-       Type in 59 for the number of wanted duplicates
-        Select all the grids (should be 60. Look in the MCA/MCP above the “Explore”,    
         “Scene” buttons, there is an selection edit box
-       Type in the Rotation Y field : R(-90,90)
-       Type in the Rotation X field : R(0,180)
-       At this point you should already have something that looks like a bouquet.
-       MODEL > Get > Primitive > Null
-       Change the selection filter to SURFACE MESH and select everything in the scene
         You’ll notice that the only objects selected are the grids (leaves)
-         Parent the leaves to the null (Null is parent) Parent button is located in the
         MCA/MCP under the Constrain button (bottom right)

Step 3.

Creating the Rest of the flowers

-        Select the Null in branch
-         Translate it to the top of the stem (Cylinder)
-        Scale it up to make it look big
-         Make the null child of the stem (cylinder)
-        Duplicate the whole branch (you’ll end up with another stem and leaves)
-        Scale it down, rotate it and translate it however you want, but make it look
         like a smaller piece
-        Do the above 2 steps again to get 3 stems.

Step 4.

Creating the flower pot

-        MODEL > Create > Curve > Draw CV Nurbs (Create the pot profile like the ref.
         Image)

-        MODEL > Create > Surface > Revolution along axis
-        Change the axis to Y
-        Freeze the pot (FREEZE bottom right of MCA/MCP under EDIT)
-        Delete profile curve
-        ranch select all 3 stems and make the pot the parent

Step 5.

Using Cloth to give it weight

-        Select all the Grids (either type “Grid*” in the selection edit box in the
         MCA/MCP, or Change your selection filter to SURFACE MESH and select the
         whole scene. Either way, it will only select the leaves).

-         Change to Point mode (press T) ( Notice how all the points are already selected
          for you? This is because we selected them on the original Grid (it was just to
          help us for this part)

-        SIMULATE > Create > Cloth > From selection (this will apply cloth on the selected points
         only)
-        Pin the Cloth PPG (click on the keyhole (top left of PPG))
-        SIMULATE > Get > Force > Gravity
-        Pin the Gravity PPG and move it aside
-       Change to frame 40 (let it calculate – At this point it doesn’t really matter how long it takes
         because all we are looking for is a good shape to the leaves. We’ll be freezing it after)
-         Select all the grids
-        FREEZE (button bottom right of MCA/MCP
-        You can now delete the cloth.

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