Creating Realistic Plants in Octane C4D with Quixel Megascans Assets

[@dukerasberry]

John, just wanna say that this video, among the many others you have made, has been very informative and helpful in teaching me a new skill and also furthering my understanding of basic core concepts of textures/materials inside of Cinema 4D and Octane. Seriously, thank you so much for committing the time which you do to these tutorial videos. I've been doing 3D related stuff for about a year, totally self taught, so when I'm able to find someone who puts out quality orientated content, it really means a lot and makes such a world of difference in my own personal learning. Cheers!

[@EpicJCreations]

Neil, I just have to say, thank you so much for this comment! The whole reason I teach is to make learning easier. I'm also entirely self-taught as well, which means I've spent many hours on youtube and other sites trying to figure out something that I thought would be simple. My whole goal with my tutorials is to spare others the frustration that I went through to learn what I did :). If I can sit down and show someone how to do something in an hour, that took me 4 hours to self-learn, its worth it :). Your comment truly means a lot to me! As it describes exactly the type of tutorials I'm trying to create, and for the exact reason :D! So glad you found this tutorial, and my other tutorials helpful! Being self-taught is hard. I find myself constantly running into walls and road blocks. But you can do it! Focus on how many road blocks and walls you have already climbed over! You made it over them, you can make it to the new one :)! It is possible to become an amazing 3D artist, without going to college for it. You will also save a lot of money as well :). Thanks again so much! Your comment is very appreciated! Comments like yours are what drives me to make more tutorials!

[@dukerasberry]

I'm glad to know we've positive impacts in each other's lives! I completely relate with the road block idiom-- when I started this a year ago doing a simple ball falling onto other balls and making them moved seemed like the most complex task I'd ever attempted on a computer. I totally empathize with the notion that you don't have to go to college to learn how to do this stuff if you've got the tenacity and general willingness to learn something new, and, I suppose, not being adverse to a lot of google searching to find solutions to whatever hangup one is presently encountering.

[@EpicJCreations]

Man, that is so true! I definitely agree! So glad that we both had a positive impact on each other's lives :D! Self-learning definitely takes a willingness to self-problem solve, and lots and lots of google searching xD! It also takes a lot of patience, the hardest part about self-learning is knowing what you don't know, and knowing what you need to learn xD! In the end though, its worth it! It's really amazing how many amazing artists are out there on big film productions that have never gone to school for what their job currently is :).

[@EpicJCreations]

Hey Neil! I hope you're doing well! I recently finished making an Octane Master Course, and I was wondering if you would be ok if I used this comment as a testimonial on my new website? :)

[@rubenscheer]

Still pretty accurate in 2022. Thank you for your help. Came for translucency, learned a bunch more 😀

[@Shmichael]

omg this guy is so chill and friendly I love it

[@perryharovas]

John, this is THE BEST tutorial I have ever seen on plants and Octane. You nailed it in every way. I have taught many online courses, tutorials, etc. and none of them have been as detailed as this one. I have been using animation and VFX software for 26 years, and even I learned a lot! I am always hungry to learn more, and you did not disappoint. Thank you!

[@EpicJCreations]

Perry Harovas, I would just like to say, thank you so very much! I love to learn as well, and sharing knowledge is one of my favorite things to do! Getting comments like this really helps! To know that what I'm teaching and sharing has an impact on others like it has on you means so much to me! To hear such kind words from someone that has over 26 years in the industry means more to me then I can say! Thanks again so much! You made my day :)! As a side note, right now, i'm curently making a payed Octane Master course, which will have anything you could ever want to learn about octane in Cinema 4D. So if your interested, I can let you know when its finished :).

[@EpicJCreations]

PS. Would it be ok if I used your comment in a marketing post some time? If not its 100% ok and I definitely understand :).

[@perryharovas]

Of course you can use the comment to market. Absolutely no problem with that! And yes, please let me know when you release the course. I have used Octane for a while now, but like any great tool, there is always more to learn!

[@EpicJCreations]

Awesome! Thank you! I will most definitely let you know when the course is done :D! I know exactly what you mean, I'm the same way. Always more to learn :D! I think thats partly why i love 3D, because I love learning :)!

[@JoeMayk3D]

the only person that actually explains this subject! perfectly done, thanks! :D

[@ddscout23]

Really liking your C4D/Octane tutorials. Keep 'em coming. You do a great job of explaining the topics you're covering and have a great teaching style. Just getting into Octane myself so these videos really help.

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so much! Very glad you found my tutorials helpful :D! Thank you for the comment! I'm currently making a Paid Octane course that will cover everything In Octane you could ever want to know :D! It should be coming out soon in the coming months :).

[@eonblue46]

This was an incredibly helpful tutorial. I love how you explain the intricacies and quirks of C4D that you have found over what is obviously years of learning. Thanks for sharing!

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so very much! I'm so glad you found this tutorial helpful! I really apriciate the comment! Sharing what I have learned with viewers like you is what my youtube page is all about :D!

[@phloptik]

Another great workflow tip for swapping out materials is to select all of your material tags and then instead of deleting them, you can drag your new material in the material slot in the attributes manager, this will swap out your current material. I found this out after years of using C4D and it was a nice eureka moment haha.

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so much for that tip! That definitely will save a lot of clicking! I had no clue you could drag and drop onto the selected materials on the objects! Definitely really good info! Very appreciated! :D!

[@phloptik]

John Burdock before I forget I think you can also alt + click drag materials on top of each other in the material editor to swap, but that may delete the material being swapped? Im not near a computer right now but experiment with that as well -

[@EpicJCreations]

Oh dang! I didn't know about that one eather! Thanks for that tip too! I'll have to give it a test :D!

[@JonathanWinbush]

Great tutorial I've been wondering how to use these since mega scans came out

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you very much! So glad it was helpful!

[@JonathanWinbush]

Not a problem. Do you think you'd do another tut going over the procedure you and DigbySirChicken are talking about below? I'm trying to follow what you guys are saying but am not understanding that technique im more of a visual learner.

[@EpicJCreations]

That's a really good idea! I've never actually made leaves the way DigbySirChicken is talking about, but it definitely sounds like a good option if you need geometry faster. There is a downside to this method. It gives you much more geometry, and it's not as clean. This means it's not as flexible as modeling your own leaves. This means sculpting it could give you issues, as well as making it thick, and adding a Subdivision surface. I didn't show that in the tutorial though, so his method would allow everything I did in the tutorial, just a little faster. It's definitely a very good method, just for different scenarios. I do like the idea of making a tutorial on it though :D! Since it was His idea though, I would feel bad if it took it and made a tutorial on it. I most definitely understand though! I'm a Visual learner to :D! I'll take a tutorial overwritten teaching any day! It is a possibility I would make a tutorial on it in the future, but I feel that modeling the leaves yourself still is the better way of doing it, it's just slower :). That said, I've never tried it myself, so I could be off :). Thank you very much for the comment! Let me know if you need any more info :D!

[@JonathanWinbush]

Yea I understand now but the method here is perfect I just had another job come in where I need to create an environment and I usually use Forester for C4D but their plants have a lot of polys so it does tend to slow down after you create a bigger scene so I'll definitely try this method as a replacement. Im just glad someone finally showed how to use these assets since Megascans really only show how to use their stuff in Unreal engine. On another note have you used Cycles 4D render engine at all?

[@EpicJCreations]

Ah so true! Megascans never shows how to use their plants in video-related apps, it's strange. Wow, nice! Congratulations on the job! Sounds like a fun one! Creating environments is really cool :D! I've heard a lot of good things about Forester, but I've neve used it. I have heard that the geometry is a bit high with it. I definitely like the flexibility you get with making your own plants :D! I have tried the Cycles engine a bit. It's very interesting. It has a lot of power in it, and a lot of flexibility. That said, it's much slower then Octane, and its live viewer is also not as quick on updating. I would recommend trying out the demo and see what you think of it :). If you don't mind how it handles, then its a really good price for what you get! I guess so, to sum up, cycles for me. If I couldn't afford Octane, I would buy Cycles :).

[@michaelaforeman3393]

Is there a tutorial out there that teaches you how to animate the plants like add wind to the scene, so they aren't just static??

[@foodviewer007]

i think ur tut is very brilliant than ever i saw

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you very much! So glad you found my tutorial helpful! Thank you for the comment as well :)!

[@eliteeth4n]

This is a great tutorial. I noticed that the fern asset on Quixel is different now. It has fbx files now which make it a lot easier to get started. Each fbx has two UVW tags too. I did everything you say to do for octane on the first UVW tag, but I am not sure if I can do something interesting for the second one. It also has additional items like Billboard. Do you know what that is for? Is that just for 2d vertical planes to give the illusion of 3d objects but it is really a flat surface? I can see how that could save on render time and will try that out on my own.

[@EpicJCreations]

Hello! Thank you for the comment! So glad you found this tutorial helpful! Ah, good point, Quixel did update there free assets page, so now the ones I show in the video are no longer listed. This said the same workflow will still translate to them :). The Billboard options are definitely interesting. The Billboard is a set of textures that you use only for the LOD4 object. This is basically textures set up to work on the 2 single plains. This is another big thing, Octane does NOT work well with EXR files at this time, so its best you use the Jpeg files instead. So when you download the assets, make sure you choose Jpeg as your file type for the images instead of EXR. Let me know if this helps :).

[@hisroyalillness]

Very good tutorial, especially the tip on randomizing the colors of the scatter instances. One thing about the specular Channel: I am not quite shure, but I think you dont need a grayscale Map in the specular Channel. the IOR and the roughness drive Indirectly the spec, so there is no need to modify it. The Spec should only be altered for metals (for example tinting to orange for Gold)

[@EpicJCreations]

Hello :D! Thank you very much! So glad you found my tutorial helpful! That is a very good question. That is true, the roughness and the IOR do change the specular channel in a way. and the specular channel does also take colored images as well, to create different colored reflections. This is also how you would create realistic metals. This all said, by placing a grayscale image in the specular channel, you now are controlling if you have reflections at this spot, so in a way, imagine it as if it would be a Diffuse material or a Glossy material. If you tell it to have no specular, now it's behaving just like a diffuser material, but if you go with a color that is lighter than pure black, it will now have reflections and behave like the glossy material it is :). The IOR does this as well, in that fact that it would turn off the reflections at certain viewing angles, but this way, you can determine the strength of your reflections by not just your viewing angle, but at that exact location. This said like you said, you could just use roughness to take out the sharp reflections at a spot, and I do this a lot, as it is a really good way of creating that effect. This said it is still a slightly different look then if you actually turned off the reflections. This means the color of your reflections would not be taking effect on that locations color. For example, if I have a green leaf, but also have blue reflections set, you will be getting blue reflections on the highlights of your model where the leaf would normally be green. If I simply set my roughness to stop the highlights, it would still be blue tinted, and that would be affecting the color of my leaf, but if I took the specular channel and used a grayscale image in it to change its strength, you would no longer see the blue tint over that green part of the leaf. This all is up to your artistic taste on what you want to do with your texture :). Sorry I got a little bit wordy on this lol. That was a very good question though :D! I appreciate the comment! let me know if you have any question, or if you feel I'm incorrect on anything I just said :). I may be wrong :).

[@hisroyalillness]

Hi John, thx for explaining in detail. Your example with the leaf makes sense - it sounds like you would use the spec channel to create a "mixed material", I never thought about it this way.

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem :D! Ah, very good point! It is really just the same as if you created a Mix material with a glossy material :D. This way though, you just end up with one material, and it's less complex. That said, if you did make a mixed material that way, you would them be able to use the translucency map, along with other things that are only available to the diffuse map, so it would be more powerful in a way. That said, it all depends on your needs :).

[@42jiyeon]

so useful! thank you so much

[@hamorisz]

It was great! Thanks!

[@sam-gremberger]

Thank you so much dude! We want more Octane Tutorials! :-D

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you :D!!! I really appreciate that! Not to fear! More Octane tutorials on the way! and! A full on paid Octane course! With everything, you could ever want to know about octane all pack in one mega series!

[@digbysirchickentf2315]

You don't have to make the leaf geo by hand... just prep the leaf shapes in photoshop by processing the alpha channel into a broader rounded selection (use blur then levels) then use a bitmap to vector conversion, c4d's inbuilt vectorizer will do.

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you very much for that info! I don't use Photoshop that much, so that's really good to know! I'll definitely have to try that out! The only thing I'm not sure of is if you import the geo as vectors, they won't be as clean of geometry as a single plane. You would have a lot of points on the edges. I'm not sure if this would affect the other process. Definitely worth looking into.

[@digbysirchickentf2315]

It depends which vectorizer you use, try 'vectorizer pro'. There will be a little manual clean up too. I ended up with around 8 polys per leaf which was good for giving the leafs some curvature. You could define blocked out orthoganal selections in PS for the leafs, thats only a few clicks, to get very low-poly vector output. Heres a maxwell render with animated displaced leafs; www.imageupload.co.uk/images/2017/05/26/ytr.png

[@EpicJCreations]

Hmmm, interesting. I've never tried Vectorizer Pro, I'll have to look that up. 8 polys each leaf is not bad at all! Man, your renders look beautiful! Very well done! The displacement really adds to it! Definitely seems like a very viable option to making the geo for the leaves! Thank you very much for this info and your time :D! Could you send an image of what the geometry looks like on the leaves? If not its ok, no pressure on that :)

[@digbysirchickentf2315]

I didnt save that step with those leaves, but heres another file; imageupload.co.uk/images/2017/05/27/Untitled-1.png The nice thing is you get all the leaves at once.

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you very much for sending the link to the picture of the Geometry! I really appreciate it! Man! I must say! your leaves look very good! The geometry is very good as well! Especially for up close shots! Very true, having all the geometry import in at once does make it much faster. Thank you very much for sharing this technique! I think that both importing the geometry as line vectors, or modeling by hand are both very viable methods for creating realistic leaves/foliage in Cinema 4D. They are just better for different situations :). Your method will create very realistic up close shots of the leaves, whereas mine will give you a lot less geometry. This is only more of a concern for games. Your method is most definitely very viable, and I really appreciate that you took the time to explain it to me :D! Thank you very much!

[@keepshinein]

amazing tut! please keep it up

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so very much! I really appreciate that :D! I will definitely keep up making more tutorials :D! I'm also making a paid Octane C4D course that should be coming out sometime in the next 2 months as well :D!

[@MuhammadHasnain-uw6dn]

I love ur voice, i fuking love ur tutorial, you made something so difficult look soooo easy

[@makebolo]

Fantastic tutorial

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so much! So glad you found this video helpfull :D!

[@ElliottJohnsonXX]

thanks this video was very helpful and you explain everything so thoroughly. :D

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem :D! So glad you found my video helpful! Thanks so much for the comment :)!

[@REEVOLUCIONAR]

I really like it. Thank you.

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem :D! Thank you very much for the comment! Very glad you found my video helpful :D!

[@bdm4614]

thank you!

[@camgreen894]

Very helpful!

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so much! So glad you found this video helpful! Thank you for the comment as well!

[@REDPanti]

Thanks :)

[@EpicJCreations]

np :)! Glad you found this video helpful!

[@melowk1440]

AWOSOME!

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you so very much! So glad you liked it :D!

[@GeorgesEmmanuelArnaud]

I would love to learn more on the fog to make volume light and other

[@EpicJCreations]

That is definitely a tricky topic in Octane. That said I have a tutorial that shows just that! I don't talk directly about it, but I show how to setup a really good Volumetric lighting setup in Octane at the end of it! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXq5dIt_qq13m9E Let me know if you need any more info :D!

[@imrenagy8122]

cool thanks

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem! Glad you found this video helpful!

[@NicoIasTravolta]

CONVERT MATERIALS! lol..... THX FOR THAT!

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem :)! Was a super helpful thing when I found that out :)!

[@PandaWithThineGuns]

So would this same process work with grass ir no? It doesn't seem like it would.

[@EpicJCreations]

Hello :). This process would work well for making grass to an extent. You could use this same exact process to make grass clumps, but if you wanted to make a grass field, you would need to change it up a little. You would still model the grass like I show how to model the leaves, but them you would not clump then up like I do in the tutorial, Instead, you could place them under an Octane scatter and then scatter them on a plane or whatever object you would like to have realistic looking grass on. Now, you are definitely going to need to add a random effector to the Octane scatter, to get it to look more realistic. I would also recommend using a random color node for your texture for the grass. Hope this helps, let me know if you need any more information :).

[@jamaurihawkins8990]

@epic j creations After you scatter them on a plane, would you export that patch out if you wanted to use it for Unreal

[@GeorgesEmmanuelArnaud]

great! what about the displacement map ?

[@EpicJCreations]

Thank you ^^! Ah, very good point! I ended up skipping that as I was getting too short on time sadly :(. Really wish I would have added that. That said, all you have to do is create a displacement Node, then attach the displacement texture to that, then take the displacement node, and plug that into displacement on the Mix texture. Then you set :D! Just make sure to up the resolution on the displacement node to something bigger than what it is for more detail :).

[@GeorgesEmmanuelArnaud]

thanks !

[@EpicJCreations]

No problem :D!

[@comogamesghtr]

Can someone make in identical video but for Redshift!!!!

[@EpicJCreations]

I know what you mean, I really wish there was video's like this for Redshift. Sadly I don't know how to use it to make a tutorial like that :(.

[@masterroshi2064]

The file grass isn't on megascan anymore

[@EpicJCreations]

I'm afraid that they have changed the set of free files availed able from Megascans. This said, all the 2d, plant textures that they have use this same exact process :).

[@skywalker778]

21:55 Ore just use bend

[@EpicJCreations]

Yep, you could most definitely use a bend deformer :). This said, you have a lot more control is you move the points by hand, it all depends on what you need :).

[@skywalker778]

By the way, could you please do tutorials without octane. Im 13 yrs old dont have much money to buy it already thanks :)

[@GD15555]

Do they offer 3D models. Or just images. Thank you.

[@EpicJCreations]

They offer both Images and 3D models. Their 3D models are very high-quality 3D scans, that come in 4 LOD levels. Here is a link to a tutorial I have on downloading and setting up some of them :). kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJC2i36rYsmEapo Let me know if you need any more info :)!