So, I couldn't get my grass/ fur system to work..... it needs alot more work :(

agh

so i did the supports on the bridge but i'm having a tough time making them look like rock, they look like plastic rocks that come in gi joe sets :(

look how much work I got done' dontcha know!

yeah, for not getting much done, i started on my tree for serious yo

production of the garden wk2

Here is the finished bench. I have to drop a texture to the side of the planks but I have to go take a picture for that.











The bridge for the garden. I still need to add the supports underneath it.



Okay, here is the start of the maple tree. I'm wondering what's the easiest way to add the the other limbs while making it easier in the end to lay out the uvs before i take it into mudbox. I'm going to only add the main limbs (see reference pics below), the smaller ones with the leaves, I was planing on just making plains with textures that have alphas on them, since you won't see an up close of the tree.





*reference pics for the maple tree

starting the modeling

I started working on some of the objects that will be in the garden. Here is the bench, the one in the back is the first one I started with (its just one piece of geometry), the second on is several pieces of geometry but its much easier to manipulate







As for the ground I started with the black and gray image trying to play with a displacement map, but since geometry renders faster than displacement maps, I started to look into just modeling everything out. So I'm currently working on that in mudbox. I'm still learning how to sculpt the rocks.

designer

So I tried to to sketch orthographic views..........um.......so i just set up a quick scene in maya the cylinder behind the rectangle block in the back south west corner is supposed to be the maple tree. And the cylindar in the north west corner is supposed to be a latern statue by the water fall. And I tried a displacement map.

For my color palette I basically choose a loose red, blue, green triad.
As far as the design or the lay out to go, you would walk through a round gate into a zen rock garden, and beyond that would be just one large Koi fish pond, that had a small bridge to cross to a small bench under a maple tree.
I read a couple articles about Japanese garden principles, and basically when they make there gardens they try to not only keep it simple, but also they're making a mini land scape. So the large rocks become the mountains, the pound is the ocean and the maple is a forest. They also try to close of the space so its isolated from the world to make it wabi which losely translated is isolated or one of a kind. Also isolating this space acts as a mini retreat, some place to cast off your world worries and to re-group to face them again. Which is why I wanted to put in a rock wall with a circle type gate, and a small bench in the back as a meditation place.