While it might look like a digital painting,

“A Secret Place Somewhere in Alps,” is actually a lovingly stylized 3D environment. We spoke to the artist, Dmitry Kremiansky, to learn more about his process using SpeedTree to create this 3D interpretation of Quentin Regnes’s fairytale concept art of the same name.

Dmitry Kremiansky (left) and Quentin Regnes (right)

I’ve been using SpeedTree since shortly after I left college. I find having vegetation really helps bring your environments to life if done right–and with SpeedTree, it’s hard to do it wrong. For this project, I used the version 7.1.6 of SpeedTree, however, from my experience with version 8 at work, v8 is even simpler to use and comes with even more presets and useful nodes.

Dmitry’s process

Having SpeedTree allowed me to create multiple variations of the trees in no time. With those saved files, a few additional nodes and tweaks will make differently stylized trees or realistic ones in a very short amount of time, which encourages me to try to improve my assets instead of simply recycling them.

For this project, I experimented quite a lot because I wanted some hybrids between realistic firs and nice graphical shapes. In this search, I went through lots of versions from simple cones with geometry scattered on them–which would match the concept more–to something more realistic. 

I created these three firs and then made variations from them and LOD versions for the far-away scatters. I did some non-significant alterations on them in modeling software, but nothing I couldn’t do in SpeedTree.

For the pines, I went with a relatively realistic setup, except for really exaggerating the size of the needles and not introducing intricate detail. I used one of the basic setups in the sample files as a starting point and used the textures that came with it. 

Thanks again to Dmitry Kremiansky for a peek into his vegetation design process!

Feeling inspired and want to try your hand at creating stylized foliage using SpeedTree models as a base? Here are some romantic assets for your February projects!

Rocky Mountain Juniper: Forest (Broken Base)
Japanese Cedar: Forest
Quaking Aspen: Forest (Bifurcated Trunk)
Scots Pine: Field (Pyramidal)
Sierra Redwood Species Pack
Silver Dollar Eucalyptus Pack