Example A
This is why making plants can be such a nightmare to deal with, and why it takes so long to make them.
This doesn't even include trying to get a custom mesh... which could be a book by itself.
These are 6 different trees, and all of them came from the exact same texture. There are different mixtures of textures you can use (color, shadows, normal maps, highlights, displacements, etc), a thousand different variations of hue, color and shading, or you can make a tree look completely different by adding a different branch to your UV image. Then there's picking apart the original texture to get that one piece to restructure the original shape, because the shape of the leaves will either make a spectacular tree or a lump of garbage.
Closeup to show how different they really are.
Example of picking apart the image to get that piece... you can see where I separated the lower branch to be able to paste it on the UV.
And here's the UV. See the side panel on the right of the screen? Those are all the pieces I've added to the original piece to give it the shape I want. That can get super confusing, btw, trying to figure out whether said piece needs to be above or under the original, erasing bits that get too layered, and the frustrating as hell part where any time you scale or rotate a layer it gets blurry. Ack.
And then you test. And edit coloring because it's way too bright. Then test. Then edit because it's too green. Annndddd test. Fix alpha because you forgot to when you edited the color and now you have shadows that shouldn't be there (or other plants, whoops).
Finally get it where you want it. Start editing billboard to match... repeat last paragraph. lol
But... it's worth it... as long as you finally get something out of it... right? :D
Give love to your favorite plant makers! They really do work for their CC lol
