Modelling Development

I had the main shape of the tree and treehouse sorted, now all I have to do is go in and add the details that bring it to life and make it look more believable as an environment set piece. 

I started by making some branches in the same way that I made the tree trunk, I knew that i would need at least one strong looking branch to support the treehouse so I made sure to position it in a spot where it would realistically be able to hold a lot of the weight. I also built the roof for the treehouse, i made it so it hangs over slightly which in reality would be so rain can run off of it. I even went as far as to put in some structural support underneath the house by adding in some wooden planks, this has made it look at lot more safe looks as though it has been constructed by a somewhat amateurish craftsman which is what I was aiming for.

I began modelling a railling to go around the walkway of the house, this was also modelled similar to the treehouse by making a cube and adding edge loops to create more faces which I could extrude to make the wooden posts. I purposely offset them so that they are not all straight and uniformed in a line as the whole scene and environment is meant to look a little "off" and distorted to match Karens visual style that we're trying to achieve. The main thing I started to worry about whilst modelling was how the UV mapping would turn out, I'm not the most experienced when it comes to UV mapping and I'm a little worried that complex shapes will cause problems for me, I'll need to get in plenty of practice like I did for the professional skills unit with Dan to make sure that i'm confident enough to do it without having any issues or problems.

I originally put the roof as a flat square object, but i thought that even though it will only be seen in the opening shot it wouldn't need a lot of detail, however I thought that if I shaped the edges so that it looks like wood planks then it might help cast some interesting looking shadows with the lighting rather than just a long straight edged shadow. I shaped the roof by inserting edge loops again and moving the vertices accordingly to look like each plank is of a different size and that they are arranged in a slightly messy order.