"Robert McGregor" <rob### [at] mcgregorfineartcom> wrote:
> The UV coords will make it much more fun at the texturing stage.

I never really thought about it but UV mapping for mesh leaves is actually
rather simple - once I've specified the coords in the macro, any of the leaves
can be given any texture I want, procedural, images, anything. This will go a
long way in the realism stakes.

> That said, I've been playing around with ways to make lighting look
> more realistic on leaves and such, but it's given me quite a headache
> - the old double_illuminate trick just doesn't cut it for stuff like this.
> It's a really complex problem because typically the front side can range from
> velvet-diffuse to highly specular, but the back side is usually highly
> diffuse, with a lot of subsurface scattering.

Agreed. I'm using double_illuminate at the moment but it's a stopgap really.

> It really requires a two-sided texture to
> be believable,

That's not a problem - a single-sided mesh can be given an inside_texture
(although that might scotch the interior for a 3D media-containing leaf).

> with variable translucency based on the angle of light to the
> surface normal. Reflectance when viewed from the front side (convex),
> transmissive SSS when viewed from the rear (concave)...

I'd settle for translucency from both sides, some leaves don't have
significanctly different backsides.

Thanks for the comments!

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