Best way to Texture a Bush

Is there a good way to make realistic looking bushes with a texture that has an alpha channel or can bushes only look good when used as a screen against a backdrop?

I am a little frustrated trying to make some really nice textures look good on a prim (s). The big issue is that since the top of a Bush is random, the top of the texture is transparent, which makes a gray line at the top of the prim and also puts the top side surface texture above the top of the actual bush. Reducing the repeat to the point where it makes a Bush look like a Block with the top cut in a straight line is not an option.


Any input would be greatly appreciated.

If you want I will give you a texture to play with so you can see what I am talking about.

I have not made shrubbery myself, but I have bought quite a bit for various projects. I have a lovely Dwarf Pfitzer Juniper that I bought last summer from TreeLine Gardens & Landscaping, [TreeLine (60, 218, 23)]. It has absolutely no gray lines and looks great from almost any angle. I have had good luck with other realistic-looking bushes and trees I have bought from them as well. Take a look and see if you can reverse engineer what their designer is doing. Good luck.

The best way to make a bush is to create a block and texture the block with the bush, then in edit mode, tick select texture. Hold down Shift and click on all but two opposite sides of the block, then texture the other 4 sides transparent. This will eliminate the grey line you have. Finally make the block as thin as you can so you have the bush on two sides but it looks very thin.

Hope this helps, feel free to contact me in world if you need any more help

Here's one way:



I made that about six years ago, when I was first learning to use Illustrator.




Anyway, I'm not sure why you're having problems eliminating the tiling line. If lowering the repeats cuts off the top of the texture, simply make the bush smaller in the source image, so there's more empty canvas surrounding it. Is there some reason you can't do that?

That was a thought! Make the bush image half as tall as the texture height (or something like that) so that any little shadow will be so far away from the image that you do not relate the 2 visually. btw that is one ugly bush in your picture!

That is the easiest way, one which I have not explored because I am going for a 3D look. This is a standard Screen that you are describing and is last resort at this point.

Thanks

Heh, well, as the great philosopher Butthead once said, "You can't polish a turd, Beavis."