STUDY: REALISTIC SHADER AND LIGHTING FOR PLANTS

This will be part of a larger library of 3d plants for my future environment work, based on the method of Gnomon's Alex Alvarez by using a combination of Maya Paint Effects and the mia shader, rendered with mental ray and final gather.

 

I further tested how this shader can be translated in a game engine. I made use of the new 2-sided foliage shader model introduced in Unreal Engine 4.7, and propogated one of my plant meshes with the Foliage Paint tool. I'm happy with the results, but know I can push the materials further.