Foliage VFX: Week 2 Monday

On Monday I decided to ignore the tree for a bit and to start focusing on the vine lanterns:

I used a lot of symmetry and box modelling to create a highpoly and lowpoly version of a lantern attached to a vine, using a line and helix splines on path deforming binding (WSM) modifiers to shape cylinders into a vine shape, then using the animation position constraint to attach leaves along them. I used a torus knot to create the knot at the end, and tried to position the metal ring so that it would come out of the knot in realistic areas rather than clipping straight through the flesh of it.
I intentionally rotated the top a little despite the reference I was using in order to create some more interest and contrast in the way that it was built:

After this was completed, I then went on to create the bones of the vine, as I wanted it to have physics within the scene.

I followed this tutorial using CAT bones and rigging it to the mesh, then went back to it later in the week to follow their guide on exporting to UE4 and implementing a light.