Swapping 2D Plants with 3D Ones in Your Landscape Model

Enhancing the 3D Landscape with Realistic Plants and Color Adjustments

Discover a comprehensive guide on how to replace 2D plants with 3D models in landscape graphics. Learn how to find the right plant models, adjust their size and location, and modify their colors to suit the overall aesthetic of the design.

Key Insights

  • The process of integrating 3D plants into a design begins with the selection of suitable models, such as the regal mist grass and California poppy plant, from a landscape component database. This involves downloading the plants and swapping them out with their 2D counterparts in the design.
  • Part of the process also includes adjusting the size of the 3D models to match the scale of the design. This can be done by selecting the model and making it slightly smaller or bigger, depending on the design's requirements.
  • Besides selection and sizing, color modification is a crucial step in the process. This involves going into the design's materials and adjusting the color tones of the 3D plants to match the overall aesthetic of the design. For instance, the greens can be made darker and more yellowish to match the grass, while the colors of flowering plants can be brightened to make them stand out.

Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.

Now let's download some 3D plants and then swap out these 2D ones with the 3D ones. Bringing in the 2D ones is a lot quicker than doing the 3D, so that's why I like putting in all these 2D plants first. So let's go back into our components and let's go into landscape and click plants low poly.

Let's first download a plant that can swap out for the grasses. Let's go into ornamentals 3D and let's scroll down to this regal mist grass. This is a nice one that can replace the fountain grass.

We'll bring that in there and I'll delete it. And then we'll go into this right here, this regal grass, and I want to see if I can do select all instances. And that will select all of that 2D fountain grass.

And I can go into my end model and find where I put that regal mist, alphabetical order, so regal mist, and right click replace selected. And now I have that grass that imported. I can click it once and I can maybe make it slightly smaller, just like that.

You can always change that later if you want to be bigger. Again, let's go into our landscape, plants low poly to bring in a flowering plant. Let's go into ornamentals 3D as well and let's find a nice flowering plant.

Learn SketchUp

  • Nationally accredited
  • Create your own portfolio
  • Free student software
  • Learn at your convenience
  • Authorized Autodesk training center

Learn More

Let's bring in this California poppy plant. Load that into our model, we'll place it right there. That's a nice size, it's very similar to our other flowering plants.

Place that there and delete. We'll select, right click select all instances and then go into our end model tab and search for California CA poppy plant. Right click replace selected.

Now the California poppy plant up there, we can see we got poppy plants around here. And then let's go change out this taller grass that we have, kind of more like an agave type style. So let's go into our landscape again, plants low poly and let's go this time into shrubs 3D.

And let's look to see what kind of plants they have here. These are a little bit larger scale plants, right? There's a desert stock yucca. Let's import this one, this desert shoddy yucca.

You can also go into maybe a cacti, we'll import this one. We can see that the size looks about right, so we'll put that in there and we'll delete. We'll go to our end model, we'll select this, right click select all instances.

And then find that yucca plant, desert shoddy yucca, right click replace selected. And now the last one that I want to do is I want to add, replace these bushes. I feel like I need to add a couple more bushes back here.

So before I do that, I'll double click into this and I will find where I have those. And I'll put these kind of back over here. Let's give it some more kind of backdrop.

Okay, see that one didn't tag, didn't snap directly on that grass. So I want to make sure I, yeah, it's wanting to snap on this tree. So let's try that one more time.

Always being careful where this is at. We want to make sure it's at on face right there. Okay.

And now let's go back into our components, landscape, plants, low poly. And again, we'll go back into shrubs 3D and let's go find a larger bush, right? I like this dwarf burning bush. We'll download this one into our model.

Yeah, that's a good size. Almost the same size as those. We'll put that in there.

We'll delete. Then we'll, these three that I added were not in, are they inside this group? They are. We'll right click select all instances and then go to my in model tab and find that, that dwarf red flowering plant right here.

Replace selected. And there we have it. We've got 3D plants and 3D trees inside here.

And so we can, again, we can start modifying these colors and changing it. You know, I think some of these, some of these greens are really bright. So I would like to go to my materials and I will select this color on here.

I can see that's this green. Let's darken that down. Maybe make it a little more kind of yellowish, match some of the grass.

Maybe make it a little more transparent. We'll do that for that. And maybe for this taller plant, we'll make this one a little bit, a little darker, maybe a little more bluish into it, bluish tones.

And then we got this nice kind of flowering color. We can maybe lessen the, maybe make it a little more brighter, a little pinker. Maybe make that pop a little more.

And then this, this red right here, this is where we can really kind of change it up. Maybe that can be more like a green color, you know, more natural kind of, more transparency. And then this, and then this bark on this plant could actually be more of like a brown, brown type color, right? Maybe I'll make this green a little bit brighter.

It's kind of getting a little bit lost in the background, like that. And the same with this grass. I feel like this grass is getting a little bit lost as well.

There we go. And there we have our 3D landscaping. Got some plants here, entry.

So the next thing that we want to do is we want to add some furniture and people to really finalize our scene before we start creating some really beautiful styles and artistic ways to give us some nice graphic exports from a model. All right, I'll see you in the next video.

How to Learn SketchUp

Master SketchUp with hands-on training. SketchUp is a 3D modeling application used in fields such as architecture, interior design, mechanical engineering, and video game design.

Yelp Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Instagram