Introduction to Vines

The Vine tool is excellent for adding organic, flowing details to your scenes. Here is a short tutorial explaining how to use it.

Tutorial: Drawing with the Vine Tool

This guide explains how to use the Vine tool. This tool generates natural, wandering vine shapes with a single click, using a Perlin noise algorithm to create their organic, wavy appearance.

How to Draw a Basic Vine

The Vine tool is a "stamp" tool that grows a complete vine from the point you click.

  1. Navigate to the Shape tab in the controls panel.

  2. Select Vine from the Mode dropdown menu.

  3. Click on the canvas where you would like the vine to begin growing. The vine will be generated instantly.

Customizing the Vine's Appearance

You can control the shape and style of your vines using the parameters in the Shape tab.

  • Vine Length: This slider determines the number of segments in the vine, which controls its overall length.

  • Vine Noise: This is the most important parameter for the vine's shape. It controls the scale of the noise algorithm, which affects how "wavy" the vine is.

    • Low values create a relatively straight vine.

    • High values create a very curly, tangled, and chaotic vine.

  • Vine Stroke: This sets the thickness of the vine line in pixels.

  • Non-tree scale MIN/MAX: These sliders, found further down the panel, add a slight random multiplier to the length of each vine you create, which helps in making a group of vines look more natural.

Coloring Your Vines

A vine's color is determined by the settings in the Color tab under the Coloring for Non-Tree Objects section.

  • Single Color Mode: If this option is selected, every vine you draw will use the single Object Color you have chosen.

  • Cycle Global Palette Mode: If this option is selected, each new vine you create will be assigned a random color from your active Global Color Palette.

Tips for Creating Organic Scenes

  • Create Overgrowth: Click multiple times around the base of a tree to make it look like vines are growing up its trunk.

  • Ground Cover: Use several short, thick vines with a high noise value to create the appearance of tangled roots or underbrush on the ground.

  • Hanging Vines: Click near the top of the canvas or from a tree branch to create vines that hang down, adding to the forest atmosphere.