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FilmSkool — a free film school

The Secret CGI of Leaves

Breaks down the modelling and shading tricks used to make CG leaves and foliage read as three-dimensional rather than flat, including translucency and edge variation. Aimed at environment work.

CGMatter · 11 min · Advanced · ANI · Animation · 2026

What you take away

Add translucency and edge variation to leaf shaders so foliage reads as three-dimensional

Watch it

Filed under

Oscar winners for animated feature

Books on animation

The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation — Ken A. Priebe
Timing for Animation — Harold Whitaker, John Halas
Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation — Susannah Shaw
Cartoon Animation — Preston Blair
Character Animation Crash Course! — Eric Goldberg
Digital Compositing for Film and Video — Steve Wright

Kit for this lesson

Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850X 4TB — The other one, usually cheaper
SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE 8TB — Desktop archive drive built for footage
Corsair 128GB DDR5 kit — For Unreal, caches and twelve open applications
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K — Quick Sync, which some codecs still love
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X — 16 cores — the sweet spot for a cutting room
G.Skill 64GB DDR5-6000 kit — The floor for 4K raw with effects

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5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
6. Slow In & Slow Out - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
12. Appeal - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
3. Staging - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
Fundamentals of Lighting in Blender — Blender Guru · 43m · Beginner
10. Exaggeration - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
4. Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
7. Arcs - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner
11. Solid Drawing - 12 Principles of Animation — AlanBeckerTutorials · 6m · Beginner

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