MUSHROOM STRUCTURE
Reset Max. In the front viewport, create a shape similar to mine out of splines. If you create half, then you can copy the other half and mirror it. Make sure the shape is one spline though. Set the steps to 1 under the General Rollout. Apply a lathe modifier, setting degrees to 360 and check both Weld Core and Flip Normals. (Apply Flip Normals if the top of your mushroom looks distorted.) Set the segments to 8.
Right mouse click on the mushroom and convert it to an editable mesh. Apply a meshsmooth modifier and set iterations to 2. The top of your mushroom may be distorted, so go down the stack to editable mesh and go subobject/vertex. You have to weld the top most vertices. Select them and click “selected” under weld in the Edit Geometry rollout. Exit sub-object and apply UVW Mapping. Click on planar and change the alignment to the y-axis. Set the U-tile and V-tile to 0.9. Finally, name this mesh “Mushroom”.
In the front viewport, create a cylinder with a height of 0.2 and 8 sides and uncheck “smooth”. Name this cylinder “Gill01″ and convert it to an editable mesh. Adjust the vertices to how I have mine pictured below.
Apply meshsmooth and change the iterations to 2. Under sub-object vertex, click on the upper right-most vertex and change the weight of the vertex from 1.0 to 5.0. This pulls more of the detail away from the lower left edges so that overlapping doesn’t occur. Exit sub-object mode and adjust the pivot so that it is in the center of the mushroom instead of the center of the gill. (Hierarchy/pivot/affect pivot only) Now, collapse the gill to editable mesh.
In the perspective viewport, select your gill01 and hit the “array” button at the top of your screen. Under incremental/rotation/Z-axis change the amount to 10. Change the amount to 36 and hit ok. With gill01 still selected, click on Attach List in the edit geometry rollout. Select all of the new gills. Rename this new mesh “Gills” and apply cylindrical mapping with x-axis alignment.
MUSHROOM TEXTURES
Open the material editor and get a new raytrace material. Rename it “Mushroom Texture” Set the specular and glossiness levels to 0. Add a smoke map for Diffuse, Translucency, and Bump. Set all the amounts to 100 except for bump which should be 15. Leave the smoke parameters at their defaults. We’re only changing the colors. For Diffuse, set color 1 to a purple and color 2 to a teal blue. For Translucency, set color 1 to black and color 2 to a brighter blue than what you set for the Diffuse slot. Leave Bump alone. Finally, change the material effects channel from 0 to 1. We are going to assign a glow later on and we will identify the glow by this number.
For the gill texture, get another Raytrace Material in an empty slot, set specular and glossiness levels to 0 and rename the texture “Gill Texture”. Add a Noise map to both Diffuse and Translucency. For Diffuse, set color 1 to bright yellow and color 2 to a similar yellow, slightly tinted orange. Leave the settings at their defaults. For Translucency, change color 1 to a pea green/yellow color. Change color 2 to a bright green/yellow. Change the Noise Type to Turbulence, the High value to .3, and the Size to 15. Set the Material Effects Channel for this texture to 2 and apply it to our gills.
ADDING THE GLOW AND ADJUSTING THE MUSHROOM
Go to Rendering/Effects and add a Lens Effects effect. Under Lens Effects Parameters add two glows, one for each part of the mushroom. For the first glow, under the paramters tab change the name to Mushroom Glow. Set the Size=20 and Intensity=65. Also set Use Source Color to 100. Under the Options tab, activiate Effects ID and enter in a value of 1. This corresponds the glow to our Mushroom Texture. For the second glow, name it Gill Glow and set the Size=1 and Intensity=50. Leave Use Source Color at 0 and change the 2 radial colors to bright yellow. Finally, set the Effects ID to 2.
Select both your mushroom and the gills. Apply a 4×4x4 FFD Modifier and go to sub-object mode. Drag control points up and down and in and out to shape your mushroom.
LIGHTING AND CONCLUSION
If you want your mushroom to glow from within, here’s how you do that. Create an omni light inside of your mushroom and change the color to the same color as your glow. Under the “Exclude…” button, exclude both your mushroom and your gills. Don’t forget to turn on “Cast Shadows”.
In conclusion, creating a mushroom is pretty simple. You’ll see from my example file that I also made a “skirt” for the mushrooms which allows for blending between the gills and the mushroom head. While my technique results in a high face/vertex count mesh, once you apply your FFD and position your mushroom, you can apply an Optimize Modifier and then convert it to an editable mesh. You may also want to experiment with the gills. I didn’t go into detail, but you can change the sizing and position to create irregularities. The textures are also easy to mess around with and adjust, allowing for the creation of an entire family of mushrooms.
