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The Basic Tree Guide!
A custom tree is always better than vanilla trees, but building a tree takes quite a bit of detail and effort. I'll talk about tree building a bit, but here's some advice: Always refer to a picture of a real tree when you're building a custom tree, just to get the feel of what is natural and what is not!
-=-= Trunks =-=-
[1]
The first type of trunk would be a short but wide, upward-growing trunk that splits into branches at a typically low point. Since we're only building the trunk, we only build the bottom of the tree, which is relatively short. Trees that have short trunks like these include apple trees and certain single-trunk trees like certain species of oaks and elms.
[2]
Another kind of tree trunk would be thinner, taller ones that grow directly upwards, typically found in younger trees and especially most oak trees. When building these trunks one can use //brush sphere (block) (radius) - 1 block radius was used in this example - and just spam it upwards to the desired height. This will result in a straight cylinder, which can be changed a bit simply by adding blocks on the corners randomly.
Things to take note here: when adding these corner blocks, make sure that 1 block-tall gaps are not present. These will make the tree trunk look too random - something which builders call "noise".
[3]
The third kind of tree trunk is also pretty common, where the trunk grows sideways for a bit before curving back a bit. This is common in palm trees. When building these, it is best to build by hand - just fly backwards in the direction where you want the tree to grow and spam the block in front of you until you get a line, then increase the width of the line manually. This can get a little tricky, but a good way of knowing whether it looks good is too fly around the build from a far point and making sure that the tree looks like a nice curve from all viewing angles.
[4]
The fourth kind of trunk is commonly found in slightly older trees that grow at a slanted angle that's larger than [3]. The tree trunk grows at a slanted angle to a certain point, and suddenly grows either directly upwards or at a much smaller angle. Notice that this transition point is not gradual, but a distinct point that can be marked out. The bottom section of the trunk is typically longer than the top section. The trunk in the picture was made using //brush sphere with a radius of 1 block.
[5]
The last kind of trunk is the most common among custom Minecraft trees - the bottom section grows at a slanted angle, then suddenly transitions to a larger angle towards the same direction. It's similar to [4], but the two sections are roughly equal in size.
-=-= Roots =-=-
You might have noticed that the tree looks just a little weird. That's because the base of the tree requires some extra detail - we'll have to add some roots!
There are a few techniques to get the roots right.
First - if the tree is slanted, there will always be a "branch" at the bottom that splits off from the main trunk towards the direction of the slant.
Second - notice that at the crosshair, the main tree trunk branches off into different sections, one to the right and one to the left, with a large gap below the point where it split off. This happens fairly often in nature. Additionally, when a root branches off, the root branch will also branch off further into 2, similar to the situation in the far right.
There are a few exceptions to these - palm trees generally do not have exposed roots. Trees with trunks that grow directly upwards, like case [1] or [2], have roots that evenly spread around the tree, but the splitting effect still occurs.
-=-= Branches =-=-
Branches are mostly divided into three categories - primary, secondary. Primary branches are the ones that split from the trunk - a tree normally has two or three of them, and they are the thickest branches. A secondary branch splits from another branch, including primary branches, and occasionally from the main branch. Secondary branches are thinner than primary branches. There are normally three to four levels of branches, each level splitting from the previous one, starting with primary branches.
From left to right, there are four branches, two primary and two secondary. They are all different in their characteristics and serve different purposes.
[1]
The left most branch is a secondary branch that branches off [2]. Note that it is far longer than any other branch, and it is normally included to stretch a tree out to a certain direction. If this branch is thick enough, it will be relatively straight, with sudden bends at a few locations. However, the branch in the picture is thin, so it bends at its own weight.
[2]
This is one of the two most common types of primary branches. It extends from the trunk upwards in the same direction, until it reaches the top of the tree. It is only slightly thinner than the main branch and it gets gradually thinner to the top.
These primary branches don't exist in trees that have flat tops, such as a few species of tropical jungle trees (Like the Vanilla Jungle tree). They only have primary branches of type [4].
[3]
This is a secondary branch that branches from a primary branch. These are extremely common and should be placed relatively frequently. They are typically half the thickness of the main branch they are splitting from.
[4]
Another primary branch, only that it splits outwards from the branch. These ones can curve a bit, but can also have sudden breaks where it changes direction.
Of course, 4 branches is never enough, so don't be afraid to add as many branches as you'd like until you feel that it looks natural. Here's what I got:
A few things to take note: Avoid splitting off into three branches, except for the initial trunk split. Those don't look particularly nice. Also, a secondary branch is typically shorter than the main branch that it splits from, otherwise it will look slightly unnatural. Lastly, big branches should have many small branches going in all directions such that the tree looks dense from all viewing angles.
-=-= Leaves =-=-
Of all leaves, only two look different than the others, with jungle leaves (18:7) being lighter and spruce leaves (18:5) being darker. The other leaves are almost the same, with birch leaves being just a tad bit darker (or lighter, depending on whether you use fancy graphics or not).Leaves are relatively easy - a worldedit brush that masks air will generally do the job. The example below was done with two placement brushes (//brush sphere 5%18:6,5%18:5,90%0 3 for the branches closer to the trunk and //brush sphere 10%18:6,10%18:5,80%0 3 for the branches further away, both with //mask 0) and one replacement brush (//brush sphere 50%18:5,50%18:7 3 with //mask 18 to add lighter patches of leaves)
After placing the leaves, you'll need to do a little trimming to get rid of the leaves that seem to be floating in mid-air, as well as leaves that are little too far from their branches to be realistic. Notice that the leaves further away from the centre are slightly lighter. This is to create a sense of depth, since tree leaves typically look lighter on the outsides and Minecraft lighting is weird.
Besides using leaves, blocks like stained clay can also be used for leaves - pink and purple clay and wool for Sakura, orange and yellow for Autumn leaves.
