Lightning Boy Studio's Ghibli Tree (Blender EEVEE)

This is an example scene of a 3D tree inspired by Ghibli studio's films, created by David from Lightning Boy Studio.

You can watch his original tutorial here :

https://youtu.be/DEgzuMmJtu8
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HOW TO USE:

This technique makes use of Collection Instances to build stylized tree shapes. The 2d effect is achieved by casting particles and editing the normals to soften the result.

Make a new tree shape using Shift-A > Collection Instance > Instance Foliage. The shape can be moved, rotated and scaled. Make duplicates using Shift-D to combine multiple shapes together and build a more complex tree.

Since Collection Instances cannot have a material, you can only access the material by clicking on the Original Foliage, located under the Instance Foliage collection.

If the scene becomes too laggy, lower the ratio on the Decimate Modifier of the Original Foliage.

Positive and negative lights can be used to fine tune the light and shadows.

To switch between different styles of trees, change the Color value in Object Properties > Viewport Display.