Palm Tree

To create the palm tree I used a simple cylinder for the trunk and applied a bark texture with a UVW Map set to cylindrical.

 The leaves were created on a single plane with a diffuse and a opacity map. To do this I had to take my original leaf image and create a second in Photoshop. This second image was to create a new channel that 3DS Max could recognize that I did not want the white background to show on the plane.

To create the beach around the tree I made another plane and added a Noise Modifier  Using this I was able to make the flat plane raise and lower in different places. By adding a beach texture this gives the appearance of dunes.