Controlling Grass
 

Hi guys,

I'm trying to create a field of grass (lawn) for a project. The problem is... I can't seem to control my grass properly.

How do you make an even spread of grass on an irregular plane.

As you can see, I want to cover the grey section with grass, and have the brown section bare.

Maybe you can paint grass on the plane. It does take a lot of memory though.
You can also build up your own grass with nurbs or somethin'.

you need to create 2 nurbs planes. 1 for each half. So basically, split you plane down the centre where you dont want grass.

Then go to fur > grass and select. There you go.

To make the fur move, you can do this by adding attractors, and making them dynamic.

if you need me to elaborate just let me know, unless you have solved it. :p

or if you still need to go to my video tutorial

let me know and il post it

The PLE doesn't have a fur plugin:headbang:
That sucks.

hey pix,

if you can post the video tutorial it will be fantastic!

I want to animate my grass aswell, so I thought of using paintfx since it has preset for turbulence/wind... but its too memory intensive- each brush i attach to a curve adds an extra 10 seconds to my still image render.

so i think fur is the way to go, i'm not sure how realistic grass can be simulated using the fur tool.. so if you can give me some advice and suggestions... it would be greatly appreciated. :)

there is actually a preset in fur for grass (looks pretty nice too)..... but fur as a whole will add quite a bit of time to your render. That, and depending on what scale that thing is, you might have a hard time getting the grass to a realistic thickness. Although there is one nice thing about using fur - you can use maps (like for bump or tansparency maps) for where you want grass, and where you don't (and length, and density, etc...).

This is my grass image. As you can see it is patchy giving it a morerealistic look than plain green.

Used in fur. I am currently batch rendering in low resolution to reduce time, so you can see it animated, with movement.

Had i have had more time i couldve added a hell of alo more detail. In my tutorial you will see how to create grass, using fur. Then adding a texture to it (rather than being JUST green).

For those PLE users, who havent got fur, i will try create a tutorial for you guys too!

Looks great, but how long would it take if I wanted to make a huge area?
My computer isnt the strongest....

how long to render you mean?

will you be using the paint method? or fur? To be honest one way or another, they both take long as eachother. I'd definately go for fur if you could.

Also depends how big, and what is on it. There are ways around it. For example making the ground LOOK big by shrinking the grass. If you made the grass HUGE, the geometry would look small, you see?


There is another way around it failing that.

Let me know how big and what its for and i'l be glad to help. The tutorial is almost complete. And the vid tutorial will be done ready later too.

oh yeah, are you using it for a still image?? or animated?

If its a still image, you wont have no problem. If its animated, then the render time clocks up.

Other factors clock up your render time to. i.e depends how realistic you want it. You go for basic low quality small - ish geometry and your laughing. You go HOLLYWOOD and want a high quality rendered finish and you got a lot of render time on your hands.

How powerful is your p.c?
Im using a 1GB RAM with alot of other programs installed and mine is ok. could be alot quicker but im happy at the mo.

http://www.pixalbeat.homestead.com/coyotefur.html


The first part of my tutorial is done. The second half we be available later today, which will be making the fur move.


Here is my final grass image.


Im off to bed. look out for the rest tomorrow.



ciao

awesome..

pix, you are the man!

time to bookmark your tutorial link :)

no problem my friend. Look out for the second part later!

hope it helps

Looks real nice.
My computer has 1 GB of ram, but it is real slow. I'm usin the PLE, so I don't know if I can do fur.