Realistic Grass

[dsrender]

Hey all, so I'm still fairly new to Chief and have been trying to figure out how to do realistic grass where it is taller than the driveway and landscape beds. I've only been able to get it where the driveway and sidewalk sit on top of the ground plane. I've seen different renderings online and have looked for tutorials but can't seem to find any. I've attached a photo of what I'm looking to achieve. Any advice on how to get there would be awesome!

Thanks!

[rcole]

You and me both.

From what I have seen, there are a few rendering engines that can do this fairly effectively.

I don't remember the name of the rendering program, but I saw it on a blender video a while back. Not all that impressed with the engine itself, but the grass looked good.

I have seen some good work done using 3D Max, but there again it is an expensive program and takes considerable skill and experience to operate effectivly.

My personal favorite is Octane Render, and in particular it's newly implemented instancing feature. This in general means that one blade of grass or a leaf, even though complex geometry, can be copied or instanced just like a Block instance in programs like AutoCAD with relatively little file storage overhead.

There again you would need programs that work with Octane, and Octane itself as well. Another complicating factor is that Chief does not directly support Octane's file types currently. Very cool stuff, but very new technologies requiring some pretty decent technical skills.

From what I understand, Chief does support instancing in X5, but I am not sure exactly what that means. Other than that I have seen some impressive work done with programs such as PhotoShop for touching up the rendered images.

If you find anything that is simpler and still provides good quality please provide an update.

[kirk.clemons]

The X5 rendering engine does not currently implement instancing as mentioned by Rod, this is a technology used most commonly by Renderman compliant rendering engines.

The best you can do with other types is to find a texture that creates a more realistic effect and sometimes combine it with a bump/normal map to enhance it.



The texture used in this image is attached here.

Hope this is helpful,

[rcole]

Sorry for the incorrect info I provided earlier. I thought I had seen it mentioned somewhere, but that is obviously not correct.

Thanks for the texture Kirk. I will have to give that a try. Any particular bump/normal map you could recommend?

Edit: Kirk, thanks for the stroll down memory lane. I used to use FastCAD 3D in the early 90's before I bought Chief. Renderman came bundeled with FastCAD and I used to call the techs at Pixar before they got famous. Again, thanks for the link.

[Mark]

Here is a idea and i have used it take a photo of big lawn or grassed area do your raytrace in chief with standard grass then open image in image editor like paint shop pro , photoshop or others make selection of grass in image then then paint on photo grass on top of chiefs grass can look ok

[kirk.clemons]

Typically a normal map created from the texture itself gives best results. In the texture I attached earlier there is a bump map already applied. Feel free to have a look.

BTW Rod: I didn't mean to imply that you were incorrect just that you had already mentioned Chief doesn't use instancing.

[dsrender]

Thanks for the ideas and the material! I'll have to give them a try and see what I can find works best.

[POLARA500]

Hi,

This is an instanced grass render. Done in Chief and rendered in Kerkythea.
KT is free too.

Richard

[dshall]

Hi,

This is an instanced grass render. Done in Chief and rendered in Kerkythea.
KT is free too.

Richard

Wow, that grass looks nice!

[lsipp17]

Robert, where did you get that texture and if you can, how did you get the effect in ray trace?

Thanks Luke

[POLARA500]

Luke,

I'm not sure if you're asking me or not
but I don't any Robert in this thread.

Richard

[Sledge]

Luke,

.....but I don't any Robert in this thread.

Richard

We don't have a Wobert Sir

Centuwion, do we have anyone in our Pwisons at all ?