How to render realistic looking grass without PP?
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Are there any techniques to make convincing looking grass without using something crazy like the fuzz tool or post processing? Does anyone having any good grass textures with bump maps? Thanks
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What render program are you using? Vue makes the best grass...
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I've been using Podium V2... Hmm I don't know anything about vue I'll have to check it out but I really like the simplicity and speed of podium and their lighting/material library. Any ideas with Podium?
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Just for clarification when I say realistic I don't need anything super crazy, just something that will render easily with podium v2 or something similar like shaderlight. Vue looks a little overkill for what I'm looking for and I'm trying to keep it simple. Basically I want to get a grass effect that looks better than just a texture applied to a surface that ends up looking like someone put down some green carpet like I'm getting now.
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One way (which may or may not be an overkill) is to use a grass image on 2D planes. Have a look at the 3D WH for different solutions:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=grass -
in the podium forum you will find at least on discussion about that.
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Take a look at this thread. The skp I've posted has probably got grass that's too unkempt for your purposes, but you'll get the general idea.
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There is a distinct difference between foreground grass, perspective grass and aerial grass. Each one requires a different strategy.
For foreground grass, either use Alan's method or you could isolate foreground geometry and use the Make Fur plugin - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=28092
Perspective grass - I'm sorry, but a flat texture just never looks good in a perspective view without being post processed. If you want to find images however, a quick google search for the words "grass texture" yeilded all of these - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=grass+texture&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1374&bih=649&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi
Aerial grass usually suffers from noticeable tiling. For this it's better to take the texture into photoshop and copy it to a blank canvas that is 4 times larger than the image and then manually clone stamp the middle area to increase the tiling to a less noticeable size.
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Why rule out post processing it?
-Brodie
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I for instance like to rule out PP because what if you need an animation? PP may be good for a project that you can easily get rid of by simply sending the client 3-4 still shots and forget about it.
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Animations are much more forgiving however so I wouldn't expect to use the same solution in an animation as I would a still image at any rate. A flat texture can be rather unattractive in a still but in an animation it typically looks just fine.
If you want to limit yourself to only solutions which work in animation AND stills then you'll be very limited indeed. In a still you might be able to go as far as using real grass geometry if you can only limit it to a small section of you exterior which is visible to the camera for that image. But that won't work for an animation where your camera will be moving all over the place. Similarly, using grass planes can look very good in a still shot (although it typically looks like you need to mow the lawn) but even there you can run into poly limits in an animation. Plus if you're comparing a rendered still to a standard SU animation the planes will look very weird in SU.
-Brodie
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I would like to avoid having to bring it into photoshop since a lot of what I am doing is conceptual and I often need to make changes, render a few stills, and show a client in a short time period while they're in a meeting. So if I'm asked to show something slightly different in the model I can just make the changes and re-render instead of having to re-render then bring it into photoshop. It saves a lot of time then I can render a bunch of different scenes without having to modify each one.
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Fair enough. I would still be careful to keep it as an option though. You could use that same option to argue against any sort of post processing work. In the end you'll end up with a consistent image (the test/progress images will be just like the final output) however that final output won't look as nice as it could if you did some photoshop work to it. Alternatively, you could explain that the test/progress images won't be to the same level of detail as the final output to come later. This is typically quite acceptable in my experience.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
Fair enough. I would still be careful to keep it as an option though. You could use that same option to argue against any sort of post processing work. In the end you'll end up with a consistent image (the test/progress images will be just like the final output) however that final output won't look as nice as it could if you did some photoshop work to it. Alternatively, you could explain that the test/progress images won't be to the same level of detail as the final output to come later. This is typically quite acceptable in my experience.
-Brodie
I'll definitely consider post processing if we have to do any big presentations. I'm just looking for a quick solution now, I'm experimenting with Podium grass textures with bump maps and they look a lot better than what I was getting before. I may try that and maybe add a thin border of 3D grass with it so you can see the texture against the edges, I saw someone do that here and it looked good.
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Ya, the thin border of 3d grass is a good idea. The other option would be to use a single plane all along the edge with a .png grass material. Probably quicker and far less polys.
-Brodie
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I sometimes use two planes of grass texture - one below with a completely opaque material and one above with the same material but with transparent areas.
Not perfect of course but especially with animations, there is a nice "play" of these two planes (and with PR renders, even the tiling is much less noticeable). See an example below (learnt the trick over the KT Forums a couple of years ago - of course, you can have a much nicer top material with actually grass blade shaped "holes burned" into it).
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@gaieus said:
I sometimes use two planes of grass texture - one below with a completely opaque material and one above with the same material but with transparent areas.
Not perfect of course but especially with animations, there is a nice "play" of these two planes (and with PR renders, even the tiling is much less noticeable). See an example below (learnt the trick over the KT Forums a couple of years ago - of course, you can have a much nicer top material with actually grass blade shaped "holes burned" into it).
wow that looks really good! especially rendered. thanks.
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@patrickbateman said:
I would like to avoid having to bring it into photoshop since a lot of what I am doing is conceptual and I often need to make changes, render a few stills, and show a client in a short time period while they're in a meeting. So if I'm asked to show something slightly different in the model I can just make the changes and re-render instead of having to re-render then bring it into photoshop. It saves a lot of time then I can render a bunch of different scenes without having to modify each one.
Actually I feel the opposite. I use photoshop to save time, not add time to my workflow. You can often spend an hour trying to fuss with things like adding a slight grass border or tweaking a problem area. I can drop a solid color on a grass plane in sketchup and in less than 3 minutes have it opened in photoshop, the grass swapped out, the edges cloned stamped and saved again. Time spent in photoshop is often at the sake of smaller render times as well. 3D grass will send render times through the roof, so sometimes you save time with photoshop that way and often get better results. I understand your logic of wanted to keep the model pure so you can easily spit out a bunch of conceptual views. Personally I try and keep the conceptuals I present as loose as possible. I tend to save the push toward photorealism until we are narrowed in to the final changes and at that point, every image gets a little photoshop work. All the client sees are the images and have no real clue how they were derived. It's our job to provide a client with an emotional connection to the space and present design intention. We are persuading a client to spend money and feel confident in their choices and investments. Getting them there is all that matters....by any means necessary.
Anyway, here are quite a few High Res grass textures of mine, that may be close to what you are looking to achieve. Normal maps included - http://www.mediafire.com/?fefi5mw11qynvpp
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@earthmover said:
It's our job to provide a client with an emotional connection to the space and present design intention.
Great quote, Adam
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