Volker's Tutorial Result(s)

[Volker Harun]

The blending fractals are very important - in my humble opinion. They will make the shaders more vivid.

In the files I uploaded in various threads, there is a group called 'Leaf Colour' - it might be interesting to explore:

[bigben]

Thanks Volker. I'll have a look at that.

Here is the image with fake stones added.  I've left all of the nodes "exposed" for now until I sort out my own variation, but the idea of hiding them in a group is nifty. The group name makes them easier to find in the list of nodes.  This can also be useful for hiding processing nodes in a clip while leaving input values/connections exposed in the group instead of moving all the processing nodes into 1 position.

[edit] uh oh.... every now and then when some gaps are filled the extra connections open the floodgates of ideas....   The biggest problem with the grass in this image is possibly that is too even in height... Add an duplicate fake stones layer, increase the height, drop the density and increase the density variation and you have fractal undulations in the grass.  But the best bit is definitely the savings in memory usage. 

Screengrab 2 is a partial render with second fake stones layer so you can see the "blades" at the edge of the render (no extra breakup of density shader yet)[/edit]

[dhavalmistry]

I have something similar rendering right now....but as you can see...its taking awfully long time to render....

all done using functions....

[Volker Harun]

Ohhh - it looks like I need a 48hours day! Your results look better than anythin I imagined!

[bigben]

It was much better than I imagined too. I had left out the blending shaders as I had also left out the low colour which was providing extra variation.... but yours works better.  Running a render with a tree in it for some extra scale, although the grass will probably be a little short. I'm guessing at this stage that this could replace grass objects at around 50m which would be a big help.

I'm also using an experimental modification of my fill light setup adding a large (30 degrees) soft shadow to one light and removing 3 others. The tree will show how much tweaking is left to do.

Render times are longish, but not excessive, and there's no waiting for the populator which will be a big time saver for animations. I think that because the rocks are so thin that they still render relatively quickly comared to larger stones at this distance with displaced surfaces.

[Edit] watching the render now...    so far so good. No arguments on the colour variation  [/edit]

[child@play]

wow, that rocks! really great work here, especially on the 'grass'. dhav, some damn nice grass patches 

[bigben]

Here's a progress on my last render. I have some ideas for fixing my new fill light setup but that's another story.

Detail 1
AA 7

[nvseal]

WOW!!!  And this is fake grass!

[bigben]

That's what I said when I saw it    For certain grass types/camera angles I think this would be good enough to use without objects at all for animations by the time you take motion blur into account.

[edit] rather than take up more space in this thread I'll add the last test here. A slight change to the lighting. Nothing has changed in the fake stones clip though. There are two of them in this with the stone height being the only difference.[/edit]

[Seth]

very very good job !

[nvseal]

Wow, this is some really fantastic stuff. This could be a very good way to add grass to an entire planet.

[child@play]

awesome stuff bigben!

just a little bragging from me here. the small displacement isn't as nearly as good as volker's work, same with colouring, but maybe someone can mix all this together and make a nice scene for a tutorial or so

[dhavalmistry]

awesome stuff bigben!

just a little bragging from me here. the small displacement isn't as nearly as good as volker's work, same with colouring, but maybe someone can mix all this together and make a nice scene for a tutorial or so

how did you do that??....strata and perlin??

[moodflow]

I have something similar rendering right now....but as you can see...its taking awfully long time to render....

all done using functions....

This grass looks really nice so far.  Definitely post the results for us.   

[Mr_Lamppost]

Oh I wish I had seen this one a few days ago 

I started experimenting with using very tall thin fake stones to make grass because I couldn't use objects or grass clumps as they would spill over the kerb.  I am quite pleased with my fake grass, I got as far as adding a second layer to vary the height but see now how I can improve it quite a bit more 

The sphere is just there to give me a working scale, the trees need fixed although I may use different objects.  I have an idea about improving the gravel but this was a test of the grass.