Grass

[Dune]

Testing windblown grass... (basically still one object).

[yossam]

Cool...............

[Tangled-Universe]

Pretty cool
Can you show how a single instance of your model looks?

I suppose you can't raytrace the objects now? I can't remember the exact story anymore since TG3 introduced an extra way of rendering displaced objects/populations.

Looking at this I suppose you displace with a PF...if so, perhaps you can introduce more warp in the PF itself (so no warp shader).
Or instead of increasing warp factor you can also decrease the lead-in scale of the fractal, since that determines the size of the fractal warp pattern.
I usually like it better to do warping this way instead of a warp shader, because the warp is derived from the fractal itself and thus tends to have a more natural look. In some occassions though,  a warp shader gives better results I reckon.

Looking forward to see where you're taking this

Cheers,
Martin

[TheBadger]

Liking where this is going! ^^ after reading martins post and re reading OP, I would like more explanations of what you did in the first place, as martin asked about, but with a simple explanation for me

[mhaze]

Clever stuff.

[Dune]

It's not that clever, it's not what you think, although I had made a note about testing the mesh displacement (never did, actually). This is just an object with the grass blades tilted to one side, and reduced rotation in the pop.
In this version, I used three different 'bent grass objects'.

[archonforest]

Clever or not, looks very good to me

[zaxxon]

"Leaves of grass" indeed! Love the high grass flowing in the wind (hope the archer is properly compensating!). This would be a wonderful animation, wonder if that type of movement could be done in TG? Your works are often like a 'classroom' with interesting and inspiring examples. Looking forward to the next iteration.

[Upon Infinity]

Looks great.  You could probably make a few bucks selling this at NWDA.

[Dune]

I'll put it up at NWDA. Make some more first.

[choronr]

And, I'll buy them for sure. Very good coverage of the populations with a bit of color variation.

[bigben]

"Leaves of grass" indeed! Love the high grass flowing in the wind (hope the archer is properly compensating!). This would be a wonderful animation, wonder if that type of movement could be done in TG? Your works are often like a 'classroom' with interesting and inspiring examples. Looking forward to the next iteration.

This can be done in TG either with a sequence of models or an application that can generate models on the fly via command line (e.g. Arbaro), combined with command line rendering.  For still images though, I just find it looks odd when there are lots of realistic looking plants but they are all dead straight.  With a few combinations of bent grass you could create a set of masks using a PF and colour adjust shaders to create "bands" of plants at similar angles to simulate the waves of wind.

[Oshyan]

This "static" bent grass technique could not be animated really, however the Mesh Displacer input does allow that, *and* works with Raytrace Objects. You cannot *subdivide* object geometry in the raytracer still, but if you're just displacing/deforming existing mesh geometry in the object, it works with the Mesh Displacer. One possibility to consider for animation would be to use these bent-over grasses to get the correct larger-scale shape (which would be hard to achieve with a procedural input to the Mesh Displacer), and then work on adding a subtle waving motion through a Mesh Displacer driven by a Power Fractal or something...

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Animating it? This will be interesting!

[Dune]

With a few combinations of bent grass you could create a set of masks using a PF and colour adjust shaders to create "bands" of plants at similar angles to simulate the waves of wind.

That is what I did here (the latter image has 5 objects), but only with one PF and its opposite for another angle, about 50º turned. Didn't have the patience to elaborate on it, you'd have to account for the transition zones as well, where the angle would be less different, etc. Too much work.
I've also tried some mesh displacement, but couldn't get it to work. But, I only looked at the preview, and I vaguely remember it can't be seen there. So, if time allows, I'd have to take that a bit further. Indeed, I also tried using a world space warp, but never rendered anything, just looked at it frustratedly. But I wonder if you could bend only the tops of each object, or the whole object will be bent. You'd kind of need a height restriction, but that wouldn't work in hilly country, unless you bend them first, then raise their ground (which works in other circumstances, like masking the wet edge of a stream going downhill, by height restriction solely).
It would be terrific if you could take a straight grass and bend the tops by world space warped fractal or redirect, or VDISP.