INS Grass is…
an innovative scattering plugin for blender(version 3.4 and higher), based on Blender Pyhton script and Geometry Nodes, created for artists, who couldn’t find enough fidelity and realism in results given by similar products available on the market. INS Grass achives this thanks to features never seen before in scattering add-ons, like:
1. Complex colorizing options,
allowing to achive countless color variations with only one asset type. Colorizing can be completely dependent on density and scale patterns, f.ex. Taller grass is green, while shorter grass is more dry. This dependency can be inversed or completely broken. What allows to:
2. Advanced, camera culling system,
that automatically switches to the active camera, follows changes made in image resolution and corrections in camera options such as: focal length, shifting and sensor size.
3. Sophisticated Level Of Detail (LOD) system,
based on instances screen size or distance, what allows to use full potential of gameready assets with LOD’s, like Quixel Megascans or Polyheaven models.
INS Grass contains 860 models in 11 types of assetts with four LOD’s each. There is small, medium, tall and mowed grass in two versions of instances – regular and clumps, with 20 models per LOD. Besides that, there are clover leafs with 20 models per LOD, clover flowers with 10 models per LOD and daisies with 25 models per LOD. Assets base is constantly growing and is planned to contain more wild grass models, crops, bushes, trees, etc.
4. Hybrid assets usage
In many tutorials about scattering systems, the author advices to use large clumps models as instances, because such models render faster and use less RAM, but they also produce lots of problems - You can see the bottom of instances on pleated terrain, they interfeare with curbs and other objects and they give this ugly clumpy look. These problems are mostly visible near the camera.
INS Grass LOD system allows to use smaller, regular, more precise instances closer to camera, where instances amount is relatively small due to narrow camera visibility cone, while bigger clumps are instanced with reduced density on last LOD, farther from the camera, where instances amount is quite high. This hybrid assets usage allows to achive high quality effect close to the camera with reasonable use of computer resources.
Hybrid assets system demonstration video
5. Ability to change instances shape,
from add-ons menu level.
6. Bending animation,
with multiple options, allowing to achive convincing wind imitation, from light breeze to hurricane.
Animation options demonstration video
7. Different approach to density and scale patterns,
which can be controlled by custom textures that can be mixed and controlled by color ramps. and transformed with precise and intuitive system of controllers.
Video explaining how patterns system works
8. Terrain material, driven by selected scatter system,
what allows to get proper pattern and color blending between terrain areas beyond camera clamping distance and areas with scattered instances.
Video showing how INS Grass Terrain material works
9. Advanced rotation tools
like „rotation mask” and „rotation curve”, allowing to achive custom mowing patterns or shape instances rotation in selected areas.
There are also more common features, like:
10. Repulsion option
allowing to controll instances rotation around selected objects.
The repulsion feature was shown in the second part of this video
11. Easy to add and remove multiple emitters and occlusion objects.
12. Multiple selection methods that cooperate together,
like: use of emitters vertex group, texture paint, curve selection and use of pathway curve, occlusion proximity, emitters edge offset and slope.
Occlusion proximity and emitter edge offset options helps to solve the problem of instances intersecting with curbs.
13. Ability to manually change transform of selected asset.
Video showing how this feature works
14. Ability to convert instances to mesh
15. Ability to save Your own presets,
what is show in those two videos:
Saving presets with LODs from outside the INS Grass Add-on
Adding coloring and creating preview image for custom preset
INS Grass on social media:
Installation guides are on product pages - bit different for Gumroad and Blender Market platforms
INS Grass Creators:
Marcin Malcherek (https://marcinmalcherek.artstation.com, [marcin_malcherek - Sketchfab)
(marcin_malcherek - Sketchfab)
KateWhite (https://eelh.artstation.com, https://www.blenderkit.com/asset-gallery?query=author_id:249, https://blenderartists.org/u/eelh)
Credits to creators of some assets used in graphic materials on this page:
Thanks to Mike Alger for sharing Mike Alger model, which was used as scale reference.
Thanks to Poly Heaven team for sharing amazing quality textures and models.
Available for purchase on:
Gumroad:
Blendermarket version option is more expensive due to much higher fee than on Gumroad platform:
In case of any questions, do not hesitate to ask here or on facebook INS Grass group.
