I tried to make realistic grass, I rendered out this low-res version of the image because I knew I’d be making another version.
What do you guys think this needs to be more realistic? I know it’s pretty cruddy looking at the moment so I’m working to improve it.
(If you think I should upload the material setup or anything tell me and I will try to upload it)
I do like the edited one better, more random makes it more naturalistic. For more realistic look I would suggest significantly thinner strands of grass, see what happens there.
Second last one for tonight, solidified the grass meshes, shading now works correctly :D, the next image will have brighter lighting:
make a grass less thick
I’ve been told by people it looks realistic not plastic, and also, any thinner makes this have artifacts in the grass. It looks thick for some reason, although it is thin (any ideas why?).
EDIT: Wait, do you mean density or thickness of the grass blades?
I think it’s a great start. I think for being such a close up shot, the blades could use a texture image to create the vertical veins that run the length of blades. Something like this reference… http://www.athleat.co.uk/user/Grass_back.jpg. That might be the little thing that turns it for you.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will try it out ASAP.
EDIT: I finally got the grass to be thinner without artifacts!
EDIT 2: I can’t get the grass texture to work, especially since the model is a clump of blades, so I can’t assign a texture to them individually. Can anyone help me on that?
Depending on how you modeled the clumps, you might be able to get away with a simple UV unwrap and single texture since you already have your color variations set up. Make sure you apply rotation and scale to them so that the unwrap doesn’t get all warped and funky.
Can you break the clump into individual blades?
Are you using some kind of trasluncency or SSS in the material of the grass?
looks like your using models of single blades of grass for your particle system. I find it works much better if you model actual clumps of 10 - 20 blades.
To get it to work you need model one blade of grass, unwrap it a add the texture you want to it, than use it in your particle system as your render object. If your grass wasn’t so close up, I think you could get away with what you have. You would need other object too though, that way you don’t notice the grass as much.
I use translucency
I am going to do another render sometime soon I hope, added textures.
Unforunately, this means a loss in colour. I did modify the textures with different hues, so it would boost the colour variation a little.
Still less vibrant than previously.
They actually are clumps of 10-20 blades.
I agree, it gives you more control, paradoxically. And don’t give blades thickness, and put some glossyness in the material.
I will try to use this grass blade texture to texture the grass blades. I will use Gimp to make different color variations.
I remember back in the day, we used the fiber plugin by ripsting to make mesh grass. It was difficult to use, but the grass it made was awesome. It was also used to make hair, but it was better at grass. Ever since particle hair, people have abandoned mesh grass, but I wish it would come back, because it was more realistic than particle grass. ripsting has not been by in ages though.
(edit) I spoke too soon, looks like meta-androcto updated the script:
http://www.ewocprojects.be/fiber.html
Re-rendered with textures and thin grass blades, but the textures don’t exactly show the most clearly (translucency error?),
uploading later today.