I made the grass in the background from a single-sided square. I used nodes to make random displacements and random green colors. It looks ok, but not great. I suppose this technique is good for distant grass. By using blend nodes and masks, you could easily make the grass only "grow" in certain areas.

The grass in the foreground is actually hair grown on the hi-res square (cloth plane). By using the hair room simulation with collisions, I was able to get the figure and ball to crush and bend the blades of grass pretty well. But the hair shader produces kind of fuzzy looking blades. Plus, I'm not really happy with the "kink" as a way of making the blades bend in random ways. The stupid hair room kink needs more parameters, or maybe I need help on how to make them just bend smoothly in random directions.

I also tried some grass props. These produce very nice looking blades, but managing several hundred copies of the prop to fill a big area is really not a great solution. Plus, there is no good way to make the geometry bend around figures and props.

I searched the forum and web as best I could to try to find examples of procedural grass that works in Poser. I've seen other tools that specialize in terrain generation but I'm looking for a poser way to do this. However, I'm not averse to using some simple utility to generate the blade geometry.

So my question to the community is - have you made or seen a better technique for doing grass? Distant grass and foreground grass techniques could be different, as long as it is possible to merge the two in the same picture. Bending the blades away from props and figures is important.

bookmark

another bookmark :D

This is pretty cool as it is. What happens if you apply a wind force with high turbulence?

Excellent !

another bookmark I have tried a number of grass props but none really make realistic grasses - but then again depending where you live grass does differ from area to area, and of course, the grass is always greener on the other side - here it's still covered with the white stuff.

bkmrk What settings have you used for the grass of your pic?

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in case nobody mentioned it already, the venerable don tatro had an useful technique for doing grass. he made a square with a transmap and texmap to resemble a row of grass blades, then used several of those squares, receding towards the back, to simulate a field of grass (lawn).

bookmark

Whoa! BM

@ Bagginsbill: Excellent try! I might have a go at some of that myself! A suggestion re. the distant grass: Why not try using the "V" parameter to control the strength of some of the parameters, so the effect gradually fades into a plain colour as it nears the top? Might look better (would help get rid of the "overly-distinct" grass at the horizon).. (You'll probably have to use some math nodes to fiddle with the V parameter to scrunch it up a bit, and possibly invert it (I can never remember if top or bottom has the greatest value).. Cheers, Diolma

Oh wow! Adding a bookmark here. This is the best ever "hair-grass" I've seen!

Maybe it's just me, but the grass in the back resembles freshly-mown grass, while that in the front grass that hasn't been cut for a while. Just another reason to finally buckle down and try the hair room.

Miss Nancy - the transmap plane technique can look good, but only from one angle. Plus, it is still a pain to try to cover a large area that way. Diolma - Yes you certainly could use the V coordinate to vary the parameters. In my image, that area is actually only about 30 feet wide, so I think it looks as it should. If I was covering a larger distance, I think it would fade naturally. Modus0 - both grasses are easily adjusted to produce long or short, uneven or even. In the hair room, adjust Hair Lenght and Length Variance. For the displacement based grass, changing the 4.5 to a larger number in the subtract node will make it wilder and longer.

Thanks !!!!!! :)

It's the same grass? Looks like tiled, a little geometrical, following a pattern, nah? ...

I think the tile is from the stupid hair shader node. The manual doesn't explain what it does. Without it, I was unable to get the grass to be different colors at tip and root. The hair node makes things fuzzy too - like fur. Which is good for fur, but not for the grass. That's why I was hoping somebody else had done the fur technique, but found a good way to color it. I don't like the look of this at all, but it DOES do the collision thing.

ok bagginsbill, you're not satisfied with it but I don't recall ever seeing better grass. You're far more advanced than I in developing procedural nodes so I got nothing to offer there.

I think I'll definitely have to find time to experiment with this.

Time for a colored beach ball. :-)

This is fantastic

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1006445

Danamongden - how funny. I too was just working with the grass when that damn girl jumped in. Yes you used it to good effect in that picture. You've given me another thought about it, too. In your picture you mentioned negative gravity. I didn't use that but I should, because on varying terrain, the grass will tend to grow along the surface normal which is not what you want. Grass always grows straight up, more or less. The displacement version can't do that at all, but the hair one can. So that's two good reasons for the hair. Cool.

Great thread AKmaterialroombookmark

Cool idea.

The cavalary always comes just in time, It's just what I needed for my current rendering: Bookmark!

Considering the hairroom: I agree!, There are some serious shortcomings that has to be fixed, Hair always tends to curl in one direction, and there is no way to change that. Someone has to kick E-F's butt.

regards,

Bopperthijs

Great thread well done bagginsbill, please feel free to supply any freebee grass to me

Rowlando

As you point out, it may not be 100% perfect, but it would be suitable for most uses, and is infinitley better than the majority of other options out there.

I'm no texture expert, but I can follow instructions. I've attached a really quick render I did to show that even a novice is capable of this (so don't be scared to try). Please excuse the blurriness, I was working on something else when I read this thread so the light and render settings aren't exactly ideal.

This coupled with the morphing terrain by cybia in the Free Stuff section could be a thing of beauty.

Thanks BagginsBill. I've got dozens of ideas spinning in my head with how to implement this into a future render. :)

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Excellent!

Best looking grass I've seen made in poser, better than any prop IMO, thanks for sharing!
bookmark

Still a cool idea. Thanks for the tip, no matter the age.

-- Jeff

The ever recurrent - BOOKMARK! 

Great info in this thread.  THANKS VERY MUCH!

Larry F

BMK

Bookmark

When I do Architectural Viz in Max, displacements, bumps and har are pretty much what you use for grass most of the time. Most of the time though, our grass is freshly mowed background lawn grass.

Most of the up close plants other then grass is done by panels and few procedual plants. On static images, very often plants are photosimulated (postwork)!

Hi Anton, good to see you around :)

That was three years ago Connie :o). And I don't think he's been here much if at all since :o(. I miss his poser clothes.

Laurie

LOL, heh, I should have read the post dates LOLOL

Amazing ... even in 2016, this thread is relevant! Got to bump it!

Here is a tutorial on how to walk through long grass from 2012. Collide with hair room grass