Forum: Carrara


Subject: Forests in Carrara

mathman opened this issue on May 04, 2010 · 17 posts


MarkBremmer posted Thu, 13 May 2010 at 12:54 PM

 Just three splats. The scene rendered in about 40 seconds after the grid filled which took about 20 seconds. This doesn't use Global Illumination - I just set up 5 non-shadowing distant lights for the ambient light effect (much better than just using the ambient fill light which flattens everything out)

What you do need to do is duplicated the texture map into the Translucency channel (and dial down the strength) so that the trees interact with light in a believable way. When the trees cast shadows on each other, it naturally diminishes the illuminance of those behind it. 

For the most part, trees are lighter on the outside and shaded more in the middle because of natural ambient occlusion. So, the splat just needs to have that look also. Then the "halo" effect is performed by the Translucency in the shader.