Here's a WIP showing two approaches to making grass.

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.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

bookmark

another bookmark :D

Gill

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

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery My freestuff

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.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
- Albert Einstein

Indoda

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

CASETTE
=======
"Poser isn't a SOFTWARE... it's a RELIGION!"

.

My store

.

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.

________________________________________________________________

If you're joking that's just cruel, but if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse.

Here is the material for the background grass. Just apply to a single sided square. Make sure your units are in inches when entering the displacement value above. Also make sure displacement is enabled in render options.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Here is the hair-room setup for the foreground grass.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Here is the material for the hair-based grass.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

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.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Thanks !!!!!! :)

CASETTE
=======
"Poser isn't a SOFTWARE... it's a RELIGION!"

Darn it. By the time I finished mowing the front lawn, the back lawn grew 5 inches!! :-)

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

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

CASETTE
=======
"Poser isn't a SOFTWARE... it's a RELIGION!"

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.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

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.

________________________________________________________________

If you're joking that's just cruel, but if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse.

Time for a colored beach ball. :-)

This is fantastic

PoserPro 2014, Windows 7, AMD FX-6300 6 core, 8 GB ram, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti

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

Bagginsbill, I think the hair + displacement is the way to go. I played around with this some already in the linked image. (Forgive the bad lighting -- this was the image where I learned how to NOT use IBL.)

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.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Great thread AKmaterialroombookmark

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

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

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

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

Rowlando

Seek what you can never loose

Great idea and execution BagginsBill. The results speak for themselves.

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. :)

If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards...checkmate!

bookmark

Excellent!

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

I like the displacement method a lot!

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

Getting old and still making "art" without soiling myself, now that's success.

Bookmark

Ulli

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!"

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 :)

___
Renderosity Store Personal nick: Conniekat8
Hi, my name is "No, Bad Kitteh, NOO", what's yours?

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

___
Renderosity Store Personal nick: Conniekat8
Hi, my name is "No, Bad Kitteh, NOO", what's yours?

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

Boni

"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

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

Boni

"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: Procedural Grass Techniques?