better looking grass?

[SH_Canada]

doing a mini subdivision and well the grass leaves something to be desired

 

Looking through the forums I saw something a few years ago on bump maps but no details and nothing in  the doc

 

I see one of the finmalists has some fairly good looking terrain. I think maybe he/she spread lots of short shrubs or something

2021 Chief Architect Design of the Year Contest Finalists | ChiefBlog

 

this is what I have so far ...needs some work

 

 

 

[mtldesigns]

The out of the box grass is dull for sure, have you looked a the "High Resolution Grass" in the Chief Library catalog (its free to download)?  Much better grass, as they used to say in the 70's.  

[Christina_Girerd]

This image shows Chief's "Grass 7" which is one I often use with minor adjustments.  It is in the core catalogs/ materials/ landscaping/ grass.   I enlarged the grass area around the house to show an area more similar to the size you are working on, and then set the x/y scale in the Define Materials dbx under the Texture tab, at 200 each.  The rectangle of grass to the right is the same Grass 7 material, but at the library default of x/y scale at 56 and no blended color.  Depending on how zoomed in or out the view is, it can be helpful to adjust the x/y scale.  More zoomed out, the larger the scale. 

 

Then the second thing I change, which you can see in the second image, is to adjust the Material Color by blending in a slightly darker shade of green.  I find the darker green adds to the realism. This view does not have any bump maps.  Those can help too, but you might first try adjusting the scaling and material color. 

 

 

[Michael_Gia]

You should learn about the “distribute plant” feature in the Garden Bed tool. 
 

here is a post with a few great suggestions. 
 

 

 

but if you really want great grass then download TwinMotion, export your model and add the grass in there. It’s free. 
 

 

[SH_Canada]

28 minutes ago, Michael_Gia said:

You should learn about the “distribute plant” feature in the Garden Bed tool. 

yeah i watched a few videos this afternoon on it, thats what I figure the finalist may have used. created a region and then carpet bombed it with minishrubs via distribute region

[SH_Canada]

46 minutes ago, Christina_Girerd said:

This image shows Chief's "Grass 7" which is one I often use with minor adjustments.  It is in the core catalogs/ materials/ landscaping/ grass.   I enlarged the grass area around the house to show an area more similar to the size you are working on, and then set the x/y scale in the Define Materials dbx under the Texture tab, at 200 each.  The rectangle of grass to the right is the same Grass 7 material, but at the library default of x/y scale at 56 and no blended color.  Depending on how zoomed in or out the view is, it can be helpful to adjust the x/y scale.  More zoomed out, the larger the scale. 

 

Then the second thing I change, which you can see in the second image, is to adjust the Material Color by blending in a slightly darker shade of green.  I find the darker green adds to the realism. This view does not have any bump maps.  Those can help too, but you might first try adjusting the scaling and material color. 

thanks. this is an improvement

[SH_Canada]

CA no likely the region distribute for the trees

[robdyck]

It makes me feel so good to see that Error for another user! I had started to get the impression that it was just me! I had no issue distributing those plants...this time!

[ericepv]

Jason:

 

Here's a great site I found for grass and ground-cover:

 

http://www.tonytextures.com/free-green-nature-ground-texture-photo-gallery/

 

Eric

 

[Renerabbitt]

12 hours ago, jasonN said:

thats what I figure the finalist may have used.

They used twinmotion  , that background cityscape is twinmotions native cityscape.
Here. one of my best grasses, just throw my name out there if someone ever needs work please(shameless plug), I don't often give my best stuff out:
Rabs Mowed Lawn
MAKE SURE TO ADJUST BUMP HEIGHT DOWN FOR RAYTRACE

[Kbird1]

13 hours ago, Christina_Girerd said:

Chief's "Grass 7" which is one I often use with minor adjustments.  It is in the core catalogs/ materials/ landscaping/ grass

 

Grass 7 is the one I also prefer too but usually darken it some....

 

I also use this one which if I remember correctly was posted here on the Forum a few years ago ( sorry forget name now)

MHD_Grass - Rich Green.calibz

 

M.

[SHCanada2]

thanks guys. Normally I do not care but they decided to print it on 24x36, so it looked very very "basic". I have it at the grass 7 with the x y changed, which actually looks not bad. But I'll try the above two. i tried the high def grass but it looks too perfect. I need some variance, and ideally more like wild grass as this is not a city suburb, but in the middle of nowhere on the prairie.

 

I downloaded twin motion last night, havent figured out to export from twinmotion yet, just playing around with it in twinmotion. probably cant export it because I haven't purchased it...

 

[Chrisb222]

1 hour ago, jasonn1234 said:

thanks guys. Normally I do not care but they decided to print it on 24x36, so it looked very very "basic". I have it at the grass 7 with the x y changed, which actually looks not bad. But I'll try the above two. i tried the high def grass but it looks too perfect. I need some variance, and ideally more like wild grass as this is not a city suburb, but in the middle of nowhere on the prairie.

 

I downloaded twin motion last night, havent figured out to export from twinmotion yet, just playing around with it in twinmotion. probably cant export it because I haven't purchased it...

 

 

Have you tried the CA Bonus catalog for High-Resolution Grass?

 

https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/gallery/image/948-materials-high-resolution-grass/

 

You might also want to look into seamless textures. Grass is one that benefits but not as much as shingles, stone, that type of thing. The repeating pattern is what looks bad, IMO, and seamless textures really reduce the problem. Just search online, there are tons of free ones.

 

 

[SHCanada2]

3 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

Have you tried the CA Bonus catalog for High-Resolution Grass?

yes, it looked too perfect

 

I'll search for the seamless, thanks

[kylejmarsh]

Not perfect, but it's an improvement. Use a bump map (can just use the same texture image for 2048 grass) and reduce the 'diffuse' on the material.

 

[Christina_Girerd]

3 hours ago, kylejmarsh said:

reduce the 'diffuse' on the material.

Yes, helpful detail to make sure the grass is "matte" and adjust diffuse.  I do this too, forgot to mention it. 

 

[Rich_Winsor]

12 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

...I don't often give my best stuff out:

Cool man. Not everybody is willing to share their best grass with just anyone. 

 

[kylejmarsh]

Yes I find that turning down the Diffuse is the key to getting things to look a lot better. It's always set to 100% and that's almost never correct - I ususally bounce between 75-85% on most things as it looks better.

 

9 hours ago, Christina_Girerd said:

es, helpful detail to make sure the grass is "matte" and adjust diffuse.  I do this too, forgot to mention it.