Dry Grass WIP - Shag Fur

[DaForce]

Im working on a beach type scene at the moment, and it has some dry grass on some of the dunes.

I am making them using Shag Fur and have to convert them to geometry to render them and get resonable results. But the polys are around 2 million (at the moment)

Please tell me what you think and what i can do to improve the grass. Dont worry about the rest of the scene, as that was just throw together in just a few minutes.

Camera Angle 1


Camera Angle 2 (this wil be the final camera angle)

[gafl]

Hi DaForce !
The grass is interesting ! The colors seems perfect.
I don't know the capabilities of Shag Fur but could you bent some more
towards the floor with a kind of "sphere with angles on the height" ,forming a shape of fruit.
For the the space between each stem, it's very good...

Congrats
Gael

[DaForce]

Hey gafl

Thanks!!

Yeah i will be bending them for the next render and trying the randomize their position a little as its quite repetitive on the 2nd camera angle.

[tom schuelke]

Hi DaForce

looks nice so far. Well i think the advantage of Shag Fur should be a better control of the placement and look of the fur.

first i thought , why you didnt use displacement. but this should be the reason why not.

Well if you get into trouble with your polygons, why don´t you try the vray mesh option for very heavy polygoncount. this should maybe solve some of your geometry and display troubles thinking of millions of polygons.

for the rest, it still looks a bit hmm how to say in english, "hard " for me. maybe some of the grass should bend more, like lovely water breeze comming through

God luck with it.

Tom

[DaForce]

Hey Tom,

Yeah displacement wouldnt cut it for this sort grass

At the moment i have lowered the polygons significantly by lowing the poly count of the strands of grass, but not i cant bend them...cause no polys to bend...LOL so i will have to work that one out as i go along.

I seem to have trouble bending them anyway...they just never bent much, and suggestions on how to get it to bend properly in shag fur? bending doesnt seem to have much of an effect....maybe i just need to up the poly count....

Yeah its still very hard, im going to change the thicknes of the grass so it doesnt look like straw so much and give it some life. I am currently workingo on the shade cloth that spans the gaps between the posts, i think i will use simcloth or reactor or something to get it to hand nicely.

Have you used any cloth sims much?

[TRGraphics]

I'm curious as to why you aren't using vray-fur? Are you going to animate the grass.

Tony

[DaForce]

Thats the main reason, i was thinking of having a nice animation of it in the end.

You know, oceans rolling in, grass swaying, the odd seagull flying past.

[Trapezium]

Are you using an HDRI for these renderings?

[DaForce]

No, just 1 direct light with vray area shadows and some GI/skylight

UPDATE:
Now im working on the shade cloth material, still need to either model it around the posts or use reactor/cloth to get it to look right, at the moment it was just a simple plan with 1 vertex moved out using softselection just to see how the material renders.
The background is obviously just a picture but its from the original photo that im try to imitate, it need a little photo shop work to remove 2 big signs and all the grass and stuff from the photo.

[Da_elf]

have you tried druid grass yet? i know its lots of polygons but vray can handle it and its animation peramiters are really nice

[DaForce]

hmm isnt that max5 only?

Im running max6. Polys arent too much of a problem, im running about 2 million at the moment with the shag fur to poly conversion

[zuliban]

its lokking very nicely daf try to use some blury AA for that iamge looking chida

[Dogzilla]

hi, great work on the dead grass.

is the background image just a placeholder for now? it's just i notice the horizon is not level.

[DaForce]

Hi,
Thanks

The background is the final background. Its actually part of the photo that im trying to reproduce in 3d. There was a little photoshop work which involved taking out 2 big signs which block some of the sky and remove all the grass and what not, and basically just extend the sand down towards the bottom of the image. So as for the horizon that remains untouched.

Slight update on the green shade cloth

[CT]

DaForce,

Looks great. I like the pine fencing, highlight looks perfect. Meshing looks the same as the real thing....
What can I say. When I saw the image this morning it felt like I was down at the coast going for a surf.

Looking forward to the animation.

CT.