Grass

[CCS]

Crazy idea here, but I'm waiting for some buckets to finish so I thought I'd post it. I've gotten to the point where I have numerous grass textures and numerous methods for producing them. For example, if I'm rendering very close to the ground, I might want to use a fur-based grass. For general purpose eye-level shots of near houses, I'll displace. If I'm doing aerials or animations, I'm most likely going to use a simple diffuse map only.

What would be cool would be a way to reign this all in. Maybe a VrayGrassMtl or a VrayGrassMesh? Something with a built-in LOD. It could be structured similar to an MSO that is driven by a distance falloff. Then in one object, you could see the droopy blades hanging over the edge of the driveway (like fur), you'd see the displaced blades in the near lawn and against the house, then a larger field-type map in the background - all without numerous renders with different objects/mats or lots of PS work.

Will that be in 1.5?

[Sushidelic]

I guess you're not the only one who has grass on his wishlist!


sorry for being OT...

Regards, Michael

[instinct]

It would be pretty straight forward to script material-wise...BUT the displacement is a different matter as the displacement has nothing to do with the material...so it would have to be turned on/off depending on the distance...BUT that would give a visible jump from one state (displaced) to the other (diffuse or fur).

Thorsten

[CCS]

well... except that you can't easily use a falloff to control displacement.

Another thing on this issue would be that materials get substantially darker when you displace them (due to all the GI trapped in the blades I suspect). However, this makes it very difficult to mix displaced grass with non-displaced grass using the same material.

I'm open to ideas though!