It is as fast as they show in the videos - I see no additional time cost at render time
Maybe some other setting in Vray is causing the delay ?
Leave the 250 MB limit as it si - it will be good for most jobs (even large Grass areas)
I did find something which is not so good - if you use more than one AutoGrass instance and use lots of polys - it may crash MAX
NIR
Take a look at the sample files, they dont use any GI at all or only low BF Settings, thats why its so fast in their vids and examples. On a recent project i switched from autograss to Forest Pro because of the high rendertimes i was getting, it was fine for small previews but when it came to render the final animation the rendertime exploded. i havent used it since, i stick to forest.
Try forcing it not to generate GI.
I always select all the plants in my scenes (even Forest Pack Pro) and uncheck the Generate GI option.
I use AutoGrass and FPP almost all the time at the same time
Nir
found a weird bug.
lets say you have a nicely setup grass that works perfectly…now…youre creating a new scene and you want to merge the grass object that works nicely from the other scene…you do that…select autograss gizmo and pick a new object for autograss to generate the grass on.
For some reason, in this case, the LC calculation can raise from 30 secs to something like 30minutes…
i ve replicated this problem in 3 scenes already.
So …the conclusion is, you can merge the autograss object from older scene (if you like the way its setup), but u cant use it…if you create a new one, it will automatically pict paramaters from the old one, just as the vray cam does…
Best Regards
erm.. i have at this save “slowdown” also… and its not related to autograss
I also have problems with render times - which means animation is not an option!
IMO good grass quality render and low render time is impossible.
You can try with low grass length, no specular, low density, but I found that VRayscatter is better for rendertime and geometry quality. But for large surface VRayScatter consume a lot of RAM. But it’s fast.
In VRaygrass you can’t customize a grass, but you can cover a lot of surface, with low ram, but rendertime is high. Ah, and don’t use SSS preset. It’s rendertime killer!
Also important the Autograss memory limit. In my test:
2048= 3min 0sec
1024= 3min 44sec
512= 4min 55sec
256= > 6min
I don’t know if cal that “bug”. But I’ve a big plane with autograss. All CPU, node include, are 100% CPU usage if i render only the plane.
When I active my VRayscatter (not very heavy, just some tree) stuff, the CPU work from 50 to 80. VRay Memory = 4 GB , AutoGrass 1 GB.
If I render only the plane, without Autograss, but with VRayScatter, CPU usage= 100%.
And I can’t do a grass with VRayScatter. Too memory consume with this plug. So… with both plug, we cant do a good grass plate in a big scene. Or waiting ages with my CPU run at 50%…
Hi all,
I’ve a question for how has both VRayScatter and Autograss.
In my scene, ifI render only a plane with autograss, all work fine. All CPU are 100%.
But, when I add just one VRayScatter object, for example, 100 trees, all CPU (WS and rendernode) go to 50-60-70%.
Autograss memory is 1024 and VRay Memory set to auto and 4 GB
WE memory available= 8 GB.
Any suggestion?
Thank 
If you want, this is a sample scene (Autograss+VRayScatter)
Run and see: the CPU works at 50% 
Only Autograss = 100%
Only Autoscatter = 100%
Both= 50%
This is probably the same issue as the slowdown when using VRayFur and displacement; I have to look into it…
Best regards,
Vlado
Thanks, thanks, vlado!!! Because I’m creazy in this days. We buy Multiscatter, VRayScatter, Autograss and try the Forest Lite. All the same problem. 50% CPU usage with Autograss
Right now, for a very big grass plane, I will use a VRayscatter for the tree and, I don’t know, low displacement map (2D 8.000 px for a large plane it’s very memory consuming)
and good grass map for the grass.
Multiscatter (MS) has a bug IMO in the DR that VRayScatter (VS) don’t has. Try to see this video.
(*) Run the first time 3ds max, render with one MS object. OK.
(*) Re-render and same file, the same session and the render node not work.
(*) During the render of the same 3ds max session, restart the Node VRaySpawner manually and the scene is transferred to the node. Always!
(*) I hide the MS in the same file session and rendernode not work again
(*) I re-open the file (not 3ds max) with WS hide and the node work.
Seems that VRay can’t transfer the scene to the rendernode, but I’ve no error, nothing.
Only if I manually restar the VRaySpawner in the RNode it’s work.
This is repeatable. It’s an error about Multiscatter DR procedure?
About the Multiscatter problem. If I wait 2 minute from one render to another, Multiscatter recognize the nodes
But I can’t wait 2 minutes every time
Sorry Vlado. Now the previous link work
I finally came up with a custom mat with variance that I like. The key which is not obvious is REAL WORLD MAPPING as someone else mentioned AND using MAP CHANNEL 3. I guess there’s a tutorial on this that I couldn’t access when demoing which was very unfortunate. I used a simple tileable grass texture. Fresnel reflections with HIGHLIGHT glossiness of 0.7, not reflection glossiness (fake highlights basically). The second version is vrat2sidedmaterial which is softer and better but a little more doubles the render time. Taking away reflections obviously would cut render time and I think setting the density to 0.5 from 1.0 would be acceptable for many situations. My goal was relatively short lawn grass and I used default Kentucky Bluegrass setting with height changed to 4" and my custom mat. I suppose I should have changed the “chop” for cleanly mowed lawn grass.
I decided to buy the plugin and it’s working on my laptop (workstation) but ran into the same rendernode installation problem as a few others have mentioned when installing “autograss license server” on my render node. When downloading the server app, their website assumed my laptop machine ID when obviously I want it to be the render node. (didn’t see an option, only asked again for order # and email address) Awaiting an answer from Happy Digital about how to fix this. Anyone? Be aware of this issue when installing, looking again I still don’t know how to submit a different machine ID on the website when downloading ALS unless the problem is entirely something else but pretty sure it’s a machine ID vs key issue.
!(http://www.wayneharney.com/post/autograss test.jpg)
hi powerandrubber - is it possible to post here the scene of the situation with vray 2sided? it looks great and want to try the same results on my station - thankyou!
That looks very nice powerandrubber
Yes here’s the scene. Camera is animated, the posted test was about frame 35 for side lighting
www.wayneharney.com/post/grass.zip
Texture map is free on Turbosquid http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/226334
The HDR sky is not free so you’ll have to substitute
Another partial test
!(http://wayneharney.com/post/autograss2 test.jpg)
Bought the plugin but am having issues with the licensing. The company has been very responsive so far but still not up and running:(
That’s some really nice looking grass, there…