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How do we make realistic looking long grasses...


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Hello. I've run into this disappointment numerous times and am hopeful someone has a solution...

I want to make realistic looking, long grass. Natural, wild fields. Unkept backyards. Lenghtly grass growth on sod rooves.

I have Renderworks and Artlantis Studio. Most of my rendering I do in Artlantis. There is no 'long grass' object that can be applied to a DTM in there nor is there anything in Renderworks. DTM's, of course, while complex in three dimensions, have no surface depth. I've thoughts on how to make grasses in VW but they all involve way more time than logic allows.

Easiet would be if this could be done in Artlantis as a plug-in object that blankets itself all over the DTM object and be modified for height and colour.

Has anyone figured out how to do this?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Yours from Canada's Yukon,

Jim Q,

Treeline Woodworks Ltd.

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It's been my experience that organic modelling of the type you describe is better handled by a program developed more towards modelling as its main function rather than how VW was developed, as a draughting type program.

That's not to say VW is not a capable modeller, but I've found if not using tricks like image mapping over formed objects to create the render you require the file rockets in size and becomes really difficult to work with.

It horses for courses as they say.

This is one of the reasons I looked into Cinema 4D. Create most of what you can in VW, it's great and quick for most things, but on complex organic shapes revert to something else. With the available plug in you can export your VW file into Cinema and complete the development how you wish.

Here's a few links which may help in your research.

http://www.maxon.net/pages/products/modules/hair/hair_e.html

http://www.maxon.net/pages/images/products/modules/hair/gallery/2/nature09.jpg

Don't be put off by the fact the modules called Hair, as you can see from the second link its capable of much more than first perceived.

Also check out the Xfrog package

It has a plug in link for Cinema 4D.

http://www.xfrogdownloads.com/greenwebNew/news/newStart.htm

Of course its not going to create construction drawing for planning the job etc, but it sounds like you want to create 3D images as best as possible to show your designs and this may be a route you consider taking.

Also xfrog has a link to VW Landmark but I'm not sure how it works and what results you can achieve with it. Check out the main NNA site for details or maybe a staff member will comment here.

Regards

Alan

Edited by alanmac
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It's been my experience that organic modelling of the type you describe is better handled by a program developed more towards modelling as its main function rather than how VW was developed, as a draughting type program.

Yep. In a CAD-program, you are supposed to know & be able to modify the exact coordinates of every vertex of each blade of grass or strain of hair. A square metre of grass would easily require a million 3D vertices.

(One grass blade: 2 NURBs & surface? 1 blade per cm2 (sparse) to 5 per cm2 (sorta OK). Each generated with a random function. How many points per hectare do we get?)

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Good morning Alan,

Thank you very much for all this help. I'm just downloading a demo of Cinema 4D as I type. Lots to explore.

What about Artlantis? I'm a long time users and have spent a lot of money there. I love the software. How it works. It's ease of adjustability. It's rapid image updates. The rich qualities of the results. Do you also have, and use, Artlantis Studio? Do you know if Vectorworks, Artlantis and Cinema can work together?

JimQ

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Yes they do work well "together" but I'd say you'd either use Vectorworks and Artlantis or Vectorworks and Cinema, depending on your specific needs.

I did write a long reply, but got the annoying "this form is no longer valid" whatever message from the server. Please sort NNA, its been mentioned on the wish list.

I also own and use Artlantis, more so than Cinema, because of the reasons you state.

I'm sure you know how to get round this requirement using Vectorworks and Artlantis, by image use, the same as you would in Renderworks.

Anyway, better go before the form times out on me again gggrrrr...

Alan

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