Issue With Rendering Grass - Site Model

[Jacob Evans]

Hello all,

 

I am currently working on modeling the site surrounding a house that I am working on. I am newer to Vectorworks so I am still learning how everything works and the most efficient way to do everything. I have run into an issue though. When I try to render grass on the site model, the grass is not showing. The amount of time the rendering takes compared to when the grass option for my render mode is turned off makes me believe it is rendering it but upside down. I saw a post on here where somebody ran into the issue of grass rendering below their site model or surface. I created a test file to make sure the texture I used would actually render grass and it did but it was upside down.

 

Is there a way to change the direction grass renders for my site model? I was given survey data for the site model and have used site modifiers on the site.

 

I am running Vectorworks Architect 2020 on Mac.

 

Thank you for your time!

[Benson Shaw]

Others may have a better answer, but . . .

I think the common advice is to use the Grass>Shader textures (image color shader only, no bump shader), or even a color fill for large expanses. Apply the Grass>Displacement types (these include an image color shader and image bump displacement shader) only in limited areas where a close detail view would show the individual grass blades in the bump shader effects of the texture.   Those bumps are intense overhead, so renders can be quite slow for large areas, but reasonable for small areas.  How small?  to be determined by experimentation - different for different OS and hardware combos.

 

Or, if the full bump texture is desired in large areas, experiment for drafts with the less intense texture, and use Custom render with lower settings. When everything is satisfactory, change to the displacement version of the textures and higher custom render settings for the final render. Wait as needed for the render to complete locally (hours?), or send to the vwx cloud service so you can continue working while waiting for the completed image.

 

-B

Edited September 11, 2021 by Benson Shaw
Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I just sits.

[rDesign]

To follow on what @Benson Shaw said (which I agree with), take a look at this post (and thread) which might answer your question about how to work around the grass growing the wrong direction. HTH.