Realistic grass

For this grass tutorial I assume you have a general knowledge of 3D Studio MAX.

In the bottom of the tutorial their is a glossary, where the buttons mentioned in the tutorial, is listed in alphabetic order.

This tutorial is working with 3dsmax R2 and greater.

Pléase notice that this is a relative heavy tutorial, when you are finish, you will have a.

Scene with about 520.000 faces.

1. .
2. Go to the file/reset and answer yes.
3. Press the front window, and then Min/Max Toggle.
4. under create/shapes/line, uncheck optimize, set steps to 4, go to keyboard entry and under that menu, add points, in these coordinates: -3,0,0 and 3,0,0 and 0,200,0, when you have done that, press close.
5. Now press Zom extents, and then you should have a silhouette of a straw, sen from the front.
6. Now press modify/edit mesh, You might have to press more under modify, now you should have the straw with 13 faces. You can check that under file/summary info.
7. Now select and rename your straw to Straw01.
8. Now press hierarchy/affect pivot only and then right click on the select and move buttom.
9. Under Absolute:world, you type 0,0,0 and hit enter, then close the small window.
10. Press the hierarchy/affect pivot only again, so its not activated any more.
11. while you have your straw selected, press array, set the array to move your object 200 units along the x axis, and set the array dimensions, to 1D and a count of 4.
12. Now press Zom extents, and then you should have four silhouettes of a straws, sen from the front.
13. Now select Straw01 and add a bend modifier, and set the bend angle to 20, the bend direction to 90, and the bend axis to y.
14. Now select Straw02 add a bend modifier, and set the bend angle to 40, the bend direction to 90, the bend axis to y, check the Limit efect, and set the upper limit to 150.
15. Now select Straw03 add a bend modifier, and set the bend angle to 70, the bend direction to 90, the bend axis to y, check the Limit efect, and set the upper limit to 150.
16. Now select Straw04 add a bend modifier, and set the bend angle to 130, the bend direction to 90, and the bend axis to y.
17. Now go to the material editor.
18. And make four materiales with the names Mat-Straw01, Mat-Straw02, Mat-Straw03, Mat-Straw04, give Mat-Straw01.
19. Mat-Straw01 should have the RGB color value 50,130,50 in the diffuse setting, just press the color box right to the text diffuse. Set shininess to 50 and the shin, strengt to 85, and check 2-sided.
20. Mat-Straw02 should have the RGB color value 110,150,0 in the diffuse setting. Set shininess to 50 and the shin, strengt to 85, and check 2-sided.
21. Mat-Straw03 should have the RGB color value 60,110,40 in the diffuse setting. Set shininess to 50 and the shin, strengt to 85, and check 2-sided.
22. Mat-Straw04 should have the RGB color value 70,140,70 in the diffuse setting. Set shininess to 50 and the shin, strengt to 85, and check 2-sided.
23. Now select the object Straw01 you could do this by pressing the key h. In the material editor select the material called Mat-Straw01 press assign material to selection.
24. Do the same for the rest of the objects, just give them the material corresponding to their name.
25. Now close the material editor.
26. Now press the key t and the view is changed to top-view.
27. Press create/geometry/box and under keyboard entry type in the following: X=-200, Y=200, Z=0, Lenght=400, Width=400, Heigt=1.
28. When the box is selected, rename it to Ground.
29. now select Straw01.
30. press create/geometry/compound objects/scatter and press pick distribution object and select the ground.
31. Now set the following settings for scatter: Dublicates=10000, Base scale=10, Uncheck perpendicular, Distribution using=area, Rotation X=10, Y=360, Z=10. Scaling X=20, Y=20, Z=20 Under display options, check the proxy and set display to 10. And check the hide distribution object.
32. Under load/save Presets, type in grass under Preset name, and then pres save.
33. Now select Straw02 (try to press the key h).
34. when Straw02 is selected press create/geometry/compound objects/scatter and press pick distribution object and select the ground, now go down to load/save Presets and select grass, and hit load. Then under uniqueness/sed type in 12346.
35. now repeat this for Straw03 and Straw04 with the only exception that Straw03 should have uniqueness/sed 12347. And Straw04should have the number 12348.
36. Select the object, ground and right click on the select and move buttom, and type this in: -200,200,-7 and hit enter. And close the window.
37. Now its time to open the material editor again. While the object, ground, is selected. Give it the material calledMat-Straw01. After you have done this close the material editor again.
38. Now we have to set up a camera, press create/cameras/target and then click and drag it at random place in the viewport.
39. Now press the key h and select camera01.target and then right click on the select and move buttom, and type this in: -200,200,0 and hit enter.
40. Then press the key h again and select camera01 and then right click on the select and move buttom, and type this in: -200,6,19 and hit enter.
41. Then close the small window.
42. With the camera01 selected go to the Modify menu, and enter type 30 in the lens box.
43. Press the key c to se th rouge the camera.
44. We also ned some light, press create/lights/omni and place it in the lower half of the viewpoint. With the omnilight selected right click on the select and move buttom, and type this in: 66,-140,150 and hit enter. And close the window.
45. Press modify and now on the right side of the scene, you should se all the settings for the omni, go to the bottom, and find shadow parameters and check the cast shadow, and change the size from 256 to 1024.
46. To get this thing lit up, we ned a one more light, press again create/lights/omni and place it in the lower half of the viewpoint. With the omnilight selected right click on the select and move buttom, and type this in: -220,17,7 and hit enter. And close the window.
47. Now, try to hit render.

Glossary.

Archivo adjunto 221519Array.

Archivo adjunto 221520 Cameras.

Archivo adjunto 221521 Compound Objects.

Archivo adjunto 221522 Create.

Archivo adjunto 221523 Geometry.

Archivo adjunto 221524 Hierarchy.

Archivo adjunto 221525 Lights.

Archivo adjunto 221526 Material editor.

Archivo adjunto 221527 Min/Max Toggle.

Archivo adjunto 221528 Modify.

Archivo adjunto 221529 Render.

Archivo adjunto 221530 Select and move.

Archivo adjunto 221531 Shapes.

Archivo adjunto 221532 Zoom extents.

Now when you are done, and hopefully got a god result, you can modify the settings yourself, so it will met your specific demands, this tutorial is made on a single box, but if you want to have more details in your scene, it might be necessary to add more objects to duplicate the straws on. In my Football scene as you can se in my gallery, their is 3 duplication objects, one box for the front, a box for chalk line, and a box for the background, for the scene you can se below, it could be a god idea to divide the box in two, because you dont ned that many straws in the background, and because of this you wouldnt get so many faces.

This type of grass is limited to be viewed as you where just above the grass, if you for example ned to se the grass from the top, you will ned alot more straws, and faces.

If you manage to make some nice scenes from this tutorial, por favor mail me some images, because I would like se if people actually can use this for anything, and if you gave me some respons, their would be a greater chance to se more tutorialesfrom me.

This tutorial is written by:
Thomas Surland | http://www.surland.com/ | thomas@surland.com.

If you have managed to follow the tutorial correct, you should get a image similar to this one.

Archivo adjunto 221533