The Secret to Creating Realistic Grass
Posted on 22. May, 2009 by Andrew Price in Simulations, Tutorials
Discover dozens of tips and tricks to push your outdoor scene over the edge!
This 22-minute video tutorial will teach you how to:
- Control particle strands
- Save on render times by using child particles
- Evenly distribute flowers across a plane
- Effectively use the colorband feature
- Make a field of uniform strands appear ‘lumpy’
The sky texture I will be using in this tutorial is from CG-Textures.com and can be obtained from here.
Ready? Let’s begin…
Bonus Tip: How to Animate the Grass!
Add a new texture to your grass plane. Name it ‘Wind’ and select Marble from the drop down list. Apply the following settings:
Switch to the Shading panel (F5) and make sure the Wind texture is turned off.
The reason for this is because the plane is not actually what will create the wind. We are merely using it’s texture slots so we can edit it if we need to later.
Add an empty at one end of your grass plane and insert a keyframe by pressing i and selecting Loc
Change the frame number to 200 and move the empty to the other end of your plane. Add another keyframe.
If you hit Alt+A, the empty should move to other side of your plane.
With the Empty still selected, go to the Object panel (F7) and select the Physics button. In the fields panel, apply the following settings:
This will convert the texture we applied to the plane, into a wind force. The empty acts as a brush, moving the wind through the particles and causing them to react.
Play with the texture settings until you find something you like. If you want faster or slower wind, adjust the distance that the empty moves. Shorter distances make for gentler breezes, whereas greater distances make for gale force winds. Have fun!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! To stay informed on more tutorials released in the future, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.
177 Responses to “The Secret to Creating Realistic Grass”
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08. Jun, 2009
[...] http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to-creating-realistic-grass/ #blender #video #tutorial #grass simple und verdammt gut [...]
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29. Jun, 2009
[...] The Secret to Creating Realistic Grass [...]
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30. Jul, 2009
[...] Really awesome grass – http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to-creating-realistic-grass/ [...]
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22. Feb, 2010
[...] a past tutorial, as i think it gives the best grass effect. the tutorial is by blenderguru: http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to…. i have used this technique before in my post on advanced grass. the main technique that is used is [...]
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19. May, 2010
[...] my “Blender 2.5: How to Make Grass (part 1)” video, someone posted this video link http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to-creating-realistic-grass/ on http://forum.nystic.com/ Even though I made this in blender 2.5, and his tutorial only used [...]
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08. Jun, 2010
[...] my “Blender 2.5: How to Make Grass (part 1)” video, someone posted this video link http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to-creating-realistic-grass/ on http://forum.nystic.com/ Even though I made this in blender 2.5, and his tutorial only used [...]
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06. Jul, 2010
[...] my “Blender 2.5: How to Make Grass (part 1)” video, someone posted this video link http://www.blenderguru.com/the-secret-to-creating-realistic-grass/ on http://forum.nystic.com/ Even though I made this in blender 2.5, and his tutorial only used [...]
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20. Jul, 2010
[...] utilisé certaines techniques de ce tutoriel pour créer [...]
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26. Jul, 2010
[...] o setor de partículas do Blender para confeccionar o grass. Lógico que peguei um tutorial do Andrew Price para conseguir fazer [...]
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Monica Jansen
15. Jun, 2010
help me. i have installed the newest version of python, but this message still shows:
combined with python version 2.6.2.
‘inport site’ failed; use -v for traceback
checking for installed python… no installed phyton found.
only built-in modules are available. some scripts may not run.
continuing happily.
JotaSolano
16. Jun, 2010
@Monica Jansen
The version of python depends on the version of blender and your operative system. That’s why I asked you yesterday. Without that info I can’t help you… are you using 2.49a/b? or 2.5 ?.. are you using windows, linux or mac os?
Btw… that message you get usually means that you’re not using the corect version of python…
Monica Jansen
16. Jun, 2010
I got it work now. i reinstalled blender and installed python before i started blender.
Micah Lewis
18. Jun, 2010
Andrew, I must you are a genius when it comes to Blender. ONe question though thats not related to the grass, How old are you?
Dawn
22. Jun, 2010
Hi, can anyone tell me if there’s a “gravity button” on blender? i’m currently working on the particle system, but all the grass particles are sprouting beneath the plane? please help!
Angel Angelov
22. Jun, 2010
@Dawn: Flip normals first
issa retes
25. Jun, 2010
well.,i just need more explanations on how to make it.,
timbukfive
26. Jun, 2010
strg +n or strg + shift + n to recalculate normals –
editmode -> select all -> press w -> flip normals
zelozelos
13. Jul, 2010
This is a BEAUTIFUL example of grass. Only 1 thing though, could you PLEEEEAAAASSEEEE re-do in 2.5 alpha2? I know not much has changed and its far from a finished version, but Ive been trying to re-do it with 2.5 myself and cant seem to get the right results. <(
Connor
15. Jul, 2010
Finally took the time to upload it to a website, here is mine
http://gilden00.deviantart.com/art/Grassland-171379133
Reinier
15. Jul, 2010
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the great tutorial. Just two small remarks:
1). 8000 * 150 is not 120.000 but 1.200.000
2). The children particles aren’t really “faked”, but rather use the settings of the parent (therefore not needing much CU time) and then have their own variation (depending on settings). Also, 10 children to 1 parent means 11 particles in total. So in this tutorial you have 8000*150 children PLUS 8000 parent particles.
The children are also used to “clot” strands together (there are multiple patterns you can achieve), as real hair would do for example.
Mr Ben
16. Jul, 2010
Andrew is gooooooorgeous!
And such a clever guy! – wonderful tutorial
Matthew
23. Jul, 2010
as people have said in the previous posts, this is the best grass tutorial that i have come across in any 3d modeling platform i have worked with. My question is…. is there a way to shorten the length of the gras so that it is not so tall. thank you for any help!
WilSteele
24. Jul, 2010
Hey, great tutorials.
I’ve only had one problem, when I do the ‘Subdivide Multi Fractal’ step it’s dividing my plane but not creating a hilly terrain as it is only moving vertices along the x and y planes not the z plane so my finished plane after smoothing is a flat plane with rough edges.
How can I fix this?
Thx
Tyler
24. Jul, 2010
Can you please add subtitle or close caption to your video or provide another video that include it? I have hard of hearing disability and struggling to learn from most of your videos. Please and thank you.
Danny
27. Jul, 2010
In the instructions for animating the grass, what do you mean by “Add an empty at one end of the grass plane”?
Nothing visible happens when I press “i” and select Loc, and
also, when I press Alt+A, all that happens is my cursor turns into a little black box with white numbers inside and counts up without stopping. The instructions tell you what to do, but not why you’re doing it.
The narrated video is great though, but the unnarrated instructions with cropped screens leave you in the dark if you’re not sure what to do.
bruno
29. Jul, 2010
Hey Andrew
May you can recreate this tutorial in Blender 2.5x with a higer resolution of the video, so we can see the values you selected.
Connor
30. Jul, 2010
@bruno
I suggested doing natural stuff like this on march because of Earth Day so hopefully he’ll do it then.