The Secret to Creating Realistic Grass
Posted on 22. May, 2009 by Andrew Price in Tutorials
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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 rendertimes 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.
93 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 [...]
dambs
23. May, 2009
Another clear tutorial for a great result…
Is it possible to show the shortcuts you are using during the screencast…?
Thanks very much.
Craigsnedeker
23. May, 2009
Gotta problem. Everytime I render, blender crashes. Even your download. What do you think is wrong?
Craigsnedeker
23. May, 2009
Wait … nvm, forget that last comment. Your download seems to be working, maybe I didn’t let my project load. All well I’ll try again Monday, this tutorial really looks awesome. Best grass tutorial for blender in the world, and I mean it. I’ve done other ones and none of them turned out this realistic!!
Philippe Roubal
24. May, 2009
Hi,
Great video tutorial.
Your grass setup is really good and your grass is very nice.
Thank you for sharing , and congratulations !
Philippe.
Craig Jones
24. May, 2009
Awesome work – very good tutorial, and very detailed explanations
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Craigsnedeker
25. May, 2009
My grass is all patchy with black areas! What did I do wrong?
Andrew Price
25. May, 2009
Hi Craig,
That sounds very strange. Can you upload the render to imageshack and post the link?
Craigsnedeker
25. May, 2009
Ok I can tomarrow. BTW Are you on blenderartists? I am, my username is Jesusfrk14. Lol.
Radialronnie
26. May, 2009
very well done. I would pay for tutorials like this!
ROUBAL
26. May, 2009
Hi, Andrew,
Your mavelous tutorial inspired me a lot, and I wanted to thank you with something better than words.
So, I have thought a lot about how to mow the lawn, and I have made an other tutorial on this topic as well as a tracks creator to allow your cars ot other things leave tracks in the grass !
http://3d-synthesis.com/tutorialsenglish.html
http://3d-synthesis.com/tutorialsfrench.html
http://3d-synthesis.com/35-LawnMower.html
Thanks again and enjoy !
Philippe.
nicolas
27. May, 2009
Super good settings that will make me save time, that’s exactly what I need.
Thanks you Andrew!
I want also to thank Roubal, I’m studying out the tutorial on “Cars_Autodrive.blend”
really thank you!
DoctorSalt
29. May, 2009
Hello, thanks a lot for the tutorial! By the way, i’ve been experiencing this ‘black splotchy-ness” effect also. Here is an example: http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/ss267/Doctor_Salt/grass_glitch.png
This is a flat plane with absolutely no divisions or ’slopes’, made to try and narrow down the problem (no luck). Any ideas?
Andrew Price
30. May, 2009
Hi DoctorSalt.
Is that render taken using the wind effect, explained above?
If so, try (temporarily) deleting the empty, and let me know if that changes anything.
DoctorSalt
30. May, 2009
For the above, I just used one grass layer effect (Nothing else) and I made no attempt to animate anything yet. Perhaps soon I can upload the .blend file somewhere….
Edward
31. May, 2009
Thank`s for nice tutorial, I found it very helpful!
Zephyris
04. Jun, 2009
Truly excellent tutorial, pitched at a great level. Please, please make some more like this!
Zika
04. Jun, 2009
Awsome tutorial, very helpfull. Thank you for sharing this!!
jedihe
04. Jun, 2009
What a great tutorial! smart, efficient setup and beautiful results!
Thanks a lot for sharing!
jedihe
tabula
04. Jun, 2009
16:05 made me lol a little
great tutorial btw
ArtistenT
04. Jun, 2009
Very good tutorial, excellent!
Here is my result:
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii52/Programmerer/Grass.jpg
Thanks!
2kemon
04. Jun, 2009
Sorry for the dumb question – I’m a total newbie with blender. But wil the generated particle system follow the plane, if I scale it? And can i copy/paste the particle system to another plane? This would be vey usefull for arch viz scenes that I generate in sketchup. I’m considering importing these into blender, to add vegetation and render from blender. And I did´t quite get which value changes the length of the grass/particles. Was it the “normal” value?
Ike
04. Jun, 2009
Excellent tutorial Andrew, thanks!
Just one question, why does the texture need to have those low alpha values for the strands? I tried making them all 1.0 and I didn’t notice much of a difference in the render.
MasterSam
04. Jun, 2009
Very nice, and looks awesome
Liked the way to use the flowers
Jason Lei
04. Jun, 2009
Nice tutorial, it’s helped a good bit. BTW are you Aussie?
The Novice Oof
04. Jun, 2009
well, thanks a bunch for your tutorial: I started out with grass that looked like this:
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt138/thenoviceoof/anim3/planet2.png
and ended with grass that looked like this!
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt138/thenoviceoof/anim3/grass2.png
@2kemon:
the system will scale with the plane. As far as I know, you can’t copy paste a particle system, although there might be a way to work around it (particleinstance in modifiers?). Yes, the normal value controls how far out the grass goes
Ben
04. Jun, 2009
Type your comment here…
Ben
04. Jun, 2009
Crap. What I meant to say was:
Nice tutorial! Not sure what the logic behind the transparency in the middle of the strands was about, but it looks good.
Roger
04. Jun, 2009
Andrew. Many thanks. An excellent tutorial. I will have to replay a number of times to get all the adjustments into my brain.
Very enjoyable, can’t wait to give it a go.
ros
05. Jun, 2009
Excellent! Professional! Realistic! thank u for this!
mrunion
05. Jun, 2009
Excellent, excellent, excellent!
Craigsnedeker
05. Jun, 2009
You should submit your tutorials to pixel2life.com!
RNS
05. Jun, 2009
great!! but I have made some change in setting to lower the render time to a minus time. thanks and hope to see more
of your work.
ghyselsguy65
05. Jun, 2009
will the particles be there for in a game? and if now how can i make them be there as grass? or wouldn’t that work? but if it can can u tell me how to do that and make it interactive w/ objects that are in it (exe: being pushed aside)?
Jamie Douglas
06. Jun, 2009
Why did you set the lights so high? I tried it and there was way too much light.
d4rkm4r3
06. Jun, 2009
Thanks for your really helpful video tutorial. It helped me to understand the particle-children-thing.
mrunion
06. Jun, 2009
I must be completely ignorant somewhere, but I cannot for the like of me figure out how ROUBAL (the lawn mower comment/tutorial) got the particles to be affected by the image textures. Can someone give me more details on this? I would like to just test out the crop circles, but I just can’t get my grass to do anything but change colors!
mrunion
06. Jun, 2009
OK, I think I may have gotten it….
mrunion
06. Jun, 2009
Nope, still can’t get anything but a colored output. I can get the circles colors, but not the actual particles getting less dense or “crushed down”.
Matt
06. Jun, 2009
OK, FINALLY! I got it. After reading the lawn mower tute 6 times, it sunk in that scaling UP actually scales DOWN in a certain step. Arrrggghhhh!
ghyselsguy65
07. Jun, 2009
Something is wrong w/ my file, the lighting seems off. Mainly it was too strong before but then i lowered its strength and now its alright, but it doesn’t seem right and it also doesn’t show all the grass lit up. Some patches in the far back are black, and also i don’t think my lighting is hitting the flowers right because some are really dark, and they’re floating above the grass. Can someone help me?
rafa
08. Jun, 2009
when i render it blender block… and can’t do anything else.. please help. too slow computer?
earlthegrey
08. Jun, 2009
Thank you very much Andrew!
It’s the best Tutorial on Grass i’ve seen in a long Time.
Just one Thing, in the Materialpanel where you set Surface Diffunse to 3.3 and the Start/End Value to 1.3/0.25 why did’nt you activate the “Use Blender Units” Button to make the settings affect the Stands?
rtownsend
10. Jun, 2009
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/2317/realgrass.png
kacper
11. Jun, 2009
wow !! really good tutorial !! thanks !! http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4347/grasscnb.jpg
Andrew Price
11. Jun, 2009
Whoa nice work rtownsend and kacper!
One small crit rtownsend: It seems you may have set your rough setting to high. But other than that, nice work
rtownsend
12. Jun, 2009
Rough2: 0.200
Size2: 0.520
Thresh: .080
Same as the tutorial. Maybe something else?
simon.void
14. Jun, 2009
soccer field http://blendpolis.de/a/fu_ball_19025.jpg
ROUBAL
15. Jun, 2009
Nice soccer field picture ! well done.
ghyselsguy65
18. Jun, 2009
Hello?!?! can you help me? Something is wrong w/ my file, the lighting seems off. Mainly it was too strong before but then i lowered its strength and now its alright, but it doesn’t seem right and it also doesn’t show all the grass lit up. Some patches in the far back are black, and also i don’t think my lighting is hitting the flowers right because some are really dark, and they’re floating above the grass. Can someone help me?
Here is a link to the render plz, comment on how I can improve it. Thx!
http://s606.photobucket.com/albums/tt147/ghyselsguy65/?action=view¤t=unfinishedgrass.jpg
Rob
23. Jun, 2009
What settings would you use for the green of a golf course?