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Share via E-mailThis 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.
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.
It’s Wonderfull
I really hope Andrew decides to redo this with Blender 2.5x. It’s difficult since 2.5 has different default values than in 2.49 when you create a particle system or something in materials.
u r soo good with this bro, i am wishing to creat my own game and i am going to follow all of your tutorials.
u r S000000 good with blender.
hey, i can’t find the “subdivide multi fractal function in blender 2.55 there’s only “subdivide” and “subdivide smooth” :/
help pls!
You just need to press W in edit mode, and the select “Subdivide.
Then press T to open the toolbox, and there will you see the fractal options.
update for blender 2.5
Nice work andrew. Really appreciate the effort you go to to help us noobs learn the ropes.
One question.
I am using 2.5 beta and seems my some of my children end up in the -z quadrant ( below the emiter mesh) is there something I’ve done wrong or missed. my field looks fantastic and I even copied the mesh to add a deep brown dirt with clouds as an alpha / noise mesh that seems to get it looking quite unique. its just these strands below the ground that are driving me crazy.
@ jansteffen. you select subdivide and all the functions are there . in 2.5 they cut back on alot of the similar menus and compacted them into one.
how it works on a macbook
Hi, pretty cool
I have a question, how can I export as an obj file without lost of details.
Thanks
I have played with the settings of the grass a little and found a way to make the grass better for “cartoon-style”.
Instead of rendering the grass with the materials from black to yellow, you can use textures, add cloud settings and in color use the ramp to set different shades of green.
Offcourse, the grass in the tutorial is more photo-realistic
Windy Grass.
Maybe this tutorial could be updated. I was mashing up this video with the simulated cloth video using 2.5β. When i applied the wind generator to the scene the grass responded.
Also, in 2.5β, my flowers keep ending up in orbit, laying down, and refusing to look up at the sun, where ever that is.
Sorry, still working on that scene, still on a learning curve that looks like Mt. McKinley. The thing evolves faster than the documentation for it.
Man, how do you know this things… it’s amazing what one can do with blender. Great tutorial. Keep ‘em coming!
using 2.56 and i cant seem to get the sky image to appear when i render. anybody know why?
@Jansteffen re:fractal subdivide, how to find it in Blender 2.5.
In a blender default window in edit mode you should see a mesh tools menu on the left. If you can’t see it, click on the small “+” symbol in the upper left corner of the window.
In that menu, find the sub heading, “ADD”. Ensure the mesh (default box) is selected and then click on “subdivide” this will subdivide the box and generate a drop down menu titled “subdivide”. One of the options in that drop down menu is “fractal”
I am very confusing with this render software how to use please help me clearly
Thom, I had the same problem with 2.5 — it looked like a field of dying flowers with them all lying on the ground! Rotation > Initial Rotation > Object Y — seems to fix the problem.
This is a awesome tutorial ! He is not complicated and accecible to everyone. I have 14 years old and do this is now a cake for me. Tank you very much !….
Execuse me for my poor english… I’m just a quebecor ^^.
Here is a screenshot showing the location of the number of cuts option of the subdivide tool in Blender 2.56 Beta:
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/9558/subdiv.png
Hope it helps!
I would greatly appreciate that ebook on how to make fire.
Thanks, Richard
I relay like this tutorial and it is very easy to follow when using 2.49, But I get lost when truing to recreate it in 2.5 I hope you will update it for 2.5, but even if you don’t it is great work and thank you for sharing it with us.
took me a while to adapt this one on blender 2.5 but i think the result turned out quite ok: http://wp.me/p1qI8f-1q
Thanks for awesome tutorial. I’m newbee in Blender and here is my output:
http://img26.imageshack.us/i/grass3.jpg/
I’m not quite sure about a white reflexion in the grass. It come from the light or something’s wrong in the model. Anyone has idea?
Andrew – I’ve been reading and watching your tutorials for a while now and have just finished this one. As thorough and professional as ever. You are a natural and I have learned an awful lot from you about this wonderful application. For that I thank you. Keep up the good work mate.
Matt (London)
Perfect tutorial for a newbie like me
here is my grass with a man: http://www.shrani.si/f/1r/SL/26wBIwzB/proba2.jpg
I managed to complete this tutorial under 2.57.1 beta with very few errors in translation.
Here is the result of me merging your tree tutorial with your grass tutorial – http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaron-newton/5709708365/in/photostream/lightbox/
Still a WIP but I’m happy about where this is going. It sucks that the tree script hasn’t been ported yet – I had to complete his section in a 2.49 archive build from the Blender site. It looks like you might cover this in your new nature series?
for subdivide multifractual on newer editions hit subdivide then simply press “F6″ this is most likely the same for all tool variants which you cant find example “knife”-multicut,midcut
hope this helps
To Subdivide Fractal do a normal Subdivide then on the left side change the fractal to your desired amount.
I’m having problems with the light.
Frist lamp: http://i51.tinypic.com/2010jh1.png
Second lamp: http://i53.tinypic.com/2h3ojrq.png
Positon top view: http://i54.tinypic.com/13ydjwo.png
Render I get : http://i53.tinypic.com/5vskfs.png
I followed all the steps in the video till minute 13… why i get this so brilliant?
i like your grass Andrew, i was wonderring if i could use it for my school project, it a soccer ball sceen
Hey you should redo this for 2.5, it would solve many problems for people. It wouldn’t take you long at all.
Seriously redo this tutorial. So to anyone having problems finding where to put down the alpha value in 2.5 when he’s talking at around 12:50 ish to get the grass to disappear in the preview box there, it’s in the materials section under transparency also the same place where he tells you to select Z-Transparancy.
See he really needs to redo this, really it shouldn’t be that hard since you already know pretty much everything, come on throw us a bone redo your old tutorials. Really it shouldn’t be hard.
Does he even read these I wonder?!
Oh and not to mention under mapping in the textures panel where it says generated in that tab will be the
(Strand\Particle) you need to select that.
Then under influence in the textures tab you check alpha and make sure it’s all the way up then you should be up-to-date as according to the video up to about. 12:59ish.
Yeah now Andrew you’re a good tutorial maker, however I really do hope you fix these videos, it’s like leaving a dead link. It’s really annoying. It shouldn’t cost you any effort to remake this in Blender 2.5. Please seriously consider doing so.
Thank you for all the other tutorials you made.
2.5 should be standard for all your tutorials, you should spend a weekend and remake them all. I would do it.
Cheers, Gary.
Time to update with Blender 2.5. I would really appreciate it.
Error: Software used in this tutorial is not 2.5 but 2.49..
This is not 2.5
Fantastic write-up. I had been looking at this blog i’m impressed! Useful info especially the last portion
I attend to these information a lot. I needed this particular information for a very long time. Thank you so much and all the best ..
Magnifique, sublime, superbe, fantastique ! I’m surprised by the incredible realism of this grass. I’m trying to realize it, it’s easy to follow but the path is complex and little difficult to understand sometimes. I think we must experiment all button during a long time.
Very Fantastic !
Very professionnal Andrew.
Hello !
I have a beautiful effect here :
http://storage.canalblog.com/58/40/738367/68312820.jpg
It’s very sweet … but “it’s not my fault” I couldn’t understand why flowers doesn’t link with grass and float at different level.
Thank you if you have an explanation
Hello Andrew,
Very nice tutorial. But I would really appreciate if you could point out the Settings counterpart in Blender 2.58. I was lost trying to follow especially when the settings name/labels are not the same.
Thanks.
This is Blender 2.49, not Blender 2.5. There is a error in the Discription
For some reason when I animate my grass, it moves smoothly for a period of time (.5s), and then it randomly jerks for a little while and then resumes smooth motion for another random amount of time. What could be going on here? If someone could help me I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!
this is my home work, but I used 2.59 to make it and referred to some other tutorials
http://davydang.blogspot.com/2011/10/wind-blowing-and-grass-in-blender-259.html
Mr Price,
Please, I implore you, can you do a remake of this tutorial for blender 2.6
I’m trying very hard to get it to work, but it is steadfastly refusing. Your provided scene opens fine, but the names of things have changed all over the place, I can make nothing of it. So please, I beg of you, remake this.
<3
Will
Here is my attemp in Blender 2.6, i dont like it very much, but well, i will try to improve it in the future, thanks Andrew Price, a very great tutorial !!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2136809775822&l=082ae587b8
your job is too excellent,i need basic tutorial for blender 2.56 beta