Shave and Haircut 2 question

[Per-Anders]

i'm a shave & haircut user

yes it will do grass

i don't honestly know when it will fall over, with teh new tiles system it should be fairly safe even on larger files.

the blades of grass wont be visible normally in the viewport (you can optionally show them, but this can be slow), just the guides so pretty much any graphics card should be able to support this.

it's incredibly slow to render, be warned, if your'e using this for animation expect huge huge huge rendertimess, and always do tests before to make sure you wont get flickering etc...

[sulian]

I think xFrog can make grass. you don't need S&H for this.

Sulian

[Anadin]

I'll second that shave is slooowwww for grass. You need and insane amount of hair to get decent coverage I would probably try and use XFrog 4

[tjnyc]

Have you checked out Solid Spline Pro plugin from Paul Everetts? Here are two example images on his site

http://www.tools4d.com/

http://www.tools4d.com/solidsplines/images/the_lord_of_the_tress.jpg

http://www.tools4d.com/solidsplines/images/grasman.jpg

[jddog]

wow cool, I didn't think about Paul plug-ins... I go to chek for more infos. Ty for the links.

[AdamT]

You can do grass with Shave, but it is *not* easy. For some reason Shave gets very tricky to use when the "hair" is very short in relation to the overall size of an object. Here's a scene where I used Shave 1 to do the grass:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/A/d/AdamTrachtenberg/Side_House.jpg

[rirad]

I would be intersted to know if shave now can handle instancing. This sounds like a great feature but I think I can remember there were problems with rendering of the instances (posted on postforum if I am correct).

Anyone using shave 2 tried this feature?

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by rirad
I would be intersted to know if shave now can handle instancing. This sounds like a great feature but I think I can remember there were problems with rendering of the instances (posted on postforum if I am correct).

Anyone using shave 2 tried this feature?

It does, but my attempts to see how well were unsuccessful, due
to crashing.

[MJV]

I tried using Shave for grass once, but it didn't work out. I honestly couldn't recommend it.

[Brucie Rosch]

I posted questions about instancing on Postforum, and it doesn't work correctly, that is, texturing the instance doesn't work. I believe this is a bug that will (hopefully) get fixed eventually. I emailed Joe Alter directly, which I now know I was not supposed to do, but I got an email back from him:
-snip-

though I think it may actually be a shave bug (not unique to c4d)

joe

edit: I used S&H for a small patch of grass and it worked very well. Key phrase though: "small patch"

[acmepixel]

Shave 2 will do awsome grass. It will display lo-rez splines in the Editor. You get a choice of 2 different preview methods.

I just finished a project with Oxen pulling a Pioneer wagon across the prairie full of tall grass.

It renders fairly quickly if you tweak the settings. This poster is about 13,000pixels high (36inches).

here's some examples:
http://www.acmepixel.com/acmetemp

[jddog]

Originally posted by AdamT
You can do grass with Shave, but it is *not* easy. For some reason Shave gets very tricky to use when the "hair" is very short in relation to the overall size of an object. Here's a scene where I used Shave 1 to do the grass:




But you talk about Sahve 1, right Adam...?


Thank you to all for you really kind support !!!

julien :beer:

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by acmepixel
Shave 2 will do awsome grass. It will display lo-rez splines in the Editor. You get a choice of 2 different preview methods.

I just finished a project with Oxen pulling a Pioneer wagon across the prairie full of tall grass.

It renders fairly quickly if you tweak the settings. This poster is about 13,000pixels high (36inches).

here's some examples:
http://www.acmepixel.com/acmetemp

Good stuff. Thanks!

[Element]

http://bellsouthpwp.net/A/d/AdamTrachtenberg/Side_House.jpg

that grass is awesome, i try to use s&h2 for grass, but i cant find out, how i can add perfekt looking grass to a big area.....

-> hm...add more segments, but then its too long

-> scale the grass -> the ground appears.

pls need some help!

cheers,

[AdamT]

Been a long time, but what I did was (1) use zillions of hairs; and (2) use the "Strand" feature (3-4) with tip spread. Use low hair quality and segments (5 I think) and self-shadowing only to reduce render times--which are still pretty high. Put a green material on the ground to hide gaps. Honestly though, there was a tremendous amount of trial-and-error to get that result. Not worth the time IMO.

[aigle]

Did you heard of Hair Department?
It is not so powerfull as s&h ...but look at this thread (pic)...
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=29116&highlight=jeyjey

the grass was done in HD ;)

[hundredthirtyseven]

I've tried almost everything to get decent grass. Shave is not well fitted for short hair, that's the truth. And it is still very-very slow. However, for smaller scenes (for example a room full of grass) it's nice, but I'd recommend Hairdept for huge grass fields.
For grass fields you don't need detailed and nice hair. All you need is a huge amount of lines that only have 3 or 4 segments and 2 sidefaces, and that's what Hairdept can do.

And with Hairdept, you have much more control over wind and animation.

[AdamT]

If I had used HD instead of Shave the scene would have contained over 10 million polygons. Probably not a good idea. :)

[hundredthirtyseven]

10 million polys / (3 segment * 2 sidefaces) = 1,67 million lines. That's pretty much, are you sure? I can do your scene under 500 000 polys, and it will look better. Wanna bet? I'm serious!:)

[AdamT]

Originally posted by supremacy
10 million polys / (3 segment * 2 sidefaces) = 1,67 million lines. That's pretty much, are you sure? I can do your scene under 500 000 polys, and it will look better. Wanna bet? I'm serious!:)

It was just an estimate based on the number of hairs, but you can't be exact with Shave because it doesn't use exactly the number of hairs you specify. I'd love to see what you can come up with with HD but I wouldn't bet against you. :)

[hundredthirtyseven]

Here you are:

http://www.zenesznet.com/supremacy/grass1.jpg

I've just put some HD grass on a simple landscape object. No lightsetup, just autolight, so actually it's very simple and doesen't look that real, it could have been much better, but I'm too lazy. The only thing to note is that I've used a green-brown Rust Shader to simulate noise. I've found out that it's better than normal noise.

3 section, 2 sidefaces. 550 k polygons, and rendered in 23 seconds:) No way you can do it with Shave.

[AdamT]

Okay I'm impressed. :) Only advantage Shave might have is with memory, i.e., if you hae a scene that's already taxing your memory without grass it might still render with Shave and it might not with HD. But HD would certainly be the way to go otherwise.

[flingster]

maybe this is kinda outta line here..but did anybody try something like this with dicloner...i mean you can clone by texture..change size/rotation all sorts of options..its very very good at managing memory on instances..there are merge options etc...all you need to do is drop more than one type of low poly object in there...and maybe even in fill areas with something like displinegen..combined with solidsplinepro....
sounds like a viable and good option to me...can't say i've ever tried it...but seems on the face of it very controlable also.
:shrug:

[flingster]

ooh also forgot the syntex shader in there might prove useful.
its looking more and more attractive the more i think about it..the whole lot still controlled be textures..:shrug:

[AdamT]

I guess Jenna would be another option. But I'm not sure how those plugins treat the final product at render time. Do they make a single object or thousands of separate objects. That has a huge impact on Cinema's ability to render efficiently, i.e., it can handle a few huge objects very well but it doesn't handle thousands of small objects at all well. I think HD renders nicely because it produces a single object.

[flingster]

well that was what i was talking about..(on object>result) in terms of merge option is one object...instances..well instances...separate is well the memory killer i guess.
you also have to remember you have all the options on clone method..and colour changing..and everything can be controlled by various noise textures setup prior.

the options for final object are:
merged
separate
instances
spline.

what you think...seems a goodie to me...
:shrug:

[flingster]

scratch syntex shader part...adds to render time quite a bit.
but cloner and displinegen are all viable options i think.

EDIT: ok after a bit of testing i find..syntex shader is not that bad...what was adding to my rendertime significantly was displinegen and solidsplinespro tag..
fastest results i got was merged setting on dicloner...with a couple do dicloners...with a few different grass stalk like polys dropped in there...then play around with cloner settings according to texture...its very fast...i'm sure with some playing around you could get some great results...how it compares with HD is anybodies guess though.(i think it was around 10000polys for landscape...then 5polys for the grass object. i had two cloners set to merged..one with one with 3 grass blades and one with one grass blade...thats around 210k i think..but only shows as 83k in scene info...but maths was never a strong point..renders in around 43 secs on an amd2gig-1gigram..if this helps at all)
:shrug:

EDIT2: eerrr sorry..killed all bumff in scene..just landscape+2cloners..and defualt light..basic texture...looks s**t...but hey...21secs.

[MJV]

Originally posted by AdamT
I guess Jenna would be another option. But I'm not sure how those plugins treat the final product at render time. Do they make a single object or thousands of separate objects. That has a huge impact on Cinema's ability to render efficiently, i.e., it can handle a few huge objects very well but it doesn't handle thousands of small objects at all well. I think HD renders nicely because it produces a single object.

For grass I prefer the instanced sprite method. This image uses Mesharray resulting in 12,000 polys of grass. Render took 20 minutes at BestAA 2x2,8x8. The grass uses the Backlight shader as well which gives it the rim glow.

http://www.mvpny.com/MesharrayGrass4.jpg

[flingster]

to funny..i've just being seeing if its possible to use SSS! yeah i know nuts...but wanted to see if feasible..and i'd say "kinda"...heh heh.
the cloner..with merge is v fast...seem faster than if i make it editable...can't understand why though.

like the result or both your guys stuff...:thumbsup:

[flingster]

had to have a go...dicloner..sss(is this animatable..dunno)
the wind could have been done better..but just messin about...controlled by a noise texture...didn't test enough though.
textures are pretty simple..colour..sss in lum with a noise layer(mistake but hey).

http://www.flingster.com/cgtalk/ditools/grassani.mov

5 poly blades of grass in 2 dicloners.
dicloner 1 has just one blade of grass.
dicloner 2 has 5 blades of grass.
it very customisable which i like...landscape is 10000 polys.
dicloner 1 is 10000 clones
dicloner 2 is 60000 clones
scene info says 30000(92800) polys...so anybodies guess..not sure how dicloners show up in scene info...best antialiasing..but at x2..poss defeats object...about 3mins a frame...probably could be tweaked better.

(as to the original topic....i to have shave v2...and it is hard to make short grass...but i believe 2.5 is quicker than 2...and better quality...but not tried so can't say...i tried making instances of scales ages ago..and short grass and it was pretty tricky.)

:shrug:

[Element]

yes i know i'm a rookie, but, i think hd is a bit strange

i have a 3.2 ghz p4 and 1 gb ram

and with a landscape and hd i got a nice error:

to less memory .... bla /quit

and with s&h2 i got big blades of grass

that looks really stupid, some time if i dont scale the grass in s&h2 i got a nice x9824398729x29834 error :((

help, and my english is so bad :( sorry for this

[flingster]

Originally posted by Element
yes i know i'm a rookie, but, i think hd is a bit strange

i have a 3.2 ghz p4 and 1 gb ram

and with a landscape and hd i got a nice error:

to less memory .... bla /quit

and with s&h2 i got big blades of grass

that looks really stupid, some time if i dont scale the grass in s&h2 i got a nice x9824398729x29834 error :((

help, and my english is so bad :( sorry for this

they both sound like memory type errors i guess.
Is there anyway you can try optimising your scene elements...look at areas that may be eating memory. eg lights,
try reducing the details on the blade of grass...etc
hope this helps a little..maybe someone else has encountered the same error.

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