Forests in maya mental ray.

#521

So here is a test im working on and just seeing what anyone thinks of it… Obviously I havent completed it because I just want to know if its looking okay first.

Thanks

#522

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/new_layouttools2011_for_maya2011

#523

thank visua…

Looking for your grass tutor and how u setting wormlight! for grass!!

#524

Hi friends Now, How to Work out sunbeams with mentalray sun and sky…

#525

So here is a test that I did and I think it came out decent. But, I got one big problem that I been trying to fix and have yet to control or figure out. Thats trying to not have my instanced proxies show up in the reflections. I have tried creating overrides for all patches of grass and it still shows up.

Is there a way to control this? I really hope so…thanks

#526

you could use an mip_rayswitch shader on the grass object with “transmat” plugged into the reflection slot and the normal grass shader in the eye slot.

#527

hmmm…didnt even think of using that. Excellent idea, will give it a try.

also, can I get any kind of critique as far as how the grass looks please? :blush:

(didnt render in high quality, so it there maybe some AA)

#528

OK. So my scene is basically done. Its about 1min 30sec fly through. Obviously having thousands of patches of grass being in my scene is going to be a little heavy. Is there a way to animate the visibility of whats in the camera view? Like the patches of grass thats on the opposite side of the building I really dont need to be included in the render…

Thanks

Should I be looking into LOD (level of detail) or is there some other perhaps better, maybe easier way.

Nevermind. Feel like a noob. Figured it out. Thanks for the help anyway.

#529

Here’s my quick and dirty test with the guides from this thread. Thank you all for your generous sharing. This thread is awesome. I used just a basic astroturf preset from the PaintFX, and instanced it around with a procedurally textured mia_material_x. I wasn’t very careful with the instancing and placement, so I’ll probably fix that for the overhead shot.

#530

A bit of repeating patterns there Andrei, but otherwise looks awesome.
Mind showing your grass patch before the instancing?

Also, are you using depth-mapped shadows?
Was there color correction done in post or is this straight out of MentalRay?

#531

That is some beautiful shading/lighting work. Grass looks really nice!

#532

Thanks guys. I’ll be testing the effect on trees as well next, as soon as I can get a good model set up.

Nathan - Colour grading, depth of field, atmosphere, vignetting, slight fringe, and sharpening were all added in post.

Here is the patch of astroturf paintFX, with the textured plane beneath, straight out of mentalRay, without any post. Nothing fancy. It works best as a field. If I turn this into a finished scene, I’ll create maybe three different patches, then instance those around without visible patterns.

#533

very nice…

so do you find your results more satisfying on a grass textured plane or have you tried a dirt texture instead? I’d imagine you get away with a bit less geometry with the grass textured version though to disguise some of the open space…

Also, how are you actually distributing this patch across your field? Scatter plugin? Some sort of paint geometry tool?

#534

Nathan - Like you mentioned, the textured ground helps with the open spots. My goal was to achieve the look of a healthy, freshly mowed lawn. A dark dirt texture would require more grass blades in order to work, so I opted for the grass texture instead. In real life, unless you go really close to this type of grass, you won’t be able to see much of the ground underneath. There’s dead grass blades there, clippings, and moss.

I just instanced the single group manually, and then instanced again large groups and moved them around. I didn’t use the paint script or any automated scattering method.

#535

that’s some nice Pfx grass

#536

Tiny, that grass looks great! Inspired me to just bang out some quick PFX-based grass too. My first attempt, I made the initial grass patch too heavy (~500k polys) and it was boggy and rendered slowly. Second attempt was a little better, I hope:

I use the paint script, then set the x and z rotations back to zero, then lightly randomize those. Here’s 190 instances with a cheap sky. No SSS, but translucency and our other favorites. It’s getting easier.

#537

Awesome! That’s lookin real slick. This thread is such an awesome repository of knowledge and examples of what’s possible with maya and mr. I think I’m gettin inspired myself… :slight_smile:

#538

Actually repetitions are not that bad too from that distance. At first glance they seem real patterns left from a lawnmower wheels! Or mabye the high quality of the image is forcing my brain to find a solution for repetitions :slight_smile:
Congraturations to InfernalDarkness too :beer:

#539

thank you for sharing some of your techniques Tiny…

I’ve been doing my lawns with fur - and getting horrendous render times (and hitting memory limits very quickly.)

#540

The biggest problem I’ve had with mental ray and Fur are “Not a Number” (NaN) errors. Sometimes you’ll just get black spots in your fur-grass. Well, I got 'em a lot anyway. Also the rendertimes aren’t great, and the detail/shading isn’t as realistic as kickass mia_material_x’s on actual poly plants either…

This method is tedious at first, but you get faster and once you have a decent initial “patch” of grass, you’re pretty much set! Same technique we’ve been using for other plants and trees.