3D Grass and Sky

06 Apr 2010

3D grass and sky in 3ds maxThis 3ds Max tutorial covers the creation of a fresh grassland pictures. Photo is used as background and 3d grass is created with a scatter object. The final touch will be the sun which will be created with lens effects. I am using 3ds Max 2010 but this should be doable with many older versions as well.


Step 1 Choosing the Background

First choose your favorite sky photo for the background. You can of course use mine if you want to. Click on the image below to download the sky with higher resolution.

Deep blue sky and clouds

Add the sky image to background in 3ds Max:

  1. Open Environment settings ( Rendering > Environment… )
  2. Click ‘None’ button in Common Parameters
  3. Double click ‘Bitmap’ and browse for your sky image

Setting background image in 3ds max

Now the sky image appears on the background when you render.

Step 2 Grassland Hills

Next we’ll create the hilly ground:

Create a Plane in the top viewport ( Create panel > Geometry > Standard Primitives > Plane ). Go to the Modify panel and apply the following parameters:

  • Length: 47
  • Width: 173
  • Length Segs: 100
  • Width Segs: 100

Select the Plane and add Bend modifier to it (Make a selection > Modify panel > Modifier List > Object-Space Modifiers > Bend). Go to the Modify panel and apply the following parameters:

  • Angle: 80
  • Direction -90
  • Bend Axis: Y

Bend modifier in action

Select the Plane and add Wave modifier to it ( Make a selection > Modify panel > Modifier List > Object-Space Modifiers > Wave ). Go to the Modify panel and apply the following parameters:

  • Amplitude 1: 4
  • Amplitude 2: 4
  • Wave Length: 125
  • Activate Gizmo sub-object level in the Wave modifier. Go to the front viewport and rotate the gizmo 90 degrees about the Y axis. You can also move it along the X axis to determine the exact location of the hills. For the sake of this tutorial it’s not required to get exactly the same kind of effect. The idea is just to create some nice hills.

Using wave modifier

Step 3 Single Steam of 3D Grass

Next we’ll create the grass. First we create a single steam of grass and then we multiply it with the help of a Scatter object. Create a rectangle in the left viewport ( Create panel > Shapes > Splines > Rectangle ). Go to the modify panel and apply the following parameters:

  • Length: 7,78
  • Width: 0,2

Rectangle in 3ds max

Use the Line tool ( Create panel > Shapes > Splines > Line ) to draw as big triangle as you can inside the rectangle. See picture below. (The idea of the rectangle was just to get the size right).

drawing grass

Delete the rectangle. Next we’ll add some vertices to the object and bend it. Go to the Modify panel and active the Segment sub-object level and select the two vertical segments like in picture below.

Selecting segments

Divide the segments vertically to 5 parts. Picture below explains how to do this. First enter 5 and then click ‘Divide’.

Dividing segments with edit poly

Deactivate Segment sub-object level, go to the front viewport, and add Bend modifier to the Line. Apply the following parameters:

  • Angle: 58
  • Direction: 90
  • Bend Axis: Y

Bending grass in 3ds max

Activate Center sub-object level in the Bend modifier and move the center of the modifier to the bottom of the line like in picture below.

3d grass

Step 4 3D Grass with the Help of a Scatter Object

Let’s create the Scatter object. Select the steam of grass you just created. Turn the grass into a Scatter object ( Create Panel > Compound Objects > Scatter ). Apply the following settings to the Scatter object:

  • Pick Distribution Object
    • Object: The hills you created earlier
  • Scatter Objects
    • Duplicates: 30000 ( Warning, this will generate 330 000 polygons. If you are low on memory you might want to try smaller values first. Furthermore you might want to increase this value if you’ll create a very high resolution render. If your workflow gets sticky because of the high poly grass you could decrease this value for now and increase it just before the final rendering. )
    • Perpendicular: OFF
    • Distribute Using: Random Faces
  • Transforms
    • Rotation X: 25
    • Rotation Y: 180
    • Rotation Z: 25
    • Scaling Y: 25
  • Display
    • Hide Distribution Object: ON

grass with scatter

Step 5 Grass Material in 3ds Max

Now we’re ready to create and apply the material for both the hills and the grass. Open the Material Editor ( Rendering > Material Editor… ) and apply the the following:

  1. Select both objects and apply a new material to them
  2. 2-Sided: ON
  3. Diffuse: Green (R86 G167 B0)
  4. Specular Level: 30
  5. Glossiness: 0
  6. Soften: 1,0

grass material

Create a camera ( Create panel > Cameras > Target ) in the top viewport and place it according to picture below. Activate the Perspective view and turn it into a camera view by pressing C in keyboard. Go to rendering settings ( Rendering > Render Setup > Common Parameters > Output Size ) and match your rendering resolution with the resolution of the background photo. Render your 3ds Max grass and you’ll get something like this:

3ds max grass

Step 7 The Sun

Now is time to create the sun.

Create an Omni light ( Create > Lights > Standard > Omni ). Go to the modify panel and apply the following parameters:

  • Click General Parameters > Exclude…
  • New dialog appears, just select ‘Include’ in the top of the dialog and click OK. Now the Omni light doesn’t illuminate any object.

Add Lens Effects to the Omni light:

  • Open Effects panel ( Rendering > Effects… )
  • Click ‘Add…’ button and choose Lens Effects from the list. Click ‘OK’.
  • Click ‘Pick Light’ and select the Omni light
  • Minimize ‘Lens Effects Globals’ section
  • Add Glow and Ray effects with the following parameters:

Lens effects settings for sun

Render your grasslands and you’ll see the shining sun!

Grasslands and sun

As soon as the first light is created the default illumination of 3ds max turns off. Additionally we modified the include/exclude parameters so that the omni doesn’t illuminate anything. That’s why the 3d grass appears black.

Step 6 Illuminate Your 3ds Max Grass

The final step of this tutorial is to create a more interesting illumination. Create Target Directional Light ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > Target Direct ). Go to the Modify panel and apply following parameters to the light:

  • General Parameters
    • Shadows: ON
  • Intensity/Color/Attenuation
    • Intensity: 0,7
  • Directional Parameters
    • Hotspot/Beam: 92
    • Falloff/Field: 94
  • Shadow Map Params
    • Size: 4096

Create a Skylight ( Create panel > Lights > Skylight ) Go to the modify panel and apply the following parameters to it:

  • Multiplier 0,4
  • Sky Color: light yellow (R255, G255, B221)

Place the target light according to the picture below.

light placement in 3d max

Activate Light Tracer ( Rendering > Light Tracer… ) and apply the following settings:

GI with light tracer

Now just render the image and you’re done. Beware, the rendering might take a long time.

3d grass

Ok, that’s it for now. Let’s continue in the comments!

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48 Responses to “3D Grass and Sky”

  1. Anderson says:

    I`ve been trying go make a realistic unfolding magazine but with no success ( I’m a newb at CG). Your stuff is great for people like me, I like your blog a lot. It`s on my Delicious. Keep the good work up !

  2. LSerrano says:

    Ahh!! the amazing scanline xD… thanks for this bro.
    Greetings.

  3. Eny Erawati says:

    delicious ….
    clear explanation,
    like it so much
    thank you

    • franciz says:

      ok

  4. Shasith says:

    Yap hes explaining very clearly like it lot thanks, a lot bro :)

  5. SERG says:

    GOOOOOD =)

  6. Chandana says:

    High 5..
    you are the man bro…
    keep it up….

  7. uzair says:

    thanks for the tutorial. was using hair and fur and my notebook seemed slow. Anyway, i am stuck at the gizmo part. I can’t rotate or move the thing. When i select the plane, whether i click move or rotate, the plane won’t move but the selection box. any idea how to move it? would appreciate fast response as projects due soon.

    • polygonblog says:

      Not sure what’s going on. Maybe you could send me your file and I’ll try to help. I’ll contact you by mail.

    • Mathias says:

      Heej,
      do you know what the problem was here,
      because i’ve got the same question… :o )
      i select the gizmo and he only rotating the box als total block,
      so i can’t make it curved..

      but again,
      great tutorial if i look to the result!!

      greetz

  8. Aramil87 says:

    Thank u so much! :D

  9. IBRAHIM ABU ARRH says:

    It is a nice job
    THANK YOU >>>???<<<

  10. Abhrajit Das says:

    SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL

  11. Youngkie Pratama says:

    Great tutorial! very clear and catchy!…. hope you make another great tutorial…

  12. Mathias says:

    hi,

    i’ve got a problem with the first render
    with the sun…
    First he gave an error but i could solute that
    by changing the frame buffer type ( F10 > Render > Sampling Quality > Frame Buffer Type )to Interger (16 bits per channel) instead of Floating Point (32 bits per channel)

    but now when i hit render i get the error:

    MSG 0.0 error: “Lens Effects” effect expected unsupported GBuffer channel “transparency”

    can someone help please?

    greez

    mathias

    • polygonblog says:

      Sounds like you are using Mental Ray. This was designed for scanline renderer…

      • Mathias says:

        You are my hero ;o)
        that was indeed the problem!

    • shahab ahmad says:

      helo mthias.i am shahab from pakistan.i really like this software but there is no institute in my city.so i request you if you know something about this software please guide me.reply must.

  13. Uzair says:

    Alright, so i downloaded 2010 version instead of 2011 and got through the whole tutorial with ease. Al though i skipped where there was error, i still continued. Anyway, i am unable to make the grass. I did the 4th step twice, on different object as well, but just can’t get it on :(

    Emailed the author but no reply. Maybe something wrong with email. So if the author is reading this, please email! I will send copy of the file.

    • polygonblog says:

      I’m on holiday at the moment. I’ll contact you when I’m at home again (in one week).

  14. Donald says:

    great tutorila but how i can animate grass?

  15. Trump says:

    Great tutorial – though – i am also having trouble with the gizmo like two other people. It seems when i apply the wave – and select gizmo to rotate it, it selects the whole box yellow outline instead of sections on the actual plane.

    Any help would be appreciative, thanks !

    • polygonblog says:

      It sounds like you are doing it correctly. The yellow box is the gizmo and you should rotate it 90 degrees about the Y axis in the front viewport.

  16. cup says:

    good explanation .. added forward hopefully this blog, plus a lot of the tutorial .. very useful for me .. thanks very much ..

    Every one MUST Bookmark This Page ….

  17. Ovejo_Black says:

    La verdad que están muy buenos estos tutoriales, no conocía esta web. Saludos.

  18. Frost_CZ says:

    Hello, this is a great Tutorial. Very well written and understandable.

    But I have problem. When I go Render, on the hills I have a very litle grass steams even if I duplicate 65000. In views (prespective,front) it is look good but after Render greater part disappears. I have 3DsMax 2009.

    Can someone help me, please?

  19. CSPen says:

    i was having a problem with rotating the gizmo of the wave modifier. you explained it perfectly, but i was having a problem seeing it. i switched to working in all four view ports where i was better able to grab the Y axis and rotate it to achieve what you had in your screenshot.

    love the site. granted i’m jumping from the monster to the warehouse lighting tutorial. i’ve decided just to do them from the start. :) keep up the great work.

  20. Lazaro' says:

    Very nice tutorial, nice explanation ( but the render takes me like 2 houres rofl ) good job dude & keep going !!

  21. Poer says:

    Beautiful! It takes 4 hr to render with my old CPU:( Anyway, thanks for your great tutorial!

  22. modenagrunch says:

    This is hands down one of the best tutorials. I really like how you direct by telling us where to get the items. Oustanding!Thank you for making my life a little easier.

  23. ArmzzWare says:

    Dude your F’in Awesome, you made that so simple to follow..exactly what i was looking for! thanks alot!
    I really recommend you open a youtube channel i’d subscribe to you anyday!

  24. Julian says:

    Hi, i have a problem with the first render of the sun, i render it in scanline renderer but it always appears like it’s in front of the camera, and it covers almost all the render, please help

  25. shahab ahmad says:

    nice job. keep it up.thanks

  26. Nicolas says:

    all your tutorials are fantastic, siple steps and explanations to make great thinks, im using 3ds 1 half year and this tutorial are so helpfull, thank you !

  27. Jeff says:

    wow…thumbs up!

  28. Dee says:

    Tutorial is great, but I have problem with the sun :(
    It didnt show up :( and I did everything as written :(
    Please help!

  29. mohammed sa'eed says:

    you are the man , soooooooooooooooooooo brilliant
    but so heavy render :D
    i appreciate your tutorial so damn much bro

  30. Mukul says:

    Hi, Good to see your tutorials !

    Nicely explained all your tutorials are superb !

    Well i am having a problem in omni light setting

    ( Click General Parameters > Exclude) ???

    Thanks !

  31. dillon says:

    If I were to but a soccer ball on the hill, how would i keep the soccer ball from glowing to brightly with all of the lighting?

  32. Tahira says:

    Um i am trying to set up the light and when i render, a dialogue box comes up saying
    “The following render effects are not compatible with the bitmap format selected for rendering. The selected bitmap format is: RGBA Colour 32 Bits/Channel
    Lens Effect

    what set up do i need?

  33. Col. Hati says:

    Thank you very much for this splendid tutorial, this is exactly what I was looking for. Came up as the first search result. Much obliged :)

  34. student says:

    Have a problem. When I go to add the compound object with the grass stem selected and click scatter the grass disapears. I continued anyways but when I get done and select my terrain as the distribution object nothing is duplicated.

    I can still find the grass stem’s vertics but nothing else.

    Please if anyone could tell my what im doing wrong?
    Or tell my where I could find a tutorial on how to do grass that is seen in AAA industry games it would be very helpful thank you.

    • polygonblog says:

      Hi! Not sure what is going on, but try to create the grass stem with polygons. Start with plane, edit vertices with Edit Poly, and bend with the Bend modifier.

  35. Masashiro says:

    Wow i am blown away by this!!!

  36. Seb says:

    Hi,
    First of all thank you for this tutorial!
    I’m having some problems with the shadow areas; my grass is completely saturated… could somebody help me please?
    Thanks

  37. still says:

    hello all….
    thanks for polygon blog….i like polygon blog…..

  38. Jr.D says:

    your the best thanks for the help Polygonblog

  39. Calvin says:

    Great tutorial! Keep em coming and THANKS!

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