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Whether you’re into archviz, concept art, or animation, watch this video to see if this add-on can speed up your workflow for natural environments .

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What You’ll Learn in This Video

In this tutorial, we take a look at the Vegetation Add-On V6 for Blender and explore its latest update. The video walks you through the setup process and shows practical examples of how to use the add-on in your projects.

You’ll learn:

• How to install and configure the Vegetation add-on in Blender.
• What’s new in version 6, including over 120 additional plants and ready-made biomes.
• How to add, scatter, and adjust plants in a scene.
• Ways to work with the library system.
• Scattering massive forests (with free Gscatter and Biome Reader plugins)
• The seasons system
• Wind
• Practical uses for forests, ground cover, and natural scene details.

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Links and Credits:

Renders:

Artur Szóstakowski

Black Image

gurjas.studios

Reynante Martinez

William Landgren – Impetus Blender Short

dr.papperoni

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Music:

Way back when – Patrick Patrikios

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Blender Add-ons and Asset Packs:

Tree Vegetation – Tree And Plant Animation Library Addon (affiliate link)

Geoscatter

Biome Reader (free)

Gscatter (free)

Foundations of the Earth (affiliate link)

Polyhaven nature models (free)

Baga Ivy Generator

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Sketchfab models:

Charlton Auxiliary Pumping Station by artfletch (CC Attribution)

Moss covered rock pile by Lassi Kaukonen (CC Attribution)

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Blender tutorials:

Vegetation V6 for Blender: what’s new? (official)

Vegetation Add-On V6 Review & Tutorial | Blender Nature Made Easy?

New Realistic Terrain Library for Blender | Foundations of the Earth

Outdoor Lighting in 3D | Is there a magic formula?

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Our Other Courses and Tutorials You May Also Like

New Realistic Terrain Library for Blender | Foundations of the Earth

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Outdoor Lighting in 3D – is There a Magic Formula?

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The post Vegetation Add-On V6 Review & Tutorial | Blender Nature Made Easy? appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

Does this sound familiar: you desperately want to create nature scene for your portfolio, but don’t know where to start? Or you are struggling with particle systems and end up making a boring grass lawn (insane render time included)? Then watch this tutorial.

In this tutorial which we will go through creating a nature render in Blender, step by step. Actually, it will take us only 10 steps to get the result.

We are also going to use The Grass Essentials pack by Andrew Price. I’m sure you have heard about it, because Blender community seems to go crazy about it. 

Having a Nature Render in Your Portfolio is Beneficial, Even if You Specialize in Machinery.

It doesn’t matter if you are well-versed in making hard surface industrial drills, it is still okay to try something new an make a nature render.

Why?

1.  Showcase your lighting skills (subsurface scattering, translucency, complex objects)

2. Brag about complex particle systems

3. Rare opportunity to obtain a dominantly green picture. No kidding. If you love green.

“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”
Hal Borland

The Interest for Nature Renders is Still Huge

I was pretty much obliged to talk one more time about creating nature renders.

Why?

Because the previous How to Make a Grass Field tutorial gathered nearly 100.000 views on Youtube. Amazing! For me, it means that the interest for nature renders is very high. Before we move on to actual tutorial, I’d want to say thanks to each one of you and keep being awesome!

One more reason behind it was the exposure which The Grass Essentials Pack gained in Blender community. Having tested it extensively, I want to share with you one more way of using the Grass Essentials Pack.

Hopefully, just by following this advice you will eventually make a nice nature render for your portfolio.

This is especially true if you just begin struggling with greenery, and have troubles with overly complex scenes and mind-boggling particle settings.

Want to Learn More About Lighting in Nature?

Discover a new way to look at lighting in nature scenes by reading this tutorial.

Imagine a brightly glowing grass blades, swaying in the wind. What you actually see here is the light itself, captured inside a translucent foliage. While probably you can’t see the light photons traveling through space, you can see how they interact with matter.

Original Blender Tutorial: How to Make a Grass Field

Watch the tutorial which started it all. Over its lifetime, it received nearly 100.000 views, woah!

Bonus Tutorial: 5 Tips for Creating a Wild Grass Field, That Looks Believable

And here is even more learning (as if you aren’t tired of it already).

If you feel like learning some tips and tricks on making a digital nature, make sure to check this tutorial.

I have compiled some useful bits to help you with complex grass scenes like the ones you see on the picture.

Where Can I Get the Grass Essentials?

On Blender Guru website. Or alternatively, you can buy it using my referral link. I will appreciate it, because if you make a purchase using this link, I will receive the percentage of its cost. And it will let me to renew my coffee supplies. Sure thing.

Share Your Renders in the Comments!

Rendered nature? Feel free to share it in the comments together with the link to your blog/website/social media.

The post How to Create Nature Render for Your Portfolio in Blender, in 10 Steps? appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

Learn a new way of looking at 3D nature scenes.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TUTORIAL:

1. A Few Words About the Grass Essentials Pack for Blender and Why It’s Trending

2. Sketchfab Example: See the Plant with Baked Translucency in 3D

3. What Sells the Foliage Render?

4. Five Tips for Creating a Wild Grass Field, That Looks Believable

Here I tried to visualize the different modes of looking.

Before you notice light scattering, the objects appear to simply reflect the light. Afterwards, the light appear to be captured by certain objects. In fact, the point of view makes all the difference.

That moment when you start seeing the volume of the objects, rather than their normals, is a moment of change. What was the empty polygonal shell now becomes the thing, having its weight and density.

And what is even more fascinating, these things can contain the light.

A few words about the Grass Essentials pack for Blender

Before we move on to the next step, I want to take a second to talk about The Grass Essentials pack by Andrew Price. You probably have heard about it, as it is gaining a massive exposure in Blender community. Especially when you look at horrifying amount of renders on Twitter and Facebook, that arrived as a result of people trying it.

Playing with Grass by @andrewpprice. Just need to design the building now… #blender #archiviz #architecture pic.twitter.com/clpKuJs6TJ

— MHWorkshop (@mhworkshop) March 3, 2015

Envie de chaleur et de vin rouge #blender #cg #3D #grassessentials pic.twitter.com/2xDvwKZEZy

— Sid J. Images (@SidJImages) February 21, 2015

The renders in this article (as well as a thumbnail) is my experiment with using The Grass Essentials pack. Honestly, I didn’t expect to get such believable grass as a result. But in the end, it took me only a few hours to arrive at initial forest floor composition  while playing it, and a few days to squeeze the maximum out of it.

The macro image of a plant, which you can see on a thumbnail, is a joke to make. Almost too easy, as I didn’t need to tweak materials. This kind of rendering reminds me of photography: set up decent lighting, find a good angle and Bam! 

Freaking cool picture. Thank you once again, Andrew.

1. LIGHT RAYS GET SCATTERED UNDER THE SURFACE

Viewed from my perspective, the impression of a brightly lit grass depends mainly on light scattering. The glow, that appears to come from within the grass blades, plays a major role in the whole lighting performance. Clearly, light scattering sells the nature renders. It’s like a lens flare in sci-fi movies.

By the way, have you ever noticed that a lens flare sells the shot in a modern sci-fi movie?

It’s easy to imagine the grass being luminescent just for fun. You know, because the glowing grass blades have something in common with the glowing cave mushrooms.

Full with light. Emitting light.

2. TO SEE TRANSLUCENCY, YOU NEED BACKLIGHTING

Of course, to see that scattered light we must get the light to spill from the back. That shouldn’t be a surprise: when we look at the front-lit object, we see the diffuse reflection. Not scattering, and not a transmission.

Example: Plantain model from the Grass Essentials

Why Leaves are Translucent?

The conventional wisdom here is that leaves love to rework the light into chemical energy, by absorbing it. No surprise then that they are usually flat and thin: they need to have such form to expose a maximum area to light.

3. LIGHT SCATTERING IN VOLUMETRIC MATERIALS

Stuff like volumetric rendering, that was impossible 10 years ago, is at your fingertips today. Needless to say, you can use volumetrics to capture the light.

But what’s even more important, making art depends upon noticing such things. What happens to light inside the volume of a transparent object?

Light travels through it and is getting weaker and weaker, as it is being scattered inside the volume. Thus, the parts of the object which are closer to the light source are the most illuminated ones.

Bonus tip: Use Ray Length node in Blender to simulate Absorption

You may choose two routes: simulate it in physically correct way, or just to make believable image. Personally, I think that either way is OK. Anyway, real physics is screwed up, when you are trying to create an awesome image in the first place. Here is a simple setup using a Ray Length node in Blender to simulate the absorption.

Check the full tutorial about Creating seriously awesome ice and glass effect.

Bonus Tutorial: 5 Tips for Creating a Wild Grass Field, That Looks Believable

If you feel like reading more about nature renders, make sure to check this tutorial. I have compiled some tips to help you with complex grass scenes.

THE LIGHTING PROJECT: Ask Your Questions!

The Lighting Project is my way of writing a book. Your interest is my biggest motivation.

Every week I publish the tutorial, devoted to some aspect of digital lighting. Work in progress and other exciting stuff goes straight to social media. So be sure to like (on Facebook) and follow (on Twitter).

#AskGleb on Twitter – Use this hashtag to ask ANY questions ANYTIME

As usual, I’m very excited to answer your questions about art, CG, creativity, inspiration, cappuccino and Blender. Feel free to use a hashtag #AskGleb to let me know about it. And I will record a podcast.

The post How You Expose the Light by Capturing it? #OpenLightBook Chapter 7 appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

And guess what? I was just creating, straight from my imagination. The result is this pretty believable wild grass field, so I want to share some tips for creating grass, when you have ready made assets at hand.

1. Use Particle Textures to Control Distribution Pattern

Without any doubt, distribution pattern is the most crucial thing to keep in mind when trying to simulate nature. Be it a field, a lawn, or anything else related to greenery.

Grass may appear to grow randomly, but its distribution is nevertheless based on some kind of mathematical formula.

In computer graphics, we have procedural noises at our disposal. When used as the Particle Texture, these noises produce very natural patterns.

2. A Huge Simulation Depends on a Tiny Grass Blade

No matter how elaborate is your simulation, it won’t look great if the initial 3d model of the grass clump or blade is lame. So if you grow 250k particles and the field still looks ‘thin’, tweak the initial model. For example, these grass blades models from the Grass Essentials pack each feature its own micro-particle system, that produce the seeds.

And this small detail alone makes the whole field appear full. Not only it’s true to nature, but it also makes the simulation look furry. And that’s pretty much what sells the image, in my point of view.

3. Ground Texture Still Matters, Even if Barely Visible

Even if you cover 100% of the surface with your particles, still there will be patches of underlying surface visible. In another words, make sure that the ground texture complements your grass system.

For example, procedural noises can be applied not only to the particle distribution, but also to the multi-layer ground material. As a mix factor, or simply as a diffuse color.

Try that: think of underlying surface as a part of a bigger simulation.

4. Translucency Plays a Big Role in a Wild Grass Field Creation

Light, passing through thin objects like grass, makes them look like they are glowing. Indeed, the world is not made of plaster, and translucent patches of grass with light captured inside them prove this point.

Especially if you have envisioned the sunset scene. And especially, if your scene features a strong back lighting.

Luckily, I found that in the Grass Essentials pack we have translucency, as well as other properties, set up for us.

5. Randomness is Your Friend

Even the simplest grass lawn contains so much variation, that we need to apply randomness to imitate this ordered chaos. Now imagine the wild grass.

Randomize the size and, most importantly, the rotation of the particles. If you use a hair system in Blender, be sure to turn on Velocity/Hair rotation and crank up the Random value.

Even throw in some random objects like wooden planks. Why not?

This was my (yet another) 5 cents on grass creation. And of course, many thanks goes to Andrew for providing surprisingly compelling grass to experiment with, during cold winter evenings.

The post 5 Tips for Creating a Wild Grass Field, That Looks Believable appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

How to Create a Grass in Blender: A Few Tips

After you created one grass clump, everything else can’t be easier. Just copy-paste it and change the geometry slightly, using Proportional Editing.

Grass and Lighting

There is a trick to illuminating the grass – use 3-4 Sun Lamps with variable size. One with a small size to make a sharp shadows (and provide definition). And other with increased size to fill in the darks with more dispersed, ambient lighting.

Particle Textures

Nature loves chaos. Uniformity of the particle distribution kills the effect. To break up the repetition you can control density and size of a Particle System using Particle Textures.

Final Render of the Grass Field (Download the Scene)

If you feel like reading, the text version can be found in 3dArtist magazine.

The post How to create a grass in Blender? appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

You may also like: How to Make a Shrub in Blender #1

The post How to Make a Shrub in Blender #2. Leaves particle system appeared first on Creative Shrimp.

The post How to Make a Shrub in Blender #1 appeared first on Creative Shrimp.