Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Grass Pack by Green Gene, grass models for Vue 2014 and The Plant Factory.
A quick first look.
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=12601#
Cost $20, voucher friendly.

I recently purchased Grass Pack by Green Gene at www.cornicopia3d.com. It cost $20 and is voucher friendly. Grass Pack inludes:
40 Ready to use tpf files :
16 High detail full geometry grass model presets with variability and possibility to adjust growth, age, health, season
24 Billboard grass tpf files intended for creation of lightweight meadow ecosystems
1 A scene optimized for rendering of vegetation.
1 Tutorial video showing how to create nice meadows ecosystems in Vue.
1 Manual in pdf format.

The Cornicopia3D writeup:
The Plant Factory 3D vegetation
Detail : Very High (compliant with 8K UHD, 4K SHD resolutions)
Leaves : Blades
Textures :
Photorealistic
Remarks:
Age, health, season compatible + additional growth parameter available.
Published parameters allow you to model various kinds of grass plants and adjust mesh quality (Useful to boost quality in ecosystems).


Grass is ubiquitous, at least for those of use living in suburbs and rural areas and smaller cities. I suppose even in parks. We tend not to notice it. Some might dismiss grass as a simple plant. But when it comes to modeling grass it becomes clear that it's not quite as simple as you might first think. Young grass has a silvery base. Older grass has dried dead leaves at the bottom. Depending on the variety it's leaves have obvious  central ridges, and much finer ridges. The stocks have what appear to be joints, like bamboo. 

Gene's Grass Pack captures many of these features. Not all, but many, and he has captured them quite well in a number of plants that can be tweaked via settings to completely change the appearance of the plant. In fact, I thought the last version of  Vue, Vue 2014 was a bit of a let down, until I saw what can be done with this grass.





Green Gene's done some beautiful work with his Grass Pack. I've included a few close ups of his ready to use models. His high detail full geometry grass models are suitable for closeups and the closeups look excellent. I think this is excellent value for the money. The plants look very realistic to me, from top to bottom.  On the picture below of a few grass plants close to opening their flowers (Grass A) on the bottom you can see the slightly silvery covering at the bottom that grass has. On the older larger bunches, you can see the dead dried leaves, curled and drooping.

One thing I would say is I'm not entirely sure of the usefulness of for fields or meadows. Most often grass fields and meadows become homogenous, a single grass plant takes over except for a few weeds and the occasional lump of quack grass or such here and there. 
I've noticed in real life grass tends to be of somewhat uniform height. In the video included with the pack the first example of a field uses various sizes of grass clumps, and although it looks somewhat like my lawn right now, it doesn't look much like a natural meadow.  I have seen fields of lumps of similar sizes, the grass gets pulled over in heavy rain, mist or dew, but most of the clumps are generally the same size, shape and height. I'll continue working on it and see what I can come up with, and post more pictures. All this said, this is a first quick look.

 These models are very high quality so you need to be careful not to go overboard, but it's surprising how many you can use in a single scene. Gene includes billboards for the creation of ecosystems without straining your system.

I think Gene has done a terrific job and his Grass Pack is well worth the price.

10 examples of Green Gene's Grass Pack.

Left is A, right is B2, in the back middle is B10 and you can see half of H8 on the rightmost frame.

C3 and D4.

F6 close up.

F6

G5 and I

G5 top view.

These models are especially good for close work, the bottom of the plant is excellent. This is Grass A edited to early spring so the flowers do not show You can see the silvery base and a few dead and dying leaves.


A above edited for old, winter


Old unhealthy winter with few flowers.

H8

Closeup of I's flowers.
I10


Green Gene also has a set of palm trees:
I haven't purchased them so I can't attest to the quality although if it's close to his work on his Grass Pack then perhaps the asking price of $48 dollars may be worth it.

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