Making Textures, Vol 1 (grass) "ideas for making them&a

[DeathTwister]

Hay all,

Thought I would move this discussion over before Aaron did /chuckles. besides we are on a good thread here, and if anyone has a good answer other then the tack we are on now please chim in /smiles.

Recap to where we are now

The rock textues are very nice but the grass is not quite up to the same quality. As someone observed, grass is difficult to do. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is, but if you have lush grass which dominates the land cover, it tends to have height of course, and some specularity because of the moisture, reflectance- yes?
If it's coarse and short, then there tends to be a complex texture: this is L3DT's domain right?. How much further can the technology help- is it simply the textures you are using?

Still it's getting there. The rock/grass edges are especially good on the foreground cliff- top and bottom- that's very convincing.

monks

Morning Monks, yawn, finaly got some sleep,

The rock textures are very nice but the grass is not quite up to the same quality. As someone observed, grass is difficult to do. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is, but if you have lush grass which dominates the land cover, it tends to have height of course, and some specularity because of the moisture, reflectance- yes?

Yes I think it was me talking bout the grass being so dang hard, that was why for the most part I put them in the extra folder. some are great, others I hadn't had time to tweak enough yet maybe, as I said I hadn't tested all of the extras I posted, but I wanted to through a few more grasses in. However, they may be great for close ups as I have found in other programs like the texture editor in Torque for adding close up textures. But thanks for the input and yes I agree. I seem to get better grass textures in Bryce then in photos so far, but I'll get it down, trial and error.

Still it's getting there. The rock/grass edges are especially good on the foreground cliff- top and bottom- that's very convincing.

Yup slowly it comes, I am having a gas with textures atm so I'll get the grass down also. I have some beach ones I am trying to get to work and some are now of driftwood on the beach, if I can get that to look good that would be awesome. Will post that experiment here soon when I get something that is good.

I will wait for adding any more climate posts with textures until Aaron has released beta 3 I think as he is changing formats again, and such so will wait and adjust to the new beta. he says early June a week or 2 away, then I'll revamp what I got and post some new after a bit more experimenting.
Maybe I can get the grasses to work well by then /wry smile. I must say I think that edit tool in the resources will help there some so I can get the right angle on grass to begin with (That was a problem), so need to play with that tool some and try try again /smiles.

Also getting on the texture bank next week also.

Yes I think it was me talking bout the grass being so dang hard, that was why for the most part I put them in the extra folder. some are great, others I hadn't had time to tweak enough yet maybe, as I said I hadn't tested all of the extras I posted, but I wanted to through a few more grasses in. However, they may be great for close ups as I have found in other programs like the texture editor in Torque for adding close up textures. But thanks for the input and yes I agree. I seem to get better grass textures in Bryce then in photos so far, but I'll get it down, trial and error.

How would you go about taking a shot for a grass texture? I'm asking because I have a digital camera: only 5 mpx (and probably not that great) but it has half a gig of memory which is sitting there doing not a lot often. I'm not promising bags of them as my time is pretty stretched as it is: think fantastic4 Laughing
How does scale factor into this?

Yup slowly it comes, I am having a gas with textures atm so I'll get the grass down also. I have some beach ones I am trying to get to work and some are now of driftwood on the beach, if I can get that to look good that would be awesome. Will post that experiment here soon when I get something that is good.

Hey yes, that would be very nice. Mine would mostly be inner-city textures, you know pee-stains, graffiti, you get the idea Laughing Maybe I should take a tour of Tolkien-country eh?

Maybe I can get the grasses to work well by then /wry smile. I must say I think that edit tool in the resources will help there some so I can get the right angle on grass to begin with (That was a problem), so need to play with that tool some and try try again /smiles.

Right angle. I was thinking you would take the shot as perpendicular to the surface as possible- is this always the best way?
So what if I had a field of grass- would I take it simply stood over it?

Hay Monks,

We should take this discusion I bet to a new topic as we getting off a bit I bet, so lets get this going in a new forum /smiles. I'll copy past a thread into a new post here as it is a good questain and I don't exactly have all the answer yet either. Chime in crew when ya can.

How would you go about taking a shot for a grass texture? I'm asking because I have a digital camera: only 5 mpx (and probably not that great) but it has half a gig of memory which is sitting there doing not a lot often. I'm not promising bags of them as my time is pretty stretched as it is: think fantastic4 Laughing
How does scale factor into this?

Let me refer you to to a post on this site at:
http://www.bundysoft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=86

A very sweet tool even though I haven't used it yet as the main trick is to get it to be able to not lay down like the shots always are Crying or Very sad so his tool should help tremendously I hope. Going to play with that next week after I get what I am trying to do done first. Then the next set of problems ROTFL. coupled with the Mura seamless tool link I gave we should be in good shape.

Hey yes, that would be very nice. Mine would mostly be inner-city textures, you know pee-stains, graffiti, you get the idea Laughing Maybe I should take a tour of Tolkien-country eh?

ROTFL. Cool

Right angle. I was thinking you would take the shot as perpendicular to the surface as possible- is this always the best way?
So what if I had a field of grass- would I take it simply stood over it?

Yup yup, as 90 % as possible, that is why it is so hard to get good ones. The tool should help some with the angle of the dangle TeHe Idea.

OK that should be a good start here Monks and I thinkwe will get it worked out.

DT

[trollfiddler]

Just another thing, it's best to take the pics on an overcast day with even lighting, because you don't want shadows that will be incorrect with your real-time game lighting. It's the complete opposite of normal landscape photography, where you want strong low-angled light to throw shadows to make the 2D pic look more 3D!

Using an overcast day can shift your pic towards the blue end of the spectrum, but with digital it's easy to alter the colour balance on your PC/Mac.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Hmm...getting a good grass texture for 3D rendering is rather tough. In addition to ambient lighting (as Trollfidder suggests), you need to make sure that the grass is really quite flat and uniform. You don't want any distinct features in the field of view, because they'll be really noticeable when they're tiled on the texture. Grass from a football/cricket field or a lawn-bowls club should be pretty good for this.

Also, you don't want to actually be able to resolve different blades of grass in the image, as that's too much detail for what we want to do. So, somehow, you need to get yourself a few metres above the grass, looking directly down.

Maybe if you dangle from a helicopter above a football field...?

Cheers,
Aaron.

[DeathTwister]

Hehe maybe not a hilocoptor but a hang glider? hahahaha ROTFL,

yes that is the problem exactly with grass. That is why I was happy to find that tool on the resource page here. That will help some with that angle problem we got. sometimes Bryce can get a better smaller uniform texture if you imprt the photo in right, and get it to tile right, then it does get smaller like you are way up shooting down. But it can be tricky and you may not get what you want and takes time, "a Pig-in-a-Poke" as it were sometimes.

DT

[monks]

Ah, here it is- was wondering where this post got to!

Thanks for the advice DT, will have a read through.

monks

[DeathTwister]

HEHE, NP brother Monks DT

[monks]

hmm, sounds pretty tricky to get them- having said that the UK can do overcast very well I do have a helicopter as it happens....but it seems a bit small to get into: I got it off a sycamore tree.
How does ZBrush fare with photorealistic grass textures? I know it can do pretty good ground, but getting photorealism is another matter.

monks

[DeathTwister]

Hay Monks,

hmm, sounds pretty tricky to get them- having said that the UK can do overcast very well Smile I do have a helicopter as it happens....but it seems a bit small to get into: I got it off a sycamore tree.

?????? What you have a helicopter? but to small? what is it a remote controled heli? "KEWL", or a real small one you ride in? Either way get up there and get some shots for us ROTFL OMG that would be fun

DT

[Aaron]

Hi DT,

Hay Monks,

hmm, sounds pretty tricky to get them- having said that the UK can do overcast very well Smile I do have a helicopter as it happens....but it seems a bit small to get into: I got it off a sycamore tree.

?????? What you have a helicopter? but to small? what is it a remote controled heli? "KEWL", or a real small one you ride in? Either way get up there and get some shots for us ROTFL OMG that would be fun

I think Monks was referring to the seeds of the sycamore maple, which are sometimes called 'helicopters' because of the twirl they do when they fall to the ground.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[monks]

Hehe- that went down like a lead helicopter

monks

[DeathTwister]

ROTFL<

ROTFL< ROTFL OMG hehehehe Oh I see, Doh, don't mind me har har....KK have to remember that one.

DT