CE3 Grass
Hi,
I'm thinking about how to improve the look of grass as game modells. I think the billboard techniques are ok but it's to get better for sure. So i thought of a improved version of this billboard technique.
I want modell some grass blades arrange them together in a small space and setup a good looking shader for it in maya. Then i will bake this down with a normal specular diffuse alpha and displacement map and set it in Cryengine with parallax occlusion mapping.
Anybody tried sth like this already, or has some tips for me?
Thank you
Alex
I'm thinking about how to improve the look of grass as game modells. I think the billboard techniques are ok but it's to get better for sure. So i thought of a improved version of this billboard technique.
I want modell some grass blades arrange them together in a small space and setup a good looking shader for it in maya. Then i will bake this down with a normal specular diffuse alpha and displacement map and set it in Cryengine with parallax occlusion mapping.
Anybody tried sth like this already, or has some tips for me?
Thank you
Alex
Replies
I've found this on youtube: [ame="
For sure it lloks ways better than use a billboard technique. But my question is: Can I use this really for a game like this guy wrote or kills it just everything? I don't know how the Cryengine works on Instancing an how much ressources this takes.
Greets Alex
for realistic grass you will get much better looking and performing results with alpha cards of clumps of grass scattered around.
then again, if youre making an artistically style piece, then it might be rewarding to go with the method as in the video.
Though, you need to be careful with how many of those grasses you use in a single scene.
As far as i know cryengine doesnt instance seperate objects (brushes) but as for vegetation objects I really dont know.. I would assume that grass is instanced since otherwise some of the vanilla crysis 1 maps would have millions of drawcalls..
thats an good argument. Is it posible to use parallax mapping on alpha card grass? I want o get it as realistic as possible without spending to much ressources. I watched a lot of photos and videos with the billboard method but this just looks good as long as u seeing the grass from the right angle otherwise it's looking crapy.
Also I watched the Tutorial about grass shaders and paint effects in Maya of Alex Alvarez - Gnomon Workshop. Thats really good looking and had the idea, to take this grass and bake it with displacement maps to a plane to get maybe beter results. Do u know if its anyhow possible to bake it with the shader material applied?
Thanks Alex
after testing diferent Methods I will do the Grass with alphacards.
The Single Blade modelled grass has a lot of aliasing seing always some blades from the side what looks ugly.
I created now alphacards from highpoly blades in max with gradient Materials. But this looks a bit like stylized grass.
So the next step will be creating highpoly grass with scanned grass textures aplied and render this ones out.
Alex
yep I even found out that this is overkill. Today i gona model grass with texture maps apllied of grass i scanned. then aplly it to small patches and render out diffuse alpha and mayba a spec map for it on a 1024*1024 grass sheet and place it on a plane for lowpoly grass like its normally done. Lets see if the texture comes along better then just a gradient!
Greets Alex
today i've created some Mental Ray shaders.
now i want to get a orthographic render from the side of such a grass clump to put this with a alpha map on the lowpoly grass planes.
My Problem is: I don't know how to bake textures withmental ray in maya. I tried it with transfer maps and mental ray activated, but i just get a black texture.
Can somebody help me with this Problem?
Thank you
Alex