Grass

    Quote from Demian Gutberlet

    jnurnberger , my apologies for missing that question - It's been a while since the underlying grass texture has been adjusted since we settled on this specific look, but for now, there is no info I could give regarding when this will be further updated or how. When it generally boils down to having more dense grass, or any adjustments you'd like to see in the future, all I can kindly ask is that you please forward all of your concerns and thoughts to product management directly through our Voting Portal. We always appreciate that.

    Thanks Demian Gutberlet I submitted an idea for a better grass png and more grass options. Maybe it will make it to "Under Consideration."

    Aye, yes, Lad, master @jnubgerger! yous are a true champions ofs d' no bumpy lumpy grass. many, many, thanks for yous tireless service to the cause! yous be a wee bit hero around these parts, i say this to be true.


    Oh! Buddly bump d' bump d' bump Oh! buddly bump d' do . . .

    I'll sing my little' jig - D' Do! I'll sing it loud for you . . .


    I dreams of the day, d' bumpy lumpy, set sails to Timbuctoo . . .

    And we shall be free at last, from its wretched grasp, Oh! buddly bump - Yahoo!

    So there are a couple of things being talked about here


    I'm guessing the lumpy bumpiness is down to the density- which itself affects performance quite rapidly.

    Other renderers that aren't targeting realtime outputs, may increase the density and/or use geometry to improve the fidelity of it.


    Or just make it huge and keep the density low : here is an example from another renderer cited in this thread.

    Obviously this comes with it's own issues when you want to make a nice tidy lawn.


    Ultimately Enscape is a real time renderer with unique focus on real time output and of course this comes with other compromises vs renderers that are targeting other performance metrics or render outputs - I think it is important to understand the tool you are actually using and what it has been designed to do.


    So there are a couple of solutions : one is to use Skatter : which handles the placement of geometric asset grass with proxies really amazingly.

    You can use free plugins to try and do similar things, but experience tells me that SketchUp + 1000s of pieces of foliage will make your machine cry - even other realtime renders make my machine cry if I try to populate a large area with grass or trees.



    One thing you could try in areas that are particuarly close to camera where you need that extra density is to brute force it.

    Here I've just duplicated the face and lifted it a tiny amount above the original plane, there are now twice as many bunches of grass occuping the area. I've made the 2 layers white and green so you can see this more easily.

    This will fill in some of the gaps



    Other things to check to help the appearance : two sided faces

    This face is black on top, but "grass " material on the bottom : note how it respects the top colour but grows the grass from the rear side.


    Bug or Feature?

    Of course, you can use this to your advantage if you intentionally want the grass to look a bit more sparse or as if it's growing out of soil.




    Another way to do this is to reset the scale of your whole model and make it huge which effectively increases the density by reducing the size of the grass - obviously this is a little more destructive and not so useful if you want to set up permanent scenes. it may also have other effects in places where distance is taken into account.

    Adam Fairclough

    Customer Success Manager

    SketchUp UK / Elmtec UK

    Aye! master Adam.Fairclough be craftin' some trickery me see. useful tale he tell, for me's and yous to try. Ayes be thankfuls for his many, many words. seems to be bumpy lumpy grass may be bestys my friend afters all, whens i was thinkin it be my foe. Ayes hopin' it works with not too much troubles for mes to do.




    Oh! Buddly bump d' bump d' bump Oh! buddly bump d' do . . .

    I'll sing my little' jig - D' Do! I'll sing it loud for you . . .


    I dreams of the day, d' bumpy lumpy, set sails to Timbuctoo . . .

    And we shall be free at last, from its wretched grasp, Oh! buddly bump - Yahoo!


    As d' winds be blowin', i hears a tales or two . . .

    for which we's be knowin', if buddly d' bump b' going, or she b's a workin' for me's and you . . .

    Quote from Adam.Fairclough

    I'm guessing the lumpy bumpiness is down to the density- which itself affects performance quite rapidly.

    Other renderers that aren't targeting realtime outputs, may increase the density and/or use geometry to improve the fidelity of it.

    Maybe the Devs could make grass density a slider or something. That way, each user can control depending on there PC, render settings, grass type, or general look they are imagining.

    Grass is something so ubiquitous across our projects and has such I high impact on the visualization and yet it has very little customization. I asked that grass be given a second look in the Voting Portal. Hopefully the Devs will find it...

    Hi Demian.

    Is there a sourse to download enscape 2017-2018 version? I would like to use Grass.png from that soft. It is very inportant point for landscape design viz. Or just upload link to that grass.png

    U are so kind! Thans a lot.

    Quote from Demian Gutberlet

    Abu[/user] , I remember our discussion a while ago where you've compared the old and newer grass and it ultimately boiled down to a matter of preference, albeit also a change in perceived density as a result, that I agree on. Still, if you are also making use of SketchUp, you may want to instead populate the scene with the provided grass-scatter material instead. I am also referring to the post from MatthiasL above where he showcased what is possible using scatter.


    The same applies to you of course , and if you haven't already, make use of Scatter but bear in mind though that this will have more of an influence on your performance compared to our normal grass.

    Quote from Abu

    Hi Demian.

    Is there a sourse to download enscape 2017-2018 version? I would like to use Grass.png from that soft. It is very inportant point for landscape design viz. Or just upload link to that grass.png

    U are so kind! Thans a lot.

    I'll ask development if there is a chance to revert only the grass appearance, but this may not be possible since it should be a new system anyway, and thus technically it would not be so easy to replicate the old look.


    As mentioned, using Scatter and our provided presets for it should provide you with results that may very well be more to your liking. Perhaps you have the chance to give it a try.

    Thanks Damian. U shouldn`t. I just asked about link to download old version. Your explanation about "new system" and Skatter I took note long time ago. Skatter is grate and developeed listening for users. I love it.

    I sees what yous mean, ole' chap Abu . So we's need to buys this skatter program to fix what is wrong in Enscape, eh? Make me's spend more of me's hard earned monies to fix what's I pays for in the first place, eh?


    So's me's new car all shineys and news, instead of getting her all fixed up and getting me's a runnin' straight and true, they likes to tells me to find someone else to fix er' up go good to go, thank you so much for your monies - now be on me's way?


    Peoples like that don't fair well around these parts. I best be keepin' me's eyes pealed, and me's pen sharp.



    I feel a strong winds of change a brewin',

    A bit of a chill in the air I see . . .

    This Chaos clan best be movin'

    On some changes for you and me.

    Quote from Abu

    Thanks Damian. U shouldn`t. I just asked about link to download old version. Your explanation about "new system" and Skatter I took note long time ago. Skatter is grate and developeed listening for users. I love it.

    I see now, thanks for clearing that up, you can always acquire a previous release of Enscape here.

    If you haven't already, feel free to forward your wish to have more dense grass from the get-go in Enscape through the Voting Portal - Also, we do try to strike a good balance between performance and appearance when it comes to our Grass. This is why it is more sparse indeed compared to placing Grass through Scatter itself, where there are basically no limits and you are able to overload your machine as well, which is harder to do with our Grass in comparison. I understand that it requires a further software solution next to Enscape, but you may still consider it worth your investment in case your machine is also powerful enough to handle larger areas of Grass placed with Scatter.


    Nothing that hasn't really been said before, but we'd appreciate your input if you could share it through our portal as well. Thanks!