Modified Enscape Grass

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    • Best Answer

    Hi


    I've been playing around with the newest preview 2.8(7), and the new wind feature that affects the grass. I must admit that i was hoping for a total revamp of the grass look, but for now it seems like it is only an added animation to the old billboard style. and I've never felt like it looked good enough for most of my work, unfortunately.


    So, i decided to play around with the default grass texture found in the enscape installation folder, and replaced it with a more detailed texture, following the same rules as the original, and this is the result after a little tweaking. It works just like the original grass... that means it changes color and is animated by the wind.


    Original grass:


    NEW GRASS:


    Enscape developers: Let me know if you want to get a hold of the new texture. i really think it should be possible to increase the grass quality of enscape considerably without much work!

  • Wow,


    Can you explain how you have achieved this and what grass texture file you have changed

    Thank you! its really not that difficult. the original grass texture is placed here:

    C:\Program Files\Enscape\Renderer\SystemData\Textures\Enscape\Common

    (its called "grass.png")

    I've been fiddling with some different textures, and as far as i can tell the different colours of the grass has to do with how it UV-maps the underlaying texture onto it. You can just use a completely normal, green grass billboard texture, and it will still pick up the underlying texture colour. but it will not draw each straw in sligtly different nuances like the original... but this is a very subtle effect in most cases :)

    what I did was take a better grass billboard texture than the original, and then cruedly paint in the colours from the original. I also doubled the resolution of the texture, to make it much more crisp. how this affects performance is not completely clear yet.


    Here the two grass textures look, compared to each other. You are welcome to use the new texture as described above, if You wish!:


    original:


    New:

  • I am on Archicad so no such luck, anything to get better results. I have been busy creating custom assets using Pieter's tool its a total game changer for the archicad workflow given how poorly it handles high poly geometry, not if only some would create a scatter tool for us!!!! (hint hint)

    • Official Post

    Very nice results Herbo !


    I do agree that it looks definitely more natural/realistic than the previously shipped texture, especially up close. We'll definitely see what we can do to improve it along those lines!


    I must admit that i was hoping for a total revamp of the grass look, but for now it seems like it is only an added animation to the old billboard style.

    While the appearance right now is similar to before (however it's actually not billboard grass, but actual three dimensional models for the close range), we've done a little more than just adding the animation. The added carpet material type is based on the same system (and will probably also get a visual overhaul until the final release) and we'll be able to extend that in the future for a larger variety of customizable grass types! :)

  • Nice enhancement Herbo, and thanks for sharing! I too think this looks better and hope it will make it into the official version.

    and we'll be able to extend that in the future for a larger variety of customizable grass types! :)

    Please don't forget about us Revit users, who don't have access to the Enscape material editor. We're already more limited in terms of grass/water features, I hope this will not make the divide bigger.


    I'm not saying you should hold back for new features, but I hope you can think of a UX that also works on Revit and gives us the same functionality as the other platforms.

  • I like your grass Herbo , it clearly looks like most grass around here (Germany). But when I first saw the Enscape grass I had to think about St. Augustine Grass, the staple of grass you find in the US in parks and gardens.


  • awesome, can you share the grass texture color ?

  • That looks great Herbo! Can I ask you which grass color you use (which texture) and which tints added to make it look natural?


    awesome, can you share the grass texture color ?

    Thanks! the ground texture i tend to use is this one. it gives nice varied color to the grass. just make it really big (like 6x6 meters or more), so the colored patches are large enough to make sense :)

  • Herbo - you are a legend!


    Followed your steps and quickly revisited a old project - the difference is astounding. Your grass texture is way finer, more realistic and with some tweaking on the ground texture it just looks superb.


    Comparison (quick and dirty, didn't bother to match settings 100%)


    vs.


    Just hoping the devs adapt this change asap or maybe even provide a couple of different grass choices which would be even better.

  • that really is a big difference :) it looks good!! Glad you could use it. I'm also hoping for some kind of upgrade like this, in the next version, preferably with multiple types, as you said :)

  • The cool thing is, it looks like a really easy fix for the Dev team to have multiple types of grass. I must say, multiple versions would be great, since I also experimented with the grass from you Herbo, but in some places, the grasses would be come 'too fine' and it became too much a 'cloud of grass'.


    And MatthiasL , that's a really nice comparison and looks good!

  • The next version will introduce an improved grass texture, thanks Herbo for this suggestion. There is one additional type, which is the carpet.