Grass or No Grass?

This isn’t the final render. Just curious, should I keep the grass or not? Any other opinions on the scene?

Grass:

No grass:

If you do not plan on working on the grass any further, then you should remove it. It should be more random, less clumped, and more flat (blades of grass are flat-ish). Also, there should be a better material for the grass and the grass should not suddenly stop and turn into flat ground, it gradually transforms. But I like the grass a lot better, since it adds depth to the scene, Without it, it looks like the birds are on a small sphere and the background is just a plane in space (maybe change the background because it looks like it’s just going up forever so maybe add a sky). Also, just a suggestion, since it’s a close up, you should focus on the pinecone. The sides look too uniform and the same length and perfects round. There should be more displacement since it’s so close, its apparent that it’s just a textured thing with no detail besides modeling. I really like how you made the focus of the picture very apparent! Good work!

Thanks for the very helpful reply! I’ll work on the grass a bunch more. It’s a group of individually modeled blades of grass that are flat with a slight “dip” in the middle like a blade of grass. I played with the particles quite a bit and I could figure out how to get it to spread out more. The clump factor is set to 0. I think I need to decrease the number of parent strands some more. Also I’ll add some displacement to the pinecone and try texture painting it because at the moment it is (badly) projected from view on to a pinecone photo.

I really tried to focus on guidlines in the image along with contrast to guide the eye. The pinecone and strawberry leaves are to help frame it and keep your eye for falling off the image.

Is there any decent tutorials for making good grass from a ground level view?

I really want this scene to be feature worthy.

There is a paid program from Andrew Price called Nature Academy and one of it’s courses is on how to make close up grass and make it look good. I think this could also help with making your horizon a lot better as well since it is not “feature worthy”. But if you can’t pay the $300, I’d be happy to get in touch with you and help you through everything!

Yeah, I’m only 14 :confused: the tiny bit of money I make from lawn cutting and odd jobs goes toward my phone bill. Also, isn’t the nature academy all in blender internal?

Thanks for the offer though! I’ll send you a message! Thanks!

Normally whit grass … but in this case “no grass”.
if the scene is black and white.
Bird color is decisive too, “ochre” gray-scale works fine too.
ps: A close up in camera settings, and a golden fruit maybe have a nice result to u.
Happy Blend !:yes:

I would go with a row of stones infront of the grass and a wooden fence behind the grass.
More deep to the scene and you get around the hard cut of the grass.

Nice Scene :slight_smile:

Thanks!

Oo, I like the idea of the fence! Right now it’s a hedge texture off cgtextures that I added as a backdrop in the compositor.

I could also try to break up that hard grass line with leaves on the ground.

Update! I think I fixed the grass, I was right about need to decrease the amount of strands. Dropped the parent strands from 200 to 30 and the children strands from 20 to 10. Also threw in a picket fence, a couple more leaves in the background, an extra stick in the background, and a sky backdrop (not for enviroment) instead of the hedge texture. I was trying to use the ivy gen on the fence but it didn’t want to work.


Looks a lot better :slight_smile: … that plant looks “ugly”, left side. (*Optional).
Have a lot of blurred information, down side. (*Optional).
And more Zoom “maybe”. (*Optional).
HappyBlend!

Thanks! The plant is a strawberry plant so I think I’ll keep it unless I can find something better to replace it. I will definitely turn down the DoF.

Any other suggestions?

Still need suggestions! Thanks!

Bump! Sorry to do this but I still would like some opinions!