The Grass Essentials Pack from Blender Guru

The Blender Guru just released The Grass Essentials package that allows the quick generation of photorealistic grass ( and weeds). http://www.blenderguru.com/product/grass-essentials/

I’ve purchased it and I have to say, it makes it stupidly easy to get great results. Just make sure your system is up to it in terms of power and memory. For the price however, it’s pretty much a no brainer.

Yes I have same feelings. It worth the price and it’s good quality and easy to use.

As much as I hate Andrew’s marketing strategy I still bought it on the release day. I haven’t had the time to test it out yet but it is the most fully featured grass pack I have ever seen for any software. Also it is incredibly inexpensive.

I have done a couple of test with it now and frankly, I’m blown away. Yep, I know the logic behind it, models distributed by particles, but all the hard work to do this has been removed and it makes putting together grass scenes a breeze.
I had to talk myself into buying it, even at this price, as I have no income and things are tight, but I am sure glad I did.
I heartily endorse buying this to anyone who wants any sort of grass in their renders. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Why do you hate his marketing strategy? (if I may ask)

I have the pack. Not only is the grass and the tool great, but the weeds and leaves are also great. I am definitely using this. Although it was pretty much just an evolution to what I was already doing (grass mesh as hair particles), for that price and the number of different variations… very nice :cool:

The way he constantly remind you to buy it in almost every sentence, the way he constantly reminds you of the “actual value” of the product instead of the “amazing” price he sells it for and also constantly reminds you to “BUY NOW, QUICKLY BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!” and “BUY NOW AND RECEIVE PRODUCT FOR FREE!”.

Andrew is basically our version of this guy

Very much up in our face and not giving you any time to think about it.

The Oatmeal said this pretty well too.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/sell_generation/1.png
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/sell_generation/2.png

I hope this thread won’t derail into a discussion about his marketing now but if you know the tricks he uses to get you to throw money at him it makes you angry because he apparently does not trust us to buy a good product without subliminal messaging.

Looks like a quality grass variety pack! Gonna have to pick it up eventually.

It really doesn’t take much effort to get a group particle system up and running on your own without paying the price of a modern videogame.

The Andrew Price eh eh get it…

The pack looks impressive. I’m assuming it’s possible to add your own model sets and create custom distributions? If not that’s a feature that I would really like to see added before I buy.
I agree with the others who say that the marketing around the pack is a little, urrr, brash? I would much rather just see all the features listed in a matter of fact way with the price at the end. At the moment it feels like a sales pitch, which I appreciate it is, but its a bit off putting. I do really like how comprehensively the features are covered though :slight_smile:

Nope, but it does take time to create the assets and distribute them in a convincing way with particle systems. Compare your hourly rate as a freelancer creating that from scratch to the price of the pack and there’s a clear advantage.

To be fair, the marketing of this product is WAYYYY better than it’s been in the past with his compositing guide and “x Academy” offerings. It gets a little infomercial-y towards the bottom, but for the most part it’s just explaining the features and why they’re useful.

For you to lose out on money and save your client some xD

if what would have taken you 3 days takes you 1, the next 2 days are available for other clients, no?

That’s why I am still working on an old Pentium, my clients are paying trough the nose because I am so slow! Don’t tell anyone, dragging things out and missing deadlines is the secret of successful freelance business.

Well if they are hourly than 3 days with 1 client or 3 days with 3 clients is the same :3

Considering how he’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars from products using this type of marketing, I would say there’s no reason for him to stop because of the massive success alone.

Plus, he doesn’t even start to mention pricing and value until more than halfway down. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter what you think because he already has a massive fanbase that you usually don’t see much on this board.

From the standpoint of hours worked / money earned you are right. But assuming the task and quality needed for each job is the same (eg archviz of a house standing on a lawn) then you are either the guy who can finish one such image in a day or someone who needs three days for exactly the same result. Guess which guy appears as more of a pro and gets more work?

Also if you are smart then you don’t charge per hour anyway but only use you hourly rate internally and charge a fixed amount per image (plus fees for changes etc), meaning you can make three times the money if you are fast. Why should the client care anyway how much time it takes you to do something? If I pay someone to make me a table, do I care if he chopped the wood himself? The client wants result X as fast as possible and you tell him that costs amount Y and then you deliver on that. End of story.

Why do I even have to explain this?!? Are you trolling me :wink:

Just on the pack, I’m just starting out and it’s just a hobby, I know it varies for personal circumstance but for the price it is I just grabbed it seemed like a no brainer to be honest and even with limited blender experience I had something rendered in no time at all just worked and looks really nice just with the basic out of the box settings. It’s nice to see innovation and choice and I hope he and others trying to make a living out of this do really well, I hope he does make thousands off this, good for him seems like a good sensibly priced product and success will cascade out to others in the community as well if it grows.

Marketing, well that’s never going to make everyone happy and he’s not exactly the first person in the world to offer an incentive for early adoptions and as far as I’m concerned it’s very much as described so I don’t see any issue but I can see how the style might not sit well with everyone. As always no one has to buy it or look at the adverts :slight_smile: but I like to have the choice.