In the User Preferences, Bender has an option for its users to turn certain Add-ons on or off. Add-ons are there to extend Blender’s functionality, so I relied on the advice of other users to decide what Add-ons to use. I only ended up enabling two add-ons while creating this project, however I was interested to explore the features available.
Node Wrangler
This add-on allowed me to select a node in the node editor, and see the effects it had on my work.
Image Plane
I discovered this while completing one of Blender Guru’s tutorials, as it required me to import an image as a plane to create the background of my work.
Auto Tile Size
This ensured I had the correct tile size when rendering out on either GPU or CPU.
“High-dynamic-range imaging is a high dynamic range technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques.”
– (Wikipedia, 2018)
These images can be used in 3D modelling software to light scenes.
HDRI Haven
When creating my final scene, I wanted to experiment with using HDRI environment maps to light my scene. While I was familiar with the lighting features in Blender I had never used an HDRI image, so I set to finding images I could experiment with. ‘HDRI Haven’ was suggested to me by a tutor, but it was also mentioned several times during my research, so I searched their website for some appropriate maps to use in my scene. The following are examples I thought would fit well.
Sunny Vondelpark
River Walk 1
Noon Grass
Mossy Forest
Moonlit Golf
Misty Pines
Shady Patch
Each image had a different effect on my environment, here are some rendered examples of this lighting change.
Source
– Zaal, G. (2018). HDRI Haven. [online] HDRI Haven. Available at: https://hdrihaven.com [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
After creating a mockup, I decided to focus more on how to make an environment for my assets to sit in. Luckily, there were many tutorials and advice forums that guided me through the process, but the majority of these tutorials required the use of nature packs, ones that include items such as grass strands, bushes and trees, as well as ground textures and background images. These types of assets were new to me, so I set on looking for the best types to use for my project, as well as understand what was available to me. Because my scene is more focused on the assets I have created, I opted against creating my own nature assets, as this was something I was not yet familiar with.
What is a Nature Asset Pack?
Asset packs are a number of items that are created by one artist and shared so that it is available for other people to use as they please. Nature packs tend to include a variety of natural items, anything from grass strands and foliage, to rock and dirt materials. While many artists tend to charge for the use of their assets, there is a number of free versions available to download and uses for simple animations and compositions.
The Grass Essentials is a pack of grass models and particle systems, that you can quickly import to any scene to have beautiful grass.
There are 15 Species of Grass, with up to 49 model variations for each.
A total of 471 grass models for the most photorealistic scenes available.
Blender Guru has a rather strong opinion on Blender’s particle system, claiming that “Blender’s strands are long and singular, which makes them great for hair and fur which is consistent; but grass is wayyyy more complex. It’s got sprouts, seeds, color variations, skinny parts, fat parts and flat leaves just to name a few” (BlenderGuru,2018).
While this pack would normally cost $84, he offers his subscribers some free assets to use if they try to recreate this tutorial. These assets are pretty useful, I still wanted to find more options for my grass particles, so that I could vary the types and the height of my field, making it look more natural.
He offers the following pieces, as well as some other pieces that could be useful for my final images:
Tired of spending hours tediously modeling and texturing nature assets for all your scenes? So was I! And that’s why I’ve created this pack of 19 different nature models to quickly add realistic nature to any render!
Features
• 17 Professionally modeled and textured nature assets • 3 Rock models • 5 Grass models • 4 Flower models • 5 Weed/leaf models • 17 Unique nature textures • Easy to use material groups • Randomizing color on all assets • Easily add Subsurface Scattering • Glossy and Bump settings
This cheaper alternative to the first pack proves to be just as detailed at 10% of the price. Despite this factor, I chose to use the free assets Blender Guru offers as I was not prepared to spend money on part of my image that is not the focal point. While the environment will undoubtedly make my image, it is also not the core aim of my project.
In his tutorial, CG Geek shared the following image textures, textures I used while following his tutorial.
Dirt
Grass
He also offered the following HDRI environment map, taken from HDRI Haven.
“Grass Free”
While browsing the comment section of CG Geek’s video, A subscriber shared a link to a free grass pack that included simple strands that seemed almost as detailed as his own asset pack.
A month ago, we were thinking about the other thing that could be useful for people, a Grass Pack. About all the month of April we were concentrated a lot on the new project, and we planned to set it Free because we thought people need essential things for Free. This Pack of 3D Grass was done to get most low poly models as possible, but using realistic materials. We compared it with Grass Essentials and we were happy that Grass Free was about 3x faster in Rendering time. This was amazing! So people now have all the Types they want, for faster renderings and for Free this is how Grass Free was born. Because our goal is: “Blender is Free, so essential things must be setted Free “
After experimentation, I found that this pack gave a somewhat realistic outcome, so chose to resort to this pack for any extra gras strands I wanted to add to my scene.
Sources:
– BlenderGuru (2018). The Grass Essentials. [online] Blender Market. Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/the-grass-essentials [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
– Zaal, G. (2018). HDRI Haven. [online] HDRI Haven. Available at: https://hdrihaven.com [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Filmic in Blender helps to add dynamic improvement to final renders.
It’s an OpenColorIO configuration crafted by Troy Sobotka and meant to eventually replace Blender’s current sRGB EOTF configuration with a far more closer-to-photorealistic view transform.
To break it down, that means that the linear render data that Cycles internally creates will be translated into a far better looking image. You’ll have better highlights, better dynamic range and the way light and color look will just be amazing and more natural. Even though it may seem subtle, it’s a real game changer.
When I first saw some filmic Blender examples on Twitter, I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why the renderings looked so much better, much more realistic. So I just had to try it myself. I downloaded the repository, replaced the color management files in Blender (which is easy – just copy and paste) and rendered the scene.
Unfortunately though, it didn’t really look like the examples in the renders and it wasn’t really improved. But talking to Troy, asking questions and seeing other ‘imagers’ use it, helped a lot. Being used to render with sRGB view transform and the tricks you have to use to make things look good were actually the problem. With filmic blender you don’t really have to cheat like you were used to and you can use way more realistic values when it comes to setting up lights.
Bassam Kurdali summed it up on Twitter: “When I first used it, I had the same experience other people did: I threw the luts on a scene already lit to see ‘how better it would get’. The reason is simple – I had tweaked the lights, materials, setup in my scene with all sorts of hacks to make it look good. The trick is to start a new scene, and light it with intensities that mimic better real light – typically much higher than we used. It’s so much more forgiving: smooth roll offs + wide range > clipping, pretty bounce/light wrap effects, sweet hilights”
I was first introduced to this option by my tutor and used it in my final render.
In order to create a subtle animation, I decided to experiment with the physics types Blender has to offer. The software can add effects anywhere from generating particles, smoke, wind, and even creating fluid simulations that can resemble jelly.
Within blender, you have the option to add simulations to your models that imitate ‘real physical phenomena’. These include the following:
* Particle Systems – Can imitate many things; flocks, hair, smoke.
* Hair – A subset of Particle Systems, this can be used for other strand-like particles such as fur, quills, and grass.
* Soft Bodies – Great for items that deform in reaction to gravity or collision with other objects, such as skin or rubber.
* Cloth Simulation – A subset go Soft Bodies, this option focuses on creating the effect of cloth types, from silk to denim.
* Rigid Bodies – Simulates rigidity in objects.
* Fluids – Simulates liquids and gases.
* Force Fields – These modify the behaviour of simulations. Force types include Wind, Magnetic, Drag, and Turbulence.
Here are examples of how each of the above simulations can be used in Blender:
Sources:
Blender-manual-i18n.readthedocs.io. (2018). Introduction to Physics Simulation — Blender Reference Manual. [online] Available at: http://blender-manual-i18n.readthedocs.io/ja/latest/physics/introduction.html [Accessed 13 Feb. 2018].
this is how Grass Free was born. Because our goal is: “Blender is Free, so essential things must be setted Free “
