4/4 Lights, image, music!

When creating realistic 3D grass, lights are everything. Click the Lights icon {} from the Create tab and create a Free Light above the patch of grass.

Select the Free Light and Click the Modify tab {}. Enable the Shadows and set the Intensity Multiplier to 60.

Scroll down to the Hair Light Attr tab and set the Fuzz to 1.0.

Render the scene now. You should get something like this:

It’s a bit too dark because of the way our 3D grass casts shadows.

A quick (but computationally intensive) fix would be too add more lights. While holding the shift key, drag the Free Light to two more spots above the grass (this will duplicate it) and set the intesity of the new lights to 80.

Render the image again and you should get this:

The End

Ok, it does sort of look like it needs a haircut but it’s looking good enough for the purpose of this tutorial. If you change the kink parameters, increase the root and tip thickness by a bit and play around with the lights and shadows you should get a much better result.

You can also tie it to dynamic systems or even comb it (heh) to look exactly as needed.

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