Problem with AutoGrass

[Ardak]

Hi, I tried out the AutoGrass. I used in plane on plane with displace modifier, I have .tiff heightfield map as the displace map, and I use MeshSmooth for bringing out the details on the plane. Then I applied AutoGrass to this terrain plane, and the render times were colossal. I did some researching, and it seems to be that MeshSmooth modifier is killing the render time. I heard that MeshSmooth is heavier on the machine than TurboSmooth, so I switched to that one, but it doesn't seem to make AutoGrass work right. Also I made VRayProxy out of the terrain (which had MeshSmooth modifier) and even then it does not seem to work properly. So is there some kind of workaround for MeshSmooth or TurboSmooth modifier? When I tried AutoGrass on the plane with just the displace modifier and the heightfield map, it worked fine. Thank you.

[matthewgriswold]

several things come to mind:

-do you need to smooth the mesh if you are applying Autograss over it? I could understand the need to smooth a mesh if you were applying a grass texture, but the "look" of the grass might actually benefit from some natural imperfections. That is, unless the displacement map is too contrasty and creating jagged spikes...

-have you increased your Autograss memory limit? Scroll down to the bottom of the Autograss dialog and boost your limit.

-are you using Fast material settings? The high quality grass mats involve translucency and double-sided materials, which can quickly cripple any workstation. Stick with fast material presets until you're ready for final-quality images.

-increase your Dynamic Memory Limit. Under the System tab, Render Settings dialog. I would try this first-it might help handle the geometry a little better. Try setting it to roughly 75% of your system's memory.

 

These are all a little random, but hopefully it will get the brain juices flowing...

[Ardak]

Thanks for your reply. It seemed that the MeshSmooth or TurboSmooth slowed down the rendering time, but now it seems that the render-times are slow however the modifiers are deleted from the terrains which have AutoGrass applied. Weird.

[mirekbrabenec]

Hi Ardak,

If your terrain is very large, try to divide it to smaller parts and apply unique autograss object for each part. It should speed up your rendering.

[TSuess]

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