Grass to look real when rendered

Raylectron (https://Raylectron.com) is a 3D rendering engine for Trimble Sketchup (https://sketchup.com)
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Another thing, if you're going to select SUN in Path tracing, make sure to also select "Use direct illumination".
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Thanks Michael for pointing that out and I'll try it on the next one. But for my own education, what does "Use direct illumination" do? If the Sun is already selected, wouldn't that use or cause direct illumination by default?
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Direct illumination will sample the Sun or Artificial lights directly. Without it selected, rays will randomly hit the Sun or artificial lights, and because the sun is small (viewed from earth), it will rarely hit it. If you have a big (4'x1') ceiling light in a 16'x16' room for example, then the result would be more accurate, and with caustics, because the light source is big, more chance for a ray to hit hit.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Thank you sir. Learning as i go along.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

We just added a new tutorial on Illumination. I think this will clarify some questions you had, especially about Direct Illumination.

How is your grass doing?
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Thanks for asking Michael. I think I basically know what to do now and just need to do more until I get it just right, but haven't gotten a chance yet since few days ago. I'll check out the new tutorial, but are we going to have the audio video tutorials soon? I introduced Raylectron to another colleague and he seems to be interested since he had never heard of the name before. I'll do some more rendering samples and post them for you along with bunch of more questions. Now I'll go and check out the tutorial.
Thanks for your hep as always,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Hi Michael,
I found some time today, so I decided to experiment again, but this time with a natural sloping grass area as opposed to flat grass area, plus to make it a bit more real, I initially placed a tree component which made the file size so big that when I tried to render it the message said that I am short on memory as you are well aware of. So instead of a tree I decided to make a copy of your grass component and modify it with placing some dried maple leaves/foliage and use both components to make it look as if the leaves have fallen off the tree and so on. Initially I made the stone hard-scape about 4 inches high, but you won't be able to see the grass blades when you have a close up render view showing the perimeter stone. So I made the stone height 2 inches high and then when rendered, you end up seeing the components sticking out of the perimeter stone. Even though I am aware that your programers didn't write the Fur ruby script, is there a way that your programmers somehow limit the "make crowd" option just to the perimeter borderline so the components don't stick out of the perimeter stone. In other words, modify the ruby script in a way that any of the grass components that sits on the face and pass the borerdline, gets cut off right at the borderline so when rendered, all will be nice and clean.
Attached is an image of this experiment. My setting were:
1-Path tracing with Sun and Sky. Sun intensity set to 1.5, Sky intensity set to 2 as you mentioned, br=-3, used Direct Illumination.
2-Foliage/dried leaves density set to 5 and 8 on specific faces,size 1 and Standup set to yes.
3-Next I selected all the grass faces including the previous one and applied your grass component with density set to 50 and all else same as before.
Rendered for almost 11 minutes. But not even half as clear as your renderings. I know my computer doesn't have enough ram so it might mean I have to render for much longer time. I don't think it would improve much eve if I render it for 30 minutes. Its got to be the graphic card. At any rate here is the image. Please advise.
Thanks Michael,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Wow, that looks really nice Nick! How many samples did it do for the 11 minutes?

BTW, your video card has nothing to do with it. Raylectron does not use it. What you need is more RAM to get bigger models, and CPU core/threads. Mine is an Intel quad core, 8 threads, and I have 8GB of DDR3. But now you can get better.

When you get the message that your memory is running low, it will try again using an alternative. Did you get that message? It's in v2.48

As for the blades, I can't modify that guy's script, but what you can do is open the group with all the blades in it, and select all those that sticks out and move them in. I've already made the suggestion to the guy about that and we'll see what he'll do. We might simply create our own too, we're thinking about it.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Thanks Michael. The answer to your question would be that I don't know. Where do I see that information? :D I also do have v2.48, but it doesn't give me any option.
It is good that you already mentioned that to the guy who wrote the script. Maybe he does something about it. But if you can include grass displacement map in your future ready made material package, that would be wonderful so we don't have to waste time on workarounds. Please don't forget materials like ready made Chrome, Gold, Silver, all sorts of shinny metals along with all related architectural materials. I am budgeting myself for a new computer, but meanwhile I have to work with what I have.
Thanks again Michael,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

At the bottom of the window, in the status bar is where it shows how many samples and other things.

As for the material presets, we can't think of everything, so if you have time, can you put up a list of material you think it should (and/or must) have?
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Thanks Michael. And sure thing. I'll write a list of the Most important ones and submit it later.
Have a great weekend,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Hi Michael,
Regarding a material list for Raylectron future (hopefully soon) included material package I packed up names and pictures of different materials from two sources.

The other RAR file is a series of pictures categorized with names and samples pictures. Attached are these two files. You can just look at any building and see what materials are needed either for exterior or interior needs, specially ready made grass displacement map(s) or any other material that needs to be shown with displacement map(like carpet) so users don't spend too much time fighting the software to come up with the correct settings. They can just assign it and it would render perfectly( much like Keyshot or Bunkspeed Pro softwares). So again for immediate architectural purposes and in particular for exterior shots, the ready made grass is a must.

Thanks Michael
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Thanks Nick. But I had to edit your post. We don't want to copy someone elses and get into trouble.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't mean for the materials to be copied or anything. I was basically talking about the generic names of the material and how for instance they look like. So your Rose Wood might look a bit different from another software's Rose Wood but still they have the same name or any other material for that matter. The intention was not and is not copying. I emailed the link as a reference, suggesting that Raylectron material package should have materials similar to the ones in that link.
At any rate, thank you for correcting the post. Hope that was at least of some help.
Best,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

I know you didn't mean wrong Nick. But we don't want the other guys to read this post and then complain. you know how they are!

The link and the files are great, thanks!
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Hi Michael,
Two things I noticed. One, just below where you put in your log in info, there is a box that one can check to log in automatically every time one visits. But I have to enter the info every time.
The other thing that just happened, as i was trying to render a scene, this dialog box just kept coming up not letting me proceed with the rendering and it would say something like <click ok to save the file or click cancel to get out of the program> and, it wouldn't save the file either, and I had to exit the program. Had to uninstall the whole thing and I should reinstall it tomorrow again. The same dialog box appears whenever I want to save the rendered image somewhere, I have to click the ok button the first time in order not to corrupt the file, and the same dialog comes back on again so I click the ok button for the second time, and then I can save the rendered image. Don't know whats going on!
Thanks,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

For the auto-login to work, you need to have the cookies enabled in your browser.

For the errors, I'm not sure if I understand this Nick. Can you provide me with some screen shots of the steps you use to get these errors so i can do it on my end? I just tried a quick scan and saved the image as a PNG and it worked just fine!
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

My cookies are on and I have no problem getting into other forums automatically. Also I reinstalled Raylectron again and its giving me the same "access Violation" message as the attached picture. I was trying to do another little test render. There could be something wrong with the model so I'll modify the model and see if that happens again.

Correction;
There was something wrong with the model. I modified the model and no more access violation alert.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Maybe you login using the https, but when you go back, you use http only?

I see that the error window shows "Office" not "Raylectron" !!!??? Raylectron does not use Office! There sure was something wrong with the model, but what? who knows!
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

But I wasn't using Office or any other program at that time, and why is Raylectron causing "Office" access violation or vise vesa? What does Raylectron have to do with office? I know for the fact that there was a problem with my model and I corrected it and no further "Access Violation" alarm, so all is ok now, but that was interesting.
Regarding the login method, I have your website on my favorite side bar, so I just click it and when your website is on screen I click the support and then click on the login wording on the upper right hand side. So theoretically as long as I don't log out I should be able to login without putting in my username and password once I click the little box below. But regardless, I have to input all the info every time.
Thanks Michael,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Do you logout when you are done? If you do, then you'll have to login again. If you don't logout and close the browser, you will not need to login again.

Have you downloaded v2.49? The model viewer on it is nice compare to prior versions.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Michael, I must be getting old. The word "Office" at the top of the access violation dialog refers to the name of my file which is Office.skp. So that meant something was wrong with the file I guess. No, I don't log out until I am done with Raylectron and thats the way I thought it should be but have no idea why. I'll download the latest later on today.
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

But you do logout when you are done?
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Nick1 »

Not always since I thought if I want to get on the forum again I can just start posting without the login process.
Also Michael, please help. I have placed some downlights in this model and They are in 4 different groups of 1 to 10 downlights namely Downlight1, Downlight2, Downlight3, and Downlight4. I assigned a yellow material color to all of these. But regardless of where I select these I can't seem to turn them on. I read your process on "Getting started ..." and so on and followed to the T( at least I think I did) but no go.
What is the exact step by step process please? We have two dialog boxes here, one is the Raylectron Material editor with only Material Type(user defined and Emitter) and the other Raylectron Material Editor dialog where you would go to View menu and select at the bottom, the Material Editor where you find all your materials within the drop down list. So how do I assign emitter attribute to Downlight1 for instance? Do I click the downlight1 on the model first? And then which dialog box I have to go to? What happens to the other dialog box. I am sorry but it is a bit confusing. Whatever happened to dragging the emitter material over Sketchup model/material? It could be easier. So let me know how exactly this process is done. Really appreciate it.
Thanks again,
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Re: Grass to look real when rendered

Post by Support »

Nick, on Sketchup, the Raylectron material editor, click on the drop down "User defined" and select "Emitter". There you can set the light attributes as shown in the tutorial. That's also where you turn them on/off.

About your 10 lights, is the emitter a group with no color, but the group has a color? IS the front face facing down into the room?

If you have 10 lights, when you export the model, Raylectron should show you that you have 10 lights, in the status bar.
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