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WIP - Forest Floor


eetu

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I have a clear image in my head of an environment on the forest floor, which I want to recreate in Houdini. Something like if you put your camera on the ground with a macro lens.

The amount of detail needed is quite staggering, and I've started building up the parts I'll need.

Most things are/will be completely procedural, I can paint areas of what kind of stuff I want where.

I started with moss:

moss5.thumb.jpg.c8d5893eb9b85763b2494fe8f83bf92c.jpg

I even bought a reference book about mosses, the system should be parametrized enough to create a few different ones.

I also have procedural pine cones, in different states of dryness/openness, as well as pine needles, all different.

moss_c_0030.thumb.jpg.78478173669266acbaeee9e52b1ae999.jpg

moss_c_0028.thumb.jpg.5c90fdff2d480387220ae9f48a5e47ff.jpg

The pine cones are just copy-stamped on the ground, but the needles are dropped down with physics.

I thought I'd create some interesting looking muddy ground with variable-viscosity fluids, like in here, but the initial tries were a disappointment. Maybe later.

Edited by eetu
cured bitrot
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Here are some mushrooms. they are a little bit different according to age, but there could be more of that. And maybe less SSS :)

They have some rudimentary collision avoidance with regards to each other.

 

shroomc032.thumb.jpg.34bc1a5413830d084e39f54d753903b9.jpgshroomb022.thumb.jpg.4f111409d0198c3c46184606f8583a61.jpgshroomb021.thumb.jpg.5a68ee29d0e87794db13acf1e8fdb5a8.jpg

Edited by eetu
cured bitrot
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This is a different kind of moss, this time realized with hair.

I copy-stamp a lot of randomized minimal l-system skeletons on the rock, and then grow the hair from those.

hairmoss-a.jpg.5ca86a21e3d1b1bd0eed21ebb817b205.jpg

 [h264 quicktime turntable, 2mb]

It doesn't look like your regular polygonal surface, which I like.

There is still a lot I need to do. A tree stump, a couple of rocks, more logical ground, old leaves and grass and other decomposing things, blueberry and lingonberry shrubs..

Plenty of fun still ahead!

Edited by eetu
cured bitrot
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Looking great Eetu!

Artistically, I'd try to break up the speculars on the mushrooms a bit but I have to admit that I've never seen those, maybe they are supposed to be that clean looking.

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Thanks for all the kind words!

Artistically, I'd try to break up the speculars on the mushrooms a bit but I have to admit that I've never seen those, maybe they are supposed to be that clean looking.

Yea, they are too clean and orderly now. The big specular hits are especially offending, now that I look at them :)

Any rendertimes ?

With the two shadowmaps precalced, the rendertimes are in the 2-5 minute range. Some of the moss ones might be longer.

Edited by eetu
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  • 1 month later...

The materials are pretty much all Mantra Surfaces or Clay. The only things I remember having changed is gamma nodes to linearise the textures, plus Optimize Secondary Rays for the SSS ones.

The lighting is just two shadowmapped spots, sun and sky, with sky's shadowmap quite a bit more blurred. There is also a faint upwards pointing no-shadow floor bounce light. No GI.

This has been a bit dormant, but I have added some blueberry shrubs, another moss variant, and some photoscanned tree stumps in the bg.

focus_front.thumb.jpg.5923ed4fd01e1cf67139ff33d6c7ee3e.jpg

Edited by eetu
cured bitrot
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