OTOY Forums

Hi Everyone,

Is Rhino Grow by Cam Newman still being developed/supported? http://www.camnewnham.com/rhinogrow/

I have not tried it yet, but I'm beating my head against a wall trying to create a realistic grass. The ability for proxies via the Octane plugin is awesome, and makes high counts of trees a breeze to create -- but trying to create a realistic grass pattern by hand is cumbersome -- it's a whole different beast!

And has anyone using Rhino used Phantom Scatter? http://guusthissen.nl/scatter/

Does Phantom Scatter allow for exporting of CSV or instancing data, so that it can be plugged back into Rhino proxies, so one can render directly in Rhino?

Thanks all.

Unsure on RhinoGrow - sorry.

I have instanced grass - and instead of using a single blade, use a 1m x 1m grass patch (think I got a freebie from turbo squid?) - then you have fewer instances and a better coverage on the ground (and could set it up as some sort of array).

Definitely try PhantomScatter too. I tried the early beta test versions, and it involves exporting the scatter destination mesh out of Rhino, generating the scatter, then importing into OctaneRender for Rhino. Perhaps get a demo version from Guus first to make sure that workflow still works.

Paul

Thanks Paul,

I'll give Phantom Scatter a try and contact Guss before hand. By the way, there are some GREAT free grass models made by Mischa Winkler here:

http://www.mwvizwork.com/192135/blog

They import perfectly into Rhino and look very, very good.

You can also download these off of Ronen Bekerman's blog, among other really cool items! http://www.ronenbekerman.com/

I'm not able to generate the instances utilizing proxies via using the array command in Rhino -- and not using proxies bogs down the viewport too much. Only copy/paste works. If I remember in the manual, I think this is intentional, but it makes instancing with proxies really difficult simply because then everything has to be done via a copy/paste command and individually placed. The grass models are all to heavy when dealing with large amounts of them which is why using the proxy system makes it's so much easier. Same with trees. Of course, that's the whole point of proxies anyway! If all of the array commands worked with proxies, OR better yet, if there was a way to create a function similar to what RhinoGrow does within the Octane proxy system in Rhino, then there would be no need for an external program. If something like that is possible down the road, then setting up exterior architectural scenes in Rhino would be easier than ever before! If that is possible, please add it to the "future plugin idea list".

I'm not able to generate the instances utilizing proxies via using the array command in Rhino -- and not using proxies bogs down the viewport too much. Only copy/paste works. If I remember in the manual, I think this is intentional, but it makes instancing with proxies really difficult simply because then everything has to be done via a copy/paste command and individually placed. The grass models are all to heavy when dealing with large amounts of them which is why using the proxy system makes it's so much easier. Same with trees.

This was exactly the reason I didn't see how Stand hair in Octane2 could be sourced from Rhino - because you cannot distribute a large number of instances onto another mesh. I think this is something Rhino should support (Rhino6?), or there is possibly a script already to do this. But I think it's outside the scope of the Octane plugin (but might be a project for the future).

Paul

Hello guys,

interesting topic

every few month I am trying to evaluate a good and practicable way to do grass, last time I posted a few thoughts in this thread :

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 81#p154181

I was able to archive quite OK results with 2m x 2m gras patches which were created from a 3 bladed grass block, array and the harmony rhino plugin :

http://www.rayflectar.com/Rhino/RhinoSc ... allery.htm

this was exported as a obj file and then re imported as a octane proxy.

while this works OK for small areas, it is problematic for medium to large areas ( the grass looks too homogeneous without variances and may show tiling...)
another very important limitation is the fact that this approach is limited to grass ground planes, it is not possible to tailor the shape of the grass surface out of its 2 x 2 grid.
So details like roads etc. are not possible.

Guus plugin is very interesting, I bought a copy but haven't tried the latest version yet... I will certainly investigate more when I find the time, but especially for quick projects I would love to have an option to create grass surfaces from within Rhino.

In an ideal world, you would create a free surface, define it as grass and it would be covered by randomized grass blades (scale, offset, rotation, material / color), for octane it would be one (or even several?) predefined obj file(s) and an csv file with applied randomness relating to the surface ...

best regards

Andreas

face_off wrote:I think this is something Rhino should support (Rhino6?), or there is possibly a script already to do this. But I think it's outside the scope of the Octane plugin (but might be a project for the future).

I agree with you, this should be a native Rhino toolbar, not a render plugin function. I'll keep digging and experimenting, and i'll also contact McNeel and see if any of their developers are willing to take a look at this. There are tons of architects using Rhino, and they've got to be running into this same problem. I'm not a programmer at all, but this doesn't seem like a huge under taking, although I may very well be wrong.

v-cube wrote:Hello guys,

interesting topic

every few month I am trying to evaluate a good and practicable way to do grass, last time I posted a few thoughts in this thread :

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 81#p154181

I was able to archive quite OK results with 2m x 2m gras patches which were created from a 3 bladed grass block, array and the harmony rhino plugin :

http://www.rayflectar.com/Rhino/RhinoSc ... allery.htm

this was exported as a obj file and then re imported as a octane proxy.

while this works OK for small areas, it is problematic for medium to large areas ( the grass looks too homogeneous without variances and may show tiling...)
another very important limitation is the fact that this approach is limited to grass ground planes, it is not possible to tailor the shape of the grass surface out of its 2 x 2 grid.
So details like roads etc. are not possible.

Guus plugin is very interesting, I bought a copy but haven't tried the latest version yet... I will certainly investigate more when I find the time, but especially for quick projects I would love to have an option to create grass surfaces from within Rhino.

In an ideal world, you would create a free surface, define it as grass and it would be covered by randomized grass blades (scale, offset, rotation, material / color), for octane it would be one (or even several?) predefined obj file(s) and an csv file with applied randomness relating to the surface ...

best regards

Andreas

Hi Andreas,

Yes, I remember reading your posts a while back -- the grass result you achieved with RhinoGrow looked pretty good. No doubt that a proxy based approach is the way to go to keep the model file and viewport response under control. I've put together basic blocks in Rhino and arrayed them across a surface using the Rhino array commands, but the viewport comes to a screeching halt, which is of course what a proxy based approach is best suited for. I agree with Paul, Rhino should do this, not Octane. I'll see if anyone at McNeel is interested, and cross my fingers! If you have any other thoughts or ideas, please let me know! This could be a powerful feature for Rhino. Maybe Cam Newnham will read this and let us know if he's willing to continue development on this project. I think it's something people would definitely pay for.

Hi Bendbox,
Unfortunately RhinoGrow is somewhat dead in the water at the moment - I just don't have the time with other projects I have taken on. As far as I know there isn't anything broken about it, but it's far from optimal and quite messy (has to be used in a certain way to work properly). I was really just developing it as a way to accomplish what I was working on at the time. At the moment it's just python with a poorly implemented interface, but if I were to continue it I would re-write it in C# with a proper UI. Now that Octane is supporting hair, it gives it some more power, too.

Sorry to disappoint! It's something that I'll probably come back to eventually, but now is not the time.

Cam

newske wrote:Hi Bendbox,
Unfortunately RhinoGrow is somewhat dead in the water at the moment - I just don't have the time with other projects I have taken on. As far as I know there isn't anything broken about it, but it's far from optimal and quite messy (has to be used in a certain way to work properly). I was really just developing it as a way to accomplish what I was working on at the time. At the moment it's just python with a poorly implemented interface, but if I were to continue it I would re-write it in C# with a proper UI. Now that Octane is supporting hair, it gives it some more power, too.

Sorry to disappoint! It's something that I'll probably come back to eventually, but now is not the time.

Cam

Hi Cam,

I totally understand, believe me. I think it's GREAT that you got as far as you did with it with little spare time. I'm going to attempt to hit up McNeel which will most likely not lead anywhere(but you never know till you try!). I think a tool like this within Rhino would be extremely useful to the architecture community.

OK bendbox, I will look out for your thread in the Rhino forum and write a few lines to support our issue!

best

Andreas