Tips on shrubbery? Landscaping?

[ironman]

Hello all...

So I render homes/commercial buildings by modelling in CAD then importing into Max...to get my finished product, i throw it into Photoshop to add landscaping. I always look online to compare my work to others, and i see that a lot of people do landscaping in 3d max. I am not a pro at Max by any stretch, but i would like to add shrubs and landscaping in Max instead of Photoshop....can someone steer me in the right direction?

Here is some stuff that i've done, so you can see what i do...

[ironman]

The first image shows a building i did in Max, and pretty much everything above the road was photoshopped (trees, rock wall, sky, and yes, powerlines)...

The second image shows a house, also done in Max, and aligned over an existing house, cleaned up in photoshop...they didnt want any landscaping...

The third image is a house i did a few years ago, before i got into Max...i modelled it in CAD, then dropped it into photoshop, and did the entire thing in photoshop. Not fun. But you can see the landscaping, which is the point of this thread...i'd rather do that in Max than in photoshop...

[Cad64]

You may want to have a look at this thread: http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showth...ighlight=xfrog

Lately I've started adding the majority of my plants in Photoshop, rather than using 3D plants. However, I will use full 3D plants and trees in the foreground, up close to the camera, but anything in the mid-ground or background will usually be done in Photoshop. It's just faster and easier to add them in Photoshop than spend a lot of time placing them in the scene and then dealing with system slowdown due to massive amounts of poly's. And then the long render times, ugh! Plus, it's difficult to always find the right 3D tree or shrub, and my boss is a real stickler about using the exact plants that are on the plans. But in Photoshop, I can always find photos of plants to use, so it's no big deal. But anyway, it all depends on time constraints and the level of realism required. If I have the time, I will use 3D plants, but time is usually not on my side.

[ironman]

So, Cad64, people in this profession, such as yourself, use photoshop to add plants? How funny, I thought i was the only one. I thought it was pretty hack, but if others do it, maybe i'll stick to the photoshop method. Altho, I'll check out your link...thanks!

[Cad64]

Well, in a production environment, where everyone wants everything yesterday and you're competing with overseas firms that charge less than half for the same product, you have to cut corners wherever possible. I've just found that adding things like plants/trees in Photoshop is much faster and easier than placing 3D plants/trees manually in Max. And render times are much, much faster without them. I do add them in strategic places though, where it makes sense, but I try to keep them to a minimum and then fill in the rest in Photoshop. The only time you really need full 3D plant material is when you are doing animation. If you're just doing still renders, Photoshop plants work just fine.

But . . . Having said all that . . . When I'm working on my own personal projects, where time is not an issue, I do place the 3D plants manually in Max and render out the full scene. Then I take the rendered image into Photoshop and touch up any areas that need attention.

It just depends on the situation.

[Tankman]

Nice "stuff" ironman! Adding shrubs? I wouldn't have a clue.

I'm sure you'll hear from many forum rendering guru's. Thanks for displaying your fine "stuff."

Where is the ironman posting from? Landscape looks a bit familiar.

[spittle]

For grass - I'd say it's quite good to take a sample of some grass already in the scene and then blend that with another grass texture or merge it using an opacity map though some scenes are easier than others. Some grass textures are too uniform to look realistic.

Also I think blurring your CG elements to match that off the photo references, or photo background in your scene helps. Also adding noise too.

Attached are some pics of a test I did a while ago - not really used this yet at work though.

[cec_casbie_novice]

nice use of photoshop and cad pkg