INS Grass 2.4 + Ornamental Grass Pack

What's new in INS Grass 2.4 Update:

1. Hide all mode,

allowing to hide all modifiers at once and managing their visibility.

2. Multiselect Tool,

allowing to manage multiple modifiers(plant types) at once.

3. New realistic plants

– Barley and Ripe Barley in two forms of presets – single plants and clumps. Each asset contains 24 models per one of 4 LOD's.

IMPORTANT!
- Old files won't work in new version.
- If no custom folder provided for presets, they will be deleted (need to backup Saved presets before reinstalling).
- INS Grass 2.4 is provided in two versions - 2.4.0 for Blender 3.x and 2.4.1 for Blender 2.4.1

What's new in INS Grass 2.2 Update:

1. Placeholder system,

allowing to change instances in selected system into simplified meshes, what radically improves viewport performance and make setting rotation, shape and animation much easier and comfortable.

2. LOD system for animation

in the form of rotation animation feature, allowing to set distance, since which great looking, but resources heavy bending animation, changes into simplier and less resources heavy animation based on rotating entire instances. Transition between those two types of animations is fluent thanks to transition distance option which can be set to Your needs.

3. New realistic plants

– Lamium purpureum and Lamium album in two forms of presets – single plants and clumps. Each asset contains 15 models per one of 4 LOD's.

IMPORTANT!
- Old files won't work in new version.
- If no custom folder provided for presets, they will be deleted (need to backup Saved presets before reinstalling).

Full changelog on the bottom of this site.

INS Grass is...

an innovative scattering plugin for blender(version 3.4 and higher), created for artists, who couldn't find enough fidelity and realism in results given by similar products available on the market. INS Grass achives this thanks to features never seen before in scattering add-ons, like:

1. Complex colorizing options,

allowing to achive countless color variations with only one asset type. Colorizing can be completely dependent on density and scale patterns, f.ex. Taller grass is green, while shorter grass is more dry. This dependency can be inversed or completely broken. What allows to:

2. Advanced, camera culling system,

that automatically switches to the active camera, follows changes made in image resolution and corrections in camera options such as: focal length, shifting and sensor size.

3. Sophisticated Level Of Detail (LOD) system,

based on instances screen size or distance, what allows to use full potential of gameready assets with LOD's, like Quixel Megascans or Polyheaven models.

INS Grass contains 860 models in 11 types of assetts with four LOD's each. There is small, medium, tall and mowed grass in two versions of instances – regular and clumps, with 20 models per LOD. Besides that, there are clover leafs with 20 models per LOD, clover flowers with 10 models per LOD and daisies with 25 models per LOD. Assets base is constantly growing and is planned to contain more wild grass models, crops, bushes, trees, etc.

4. Hybrid assets usage

In many tutorials about scattering systems, the author advices to use large clumps models as instances, because such models render faster and use less RAM, but they also produce lots of problems - You can see the bottom of instances on pleated terrain, they interfeare with curbs and other objects and they give this ugly clumpy look. These problems are mostly visible near the camera.
INS Grass LOD system allows to use smaller, regular, more precise instances closer to camera, where instances amount is relatively small due to narrow camera visibility cone, while bigger clumps are instanced with reduced density on last LOD, farther from the camera, where instances amount is quite high. This hybrid assets usage allows to achive high quality effect close to the camera with reasonable use of computer resources.
Hybrid assets system demonstration video

5. Ability to change instances shape,

from add-ons menu level.

6. Bending animation,

with multiple options, allowing to achive convincing wind imitation, from light breeze to hurricane.
Animation options demonstration video

7. Different approach to density and scale patterns,

which can be controlled by custom textures that can be mixed and controlled by color ramps. and transformed with precise and intuitive system of controllers.
Video explaining how patterns system works

8. Terrain material, driven by selected scatter system,

what allows to get proper pattern and color blending between terrain areas beyond camera clamping distance and areas with scattered instances.
Video showing how INS Grass Terrain material works

9. Advanced rotation tools

like „rotation mask” and „rotation curve”, allowing to achive custom mowing patterns or shape instances rotation in selected areas.

There are also more common features, like:

10. Repulsion option

allowing to controll instances rotation around selected objects.
The repulsion feature was shown in the second part of this video

11. Easy to add and remove multiple emitters and occlusion objects.

12. Multiple selection methods that cooperate together,

like: use of emitters vertex group, texture paint, curve selection and use of pathway curve, occlusion proximity, emitters edge offset and slope.

Occlusion proximity and emitter edge offset options helps to solve the problem of instances intersecting with curbs.

13. Ability to manually change transform of selected asset.
Video showing how this feature works

14. Ability to convert instances to mesh

15. Ability to save Your own presets,

what is show in those two videos:

Saving presets with LODs from outside the INS Grass Add-on
Adding coloring and creating preview image for custom preset

INS Grass on social media:
YouTube
facebook

Installation guide:
Inside "INS Grass 2.1.9" folder there is "INS Grass.zip" file, which is the add-on file. DO NOT unpack it.
Open Blender and go into "edit" menu and choose "preferences". In Blender preferences window choose "Add-ons" tab, click "install" button and go to directory, where "INS Grass.zip" file is stored. Select it and click "install add-on" button.
To activate it, find: "Object: INS Grass" on the list and click box, next to this name. The "v" in the box means that the add-on is activated and ready to use. To make this activation constatnt on every Blender launch You need to press "Save Preferences" button in the left bottom corner of "preferences" menu.
That's all :)

INS Grass Creators:

Marcin Malcherek (https://marcinmalcherek.artstation.com, https://sketchfab.com/marcin_malcherek)
Kate White (https://eelh.artstation.com, https://www.blenderkit.com/asset-gallery?query=author_id:249)

Credits to creators of some assets used in graphic materials on this page:
Thanks to Mike Alger for sharing Mike Alger model, which was used as scale reference.
Thanks to Poly Heaven team for sharing amazing quality textures and models.

CHANGELOG:

INS Grass Update 2.4 Changelog:

Support Blender 4.1
Added multi select functionality
Added Hide all button to hide modifiers in viewport
Refactor
Hide INS modifiers node groups from user
Remove multiple scenes support

Fix curve pathway uniformization
Fix error when adding saved preset that has holder collection
Fix console error for more than 25 instances for LOD
Fix shape uniformization slider is not shown for added modifier if it isn't first
Fix loop is broken when direction is set other than 0, 90, etc
Fix Loop Animation End Frame is identical to Start Frame
Fix Loop Animation noise scale is not affected by Speed
Fix grass animation with height threshold is jerky for moving camera
Fix converting to mesh ins modifier with holder enabled results in error
Cleanup: remove converted to instances mesh when edited instances are deleted, ins modifier removed; remove INSGrass_holder mesh when no ins modifiers left; remove terrain material when no ins modifiers left and no object is using it
Fix VG selection offset is not calculated from VG edges
Fix occlusion proximity is not calculated from occlusion object's faces
Fix error in logs when clicking on hint
Fix changing bending animation loop frames changes bending speed
Fix disabling Use Shape Modification disables Animate Bending
Fix 4.1 rotation inconsistency with lower versions
Fix appending GN is slow in 4.1
Fix convert to mesh results in error for Blender 4.0 and higher
Fix convert to mesh throws an error

INS Grass Update 2.2 Changelog:

1. Added Rotation Animation
2. Added select button for edited instances if enabled in viewport
3. Added Display Holder option
4. Added Lamium purpureum and Lamium album in two forms of presets – single plants and clumps. Each asset contains 15 models per one of 4 LOD's.
5. Added motion blur support for Animate Bending.
6. Upgrade - grass type blend file can contain multiple collections with different materials but same mesh
7. Upgrade - shape Modification is calculated faster (Slenderness, Uniformization, Wind)
8. Fixed convert to instances duplicates geometry if animate bending is enabled
9. Fixed animate bending is broken for converted instances if instance position was changed
10. Fixed converting to instance modifier when other modifier has animate bending enabled results in other modifier's realized instances appearing in edited mesh
11. Fixed Mix Patterns Distribution and Mix Patterns Scale blend types set to anything other than Mix do not affect distribution and scale
12. Fixed bending angle in animation does not correspond to Wind Effect angle when scale is not 1

INS Grass Update 2.1.9 Changelog:

1. Fixed bug cousing unwanted behavior of "Use Emitters Vertex Group" selection method in inversed mode, if Vertex group was created by weight paint method.

INS Grass Update 2.1.8 Changelog:

1. Chenged the method of bending behavior in clumps instances, what produces less shape distortion.
2. Changed default values for "Blur Clamping" and "Blur Contrast" in all grass presets. They were also prepared to be used with clumps instances as LOD4.
3. Made some tweaks and minor changes in terrain shader.

INS Grass Update 2.1.7 Changelog:

1. Upgraded procedure of saving user presets and creating presets based on assets from outside the INS-Grass add-on.
2. Added clumps for „mowed grass” type, what helped to create clumps presets and optimized presets, which radically reduces render times and ram usage.
3. Rebuilded and optimized clumps models for small, medium and tall grass types.
4. Added Daisies models.
5. Simplified procedure for adding INS Grass terrain material.
6. Added functionality to set density based on minimum distance between instances - slider called „Minimal Distance”.
7. Added line mode for clumping border, what prevents pop-upping during camera movement perpendicullar to camera view axis.
8. Added an ability to set clamp distance separately for render and viewport.
9. Added new, better optimized method for expanding instances outside camera view - slider called „Expand Distance”.
10. Added an ability for occlusion culling only inside occlusion object - box called „Delete Only Inside”.
11. Added „Repulsion” function in rotation section, which allows to set repulsion objects which affects rotation of nearby instances.
12. Added ability to define slenderness vertex group and define the upper limit of slenderness behavior.
13. ADDED WIND ANIMATION.
14. Added an ability to set density per LOD.
15. New method of applying color mask to instances – right now color is applied to UV-map and is constant on instances while changing their shape. Before color mask was projected along z axis, what caused colorization changes, while changing shape.
16. Added an ability to convert to instances, what allows to manipulate instances manually.
17. Added an ability to convert instances to mesh.BUGS FIX 2.0.2
    - Fixed some missing file paths,
    - Fixed Material elements inconsistency in some assets,
    - Fixed some controllers not selected, after clicking select button for controllers,

    ---

Update 2.0 (24.01.2023) - Complete rebiuld of the add-on
Works with Blender 3.3 LTS, Cycles and Eevee renderers.

INS Grass 2.0 Presentation Part 1

INS Grass 2.0 Presentation Part 2

Update (11.07.2022) - Added Ornamental Grass Pack(4 plant types, 44 models), please check this link: https://marcinmalcherek.gumroad.com/l/lxmhrg?_gl=1*x9jbvv*_ga*MTA2NDI3MTg2My4xNjUzODkyMDg0*_ga_6LJN6D94N6*MTY1NzUyMzg2Mi4xMzAuMS4xNjU3NTI2MTIwLjA.

To do list:

1. Implement two another particle systems – with long, single grass and mown lawn grass. DONE
2. Add another particless map (already created and tested) which lets to achive bit different effect.
3. Work on particles models to make them look better.
4. Create a script, which will autoupdate particle system after changing particles density factor to non zero.
5. Make it in a polished form of an add – on.
6. Make it swinging in the wind.
7. Make it more expensive every time new functions will be added.

Changelog

Update 1.4 (28.06.2022) - Added medium tall and tall grass type

Update 1.3 (31.05.2022) - Implementation method changes, mowed grass has been added, the ability to easily control grass density by texture paint has been implemented
- new implementation method is as easy as before, but now it's effect is the same for all Blender versions. Now instead to appending particle system, specific collection shall be appended. New method lets to keep the project more organized. Also now, along with the system, border rectangle is appended. This rectangle represents the border of system patern, so now it is better seen what is happening with the system.
- "clamping radius" slider has been added to "grass in clumps" type. It allows to spread particles in more thight groups.
- mowed grass type has been added in two types - simple mowed grass and stripes pattern mowed grass.
- now it is possible to easily control density by texture paint in two clicks - just choose border rectangle , select texture paint mode and You can start painting.
- Rised the price from $20 to $23

Update 1.2 (16.05.2022) - The ability to manipulate the shape of the particles has been added
- the following options have been added: 1.) Shape Wind Effect (bends particles shape); 2.) Shape Wind Dump (thersholds bending behavior of "shape wind effect"); 3.) Shape Slenderness (lets to achive tall or flat grass effect, without changing the scale of particles); 4.) Shape Uniformization (lets to manipulate blades that sticks out of overall shape to grow more according to the basic shape of a particle); 5.) Wind Direction (Controls particles rotation - effect influence is noticable after setting "wind direction randomization" to a lower value < 1; 6.) Wind Direction Randomization (manipulates particles rotation randomization - lower values directs particles more in one direction); 7.) Vertical randomization (lets to randomize particles rotation along Z axis)
- Changed "Map Rotation" driver expression so that 1 unit on the slider corresponds to 1 degree unit.
- Rised the price from $18 to $20

Update 1.1 (27.04.2022) - Eevee engine tweaks
- added Eevee material, scene is prepared for use with Eevee - it has light source (sun lamp) tweaked to work with this engine, it also has a setup of curves in color management section - it is turned off dy default. To make it look better it is suggested to change "look" setting in "color management" to "high contrast".
- Folder structure has been changed to take up less disk space