Cinema - Maxwell Grass Tag
The Maxwell Grass tag provides access to the Maxwell grass extension. Where grass is applied per-object in Maxwell Render, it may be applied to an entire hierarchy of objects in the plugin. For instance, given this object hierarchy:
The rendered result will be as such (the file checker.png, assigned to the grass Density map, is the same one used for Reflectance 0° in a diffuse BSDF, in the material assigned to the plane and sphere):
Most of the parameters contained in the Maxwell Grass tag are directly translated, so for information on those, see the standard Maxwell Grass documentation. Following is information pertaining to the parameters contained in the tag's Display group, which apply to how the tag works inside the plugin.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Enabled | This simply enables or disables the display of grass in the Cinema viewport. If viewport vectors have not yet been generated, this checkbox is disabled. |
| Generate & Release | These buttons are used to generate grass vectors for display, or to release vectors (in the interest of freeing memory) which have been generated. |
| Percent & Max. Blades | These parameters work with the grass Density parameter to control how much grass to generate for the viewport. |
| Scene Scale Link | Since you may have any number of Scene Objects, and since each one may have its own export scale, the Maxwell Grass tag cannot, on its own, determine the scale you wish to observe in the viewport. If no link is specified here, the tag will use the effective scale of the Cinema document; otherwise, its scale factor will be used to scale the grass. |
For information on the other parameters, please see the Maxwell Grass documentation.
General Notes
The display of grass has been designed to mimic the display of Cinema's hair system. So, when the tag is not selected, the grass vectors will be drawn, using either a neutral grey color, or a color derived from the material assigned to the grass tag, if one is assigned. When selected, points will be drawn at the end of each blade, and a green circle will be drawn at its base, aligned with the first blade segment. Here is the above scene, shown in the viewport, while the grass tag (which has a green material assigned) is selected:
Note that because generating the grass is a potentially expensive operation, it is not updated automatically; if you move or alter objects which have been used to generate grass vectors in the viewport, it will be necessary to update them by clicking the Generate button again.