Architectural Grass in Enscape
Dan Stine

Dan Stine

Last updated: November 16, 2023  •  14 min read

Top Tips for Rendering Grass in Enscape

Rendering different types of grass has always been a challenge in architectural graphics, especially for the average designer who does not specialize in developing computer-generated imagery (CGI).

The best we could do in the past was to apply a bump map and maximize the setting, so the ground did not look completely flat.

Then, Enscape totally changed the game by automatically adding 3D grass within their real-time photorealistic rendering engine and giving us control over the height and height variation of the blades of grass. And now, they've gone one step further with the introduction of animated grass and vegetation (version 2.8 upwards).

Any material in Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, Vectorworks, or Archicad with the word “grass” in its name will render, by default, as a thick three-dimensional-looking grass in Enscape. Even in the small comparison images below, it is easy to see what a big difference there is.

This article will cover the ins and outs of the 3D grass rendering feature in Enscape, with a focus on Revit and SketchUp.

Revit Flat Grass ExampleRevit’s flat Grass material

Grass - Revit Plant MaterialEnscape’s 3D Grass feature

Grass in EnscapeDetailed view of Enscape’s 3D grass feature

Here are a couple of images I have created which greatly benefit from a realistic and natural-looking grass pattern. Each grass image was rendered with Enscape and has had no post-production edits.

Grass shown in a transportation projectGrass shown in a transportation project

Grass shown in a landscape architecture project3D grass shown in a landscape architecture project

What’s more, animated grass looks amazing in real-time presentations and videos. Take a look at this short video clip with beautiful 3D grass.

 

Rendering 3D grass in Revit

Using Autodesk Revit, we can achieve amazing results in Enscape by employing various materials to define grass types. Let’s look at how this works and what the options are.

Grass height

The magic happens when Grass/Carpet Rendering is ticked within the Enscape General Settings dialog and one or more Revit materials have the keywords “grass”, “short grass”, “tall grass” or “wild grass”.

01 Grass_General Settings_1

Tip: The images in this post are enhanced with Enscape assets such as people, trees, shrubs, dandelions, a basketball, and a vehicle. These components are included at no extra cost with Enscape.

Here is an example of the different grass types compared side-by-side.

Normal Grass in RevitRevit material with keyword ‘grass’ in the name

Short Grass in Revit and EnscapeRevit material with keyword ‘short grass’ in the name

Tall Grass in Revit and EnscapeRevit material with keyword ‘tall grass’ in the name

Wild Grass in Revit and EnscapeRevit material with keyword ‘wild grass’ in the name

Here is what happens based on keywords used in the material name:

  • Grass: Medium grass
  • Short Grass: Shorter grass
  • Tall Grass: Taller grass
  • Wild Grass: Taller grass with varying blade heights

TIP: The keywords are not case sensitive, but you cannot change the order, e.g. “grass tall” is not the same as “tall grass” to Enscape.

Grass color

Because Enscape samples the color or texture assigned to the material, we can achieve interesting results. I have been using this texture for a while as it has subtle variations in color, which translates nicely to Enscape’s 3D grass. It was acquired from a larger high-resolution aerial image.

Grass_Natural                                                Texture I often use for the grass material texture

As shown in the following image, I set the texture size to 120’ square; thus, the patterning within the grass image is not obvious in Enscape due to the scale. Feel free to right-click and save this texture and give it a try in your project.

Grass Material Browser

Here are the results in Enscape. Notice that the color is not consistent, which produces an effect that often occurs due to droughts. So, the result is a more natural grass pattern if this is the look you are going for.

Grass Texture UsedWith Irregular Color

Grass rendered using texture shown above

Grass Texture Used With Irregular Color 02

Detailed view of grass rendered using 3D texture shown above

Grass types

Now let’s look at how we can create specific, real-world, grass types. You will be happy to know it is easy with Enscape.

Grass types
First, let's test a few grass types shown in the image above: Centipede, Bermuda, St. Augustine and Zoysia.

I found this image by searching the internet for “grass types”. I then cropped the image down to just the desired grass type (no text or lines) and saved a separate image, with a texture size of about 8-12” (20cm – 30cm) wide and 4-5” (10cm – 13cm) tall. Each grass image produced one of the results shown below. Of course, finding larger tileable samples would produce better-looking results and look more accurate in Revit if ‘realistic view’ were ever used.

Here are the results of my ‘grass types’ study in Enscape:


Grass - Centipede
3D grass: CentipedeGrass - Bermuda3D grass: Bermuda

Grass - St Augustine3D grass: St. Augustine

Grass - Zoysia

3D grass: Zoysia

Tip: Grass is not intended to be applied to predominately vertical surfaces, as the blades of grass are generally vertical, not perpendicular to the surface.

Out of curiosity, let’s look at what the two default Revit grass materials look like in Enscape – these are the ones that install with the software. There is a big difference. The one actually called “grass” is way too dark. The other is better, but still a little off. And this will change with the lighting, so remember to consider the albedo; setting the real-world base color of a material results in more photorealistic graphics in various lighting conditions.

Revit default grass material

Revit’s default grass material

Revit Default Plant Material

Revit’s default 'plant' material

With this, we can see the variety of options we have to represent grass types in Revit. Some of the techniques offered in the next section on SketchUp can also be applied in Revit. However, Revit does not have the detailed sliders for height and height variation.

TIP: If the grass is poking through your floor or walk in Revit, add a Building Pad below the floor/walk to stamp out the top of the toposurface in that area.

Rendering 3D grass in SketchUp

When rendering in SketchUp, we have all of the options just covered for Revit, and a few more!

In fact, because of the Enscape-centric Material Editor and ability to place custom proxy objects, some designers will export their Revit model to SketchUp to finish the rendering task there.

For my SketchUp examples, I downloaded the model Walled Garden with Rock Waterfall created by JBJDesigns.

02 Grass_SketchUp Materials_1

 

Notice in the Enscape Materials dialog the Type is set to Grass and we have two sliders near the bottom; one for Height and another for Height Variation.

You can quickly set your selected SketchUp material type to grass via the dropdown menu. The grass settings are only visible if the type is set to grass. Use the Height slider to adjust how long your grass is. The Height Variation slider adds variation to the height and size of the grass blades. The higher the amount of height variation, the wilder your grass will look. If you would prefer a more uniform appearance, set the slider to a low value.

When setting the material via keyword, the type is automatically set to grass because the SketchUp material name has the word ”grass” in it. But, we can also manually change the name if needed. In this model, there were a few materials with the words “vegetation” and “grass” in the same name. Those materials default to Vegetation so I must either change the name or manually change the type… I did the latter.

Grass height variation

Grass height (0,50,100) and variation set to zero

Sports fields

If you are designing a sports field or stadium, you will be happy to know Enscape can produce extraordinary results for this application! I did a quick search, again on 3D Warehouse, and found a high-quality model of the Gillette-Stadium created by Cleveland Rocks to explore this use case.

In this SketchUp model, each grass color is a different material. All I did for each of these materials was to make sure the type was set to grass and adjust the height and variation sliders to zero. And that was it! Just five minutes into opening this model and I was able to navigate a photorealistic rendering in real time, even adjusting the time of day.

Grass in Enscape-3

Various grass materials used to define a sports field

Here is a detailed view of the logo defined by several different grass colors.

Best Practices Grass in Architectural Design-18Detailed view of logo defined with grass material

The high-quality 3D grass created by Enscape looks amazing when the camera is in motion as well. Check out this lively high-resolution video I created of this scene:

Animated grass

Finally, with Enscape 2.8 and above, animated grass and vegetation is available to help make our scenes and landscape renderings even more realistic. It's possible to control the wind strength and direction to bring our landscaping scenes to life in our walkthroughs, videos, and even in virtual reality. 

Animated Grass Example

Conclusion

It’s truly exciting to see such dramatic results for 3D grass in a real-time rendering engine, which also has a live link to our favorite 3D modeling environments. And if you think the grass is amazing in these still images, wait until you see it in virtual reality using the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Windows Mixed Reality devices. It is breathtaking and very memorable for clients and stakeholders.

For more inspiration, be sure to check out the Enscape Visualization Gallery to see what other customers are doing. If you have yet to give Enscape a try, download the free trial today and check it out with Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, Vectorworks, or Archicad. If you are a student, be sure to take advantage of the student version.

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Dan Stine
Dan Stine

Dan is an author, blogger, educator, design technologist and Wisconsin-registered architect. He is the Director of Design Technology at Lake | Flato architects in San Antonio, Texas. Connect with Dan on LinkedIn.