Technology in Architecture

By: Stephen Lauer

Post 6: Adding Grass & Sky

            This tutorial is going to be about how to add grass texture in Photoshop. I probably should have done this one as the very first one but I guess it’s better late than never. So step one is to find an image from which you can pull grass from. This can be a very difficult thing to do as it is tough to get an image with the right perspective, color, shading, etc. 

Here is the image I use for most of my grass. I try to take a portion through the middle of the image as to not get the larger blades of grass in the foreground but not get the smaller pixilated grass in the background. Next once you have the texture the image can be placed over the top of the render as its own layer. Next I like to hide the grass layer and move to the base render in order to select the base grass texture with the magic wand tool or the polygon lasso tool. Once selected go back to the newly added grass layer and select the mask button in the bottom right corner of the window (it’s the one that is a rectangle with a hole in the middle). This will take the existing selection and turn it into a mask which can be turned on and off. Masks also allow you to use entire images without “destroying” them as to be able to go back and edit or change them later. Now once the grass is in place the levels/curves can be adjusted in order achieve the desired outcome. A final note on grass texturingis that do not forget to cover the bases of objects that are sitting in grass with the paint brush. There is a blade of grass brush in the brush selections. Then use the ALT key to select a color from the already placed grass texture and then add a little grass texture around trees and benches to add a little more character. Next adding sky is very similar except the part that finding a nice sky texture can be much easier than grass. The only issue with skies is finding one that will fit your rendering in all the aspects stated earlier. The other option to do for a sky is the make your own with the paint brush. I personally do not do this method but I have seen other people do this and it really works well for artistic renderings. Clouds look very soft and feathery using the paint brush method. Sorry for not showing this earlier I know I have had a sky in each of the tutorials I have done so far, I just did not think to do a tutorial to show how to do it until now. Here is the render up until this point (I removed the snow/rain and fog in order to show the grass better.