Twilight Render User Forum

I have installed the Skatter plugin and a struggling. I have looked at several tutorials and the thread on this forum and just do not seem to be getting things right. My primary challenges are having a nice grass ground around my building and blending it with the background. So if anyone is using it, I would appreciate some help/guidance.

• What is the best source of grass, bushes & trees?
• Is there a source for “dirt” or other ground types?
• What is the best method for blending with a backgroung image?
• Are there any plans for the Skatter team & the TR teams to make TR one of the supported render engines?

ntxdave wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:54 pm I have installed the Skatter plugin and a struggling. I have looked at several tutorials and the thread on this forum and just do not seem to be getting things right. My primary challenges are having a nice grass ground around my building and blending it with the background. So if anyone is using it, I would appreciate some help/guidance.

Choose your camera angles wisely. Some angles (higher camera angles) are extremely difficult to blend with.

ntxdave wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:54 pm What is the best source of grass, bushes & trees?

I assume you mean "for free" and I assume you mean for SketchUP? They are unfortunately scattered throughout 3D warehouse and many other websites. I have sort of been building a folder of resources on my machine for more than a decade, collected as I stumble across them. The "best" is going to be one of several paid vegetation websites. SketchUp can't really handle them directly, but you can import them (obj or fbx format) as Twilight external proxy. SketchUp vegetation is very limited.

ntxdave wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:54 pmIs there a source for “dirt” or other ground types?

Try "ground" section here:
https://flyingarchitecture.com/material ... ory/ground

See also the list of free texture material websites below.

ntxdave wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:54 pmWhat is the best method for blending with a backgroung image?

asked and answered before.

ntxdave wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:54 pmAre there any plans for the Skatter team & the TR teams to make TR one of the supported render engines?

we have contacted them several times, Skatter works with Twilight, but you are limited to the imported materials... not getting full control of materials qualities.

Subject: Free Textures

Chris wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:41 pm Here is a great source for free textures (free for personal and commercial work!). There's quite a lot of good stuff here.

http://kirkdunne.com/blog/?cat=15

Subject: Free Textures

Fletch wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:15 pm 1. https://ambientcg.com/ (NOT packages)
By Struffel Productions
Quantity: 210+
Quality: Up to 8K
Downloads per Day: Unlimited

2. https://www.poliigon.com/ (packages)
Quantity: 52
Quality: Up to 8K
Downloads per Day: Unlimited

3. https://polyhaven.com/textures (packages)
Quantity: 62
Quality: Up to 8K
Downloads per Day: Unlimited

4. https://freepbr.com/ (packages)
Quantity: 107
Quality: Up to 2K
Downloads per Day: Unlimited

5. https://3dtextures.me/ (packages)
By Joao Paulo
Quantity: around 400+
Quality: Up to 1K for Patrons (Premium) up to 4K
Downloads per Day: Unlimited

6. https://www.textures.com/ (packages)
Quantity: 160+ PBR materials, 340+ 3D Scans, and many more
Quality: Up to 1K (Free), Up to 16+K (Premium)
Downloads per Day: 15 Credits/Maps per Day

6 MORE IN ADDITION TO THE 6 ABOVE (from article on https://all3dp.com/2/best-sites-for-free-3d-textures/)
https://www.archivetextures.net/
https://www.sketchuptextureclub.com/textures (packages)
https://www.turbosquid.com/
https://www.arroway-textures.ch (packages)
https://quixel.com/megascans
https://sharetextures.com (packages)

Thanks Fletch.

I did some more work/experimenting over the weekend and made some progress. However, I have had one problem consistently. As I applied different items I would use the Explorer Render to see how things were looking. In doing this TR would take a long time to generate the objects and several times it would just lock up my computer. When rendering the same scenes with the normal render process everything seemed to run fine. Looks like there might be something wrong with the explorer process.

For the Exploration Renderer, what rendering method have you chosen? Most of the Exploration Renderer methods are the biased renderers (similar to Low/High). For something with tons of polygons (like what you would encounter with Skatter and grass), you will get better behavior with the unbiased render option.

Thanks Chris….I had already decided to avoid the exploration when using Skatter.