3D Research - Grass and Rendering

I realise that my film will be using grass extensively and so it is important for me to have the knowhow of how exactly I will be able to effectively create and render grass for my scene.

After following some tutorials I was able to figure out an effective way to use Maya's paintfx grass and get excellent results using Maya's Physical Sun and Sky lighting system.

The key factor here was to adjust Physical Sun and Sky's settings and it's exposure node.

Replacing the mia exposure simple1 node...

To a more powerful, and realistic mia exposure photgraphic1 node

And then adjusting the usual Physical sun and sky settings such as the RGB Unit conversion individually, the Gamma factor for the exposure node and the Ground Colour.

As far as the Grass Paintfx goes, Maya's paintfx brushes are powerful yet fairly simple to use once you understand them. It was a simple matter of me simply applying the strokes I required in the areas I wanted and then adjusting the grass's finer details such as it's viscosity, length, height, height falloff, wind resistance etc. just to give it that look that really sells the effect. Here are my results

As you can see the results were a great success, and when it comes to actually creating the real grass to be used for my film I'll naturally be working with Michael, my lighting and rendering artist, to give it that farm look for the farm grass and a slightly rough, unkept look for the hilly portion of the scene.