Tutorial: Ghibli/BoTW Anime Stylized Grass in Blender wth EEVEE

This is a tutorial on how I aproach stylized grass in Blender for anime.
Source files can be downloaded here:

I have also released an anime inspired cloud brush pack here:

[KristofDedene]

When rendering set "render amount" to "10" in the hair/simple tab of the hair shader!

[framesonascreen]

if anyone is stuck on finding the "strand/strip" option in render properties, blender updates changed "hair" drop menu to "curves".
Kristof, many thanks for the tutorials they're very helpful for my 2D projects. keep up the good work!

[GraveUypo]

just started learning blender. i can now move the camera, make objects and do basic adjustment to materials. i'm ready to jump to the next step, which is creating a whole landscape in ghibli's artstyle. here we go.
(Holy shit this was so easy. I'm already in love with blender)

[melleram]

Thank you for this helpful tutorial! I spent 3 years learning Maya 2020 while I was in Animation college. For my student thesis film I was trying to replicate the BoTW aesthetic which I could somewhat do but in post effects after rendering my scenes which took forever with all the grass and flowers I had on my set. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish my film since my student license expired. I am currently learning Blender so I can finish my short film and build my portfolio. The transition of knowledge and keyboard shortcuts after trying to nail them down in your head for years is difficult but Blender seems to be a good investment in learning. It's a blessing for people who want to learn but have no income to afford an expensive 3D program license. This simple scene looks amazing, was hoping to see how to implement a breeze on the grass and foliage though.

[kevinhtlin]

I just want to say "thank you" for making this video!

[PolyRidge]

to save some time on bringing in the planes, you can enable the addon "Import images as planes" in the addon menue. then you can just move the 3D cursor to the location you want, then Shift+A>Image>Image as plane.

Bonus points, after rotating it vertical, go to edit mode and raise it by .5 on Z location, then the pivot point is at the bottom of the frame.

That grass toon effect is simple but looks awesome

[KlassAnimated]

If you are like me and wondered why your grass strands didnt look like his in the beginning. When he swapped from "strand" to "Strip." You need to go to your particle settings, go to Hair Shape, and adjust the diameter root size. It was a life saver.

[anuveerme]

most simple and best ways of working. no million clicks on 100 nodes. absolutly loving your stuff! great work

[likopinina]

that is some godlike looking grass, great job *-*
somebody already mentioned Images as Planes addon and yeah it helps, cause it's an awful lot of steps to create a transparent image by hand. One problem tho, Images as Planes doesn't use emission shader, so it does cast shadow. In Cycles thats not a problem, but in Eevee it creates an issue: the entire plane casts a shadow, not just the non-transparent part like in Cycles. If it's obscured then who cares, but it might ruin the scene when it's prominent. So if you wanna have something shadowless then you'll have to switch to emission by hand.

[hachi]

I am looking for this 3 days ago why is this channel underated? thanks alot bro !!

[__dane__]

While this is a great tutorial - in the end it did turn it out to be that I just need to make a really nice painterly grass texture for it to look nice

[bitbutter]

as of 2023-01-30 the 'hair' group in render properties is 'curves'. and i think you need to choose 'rounded ribbons'

[szyslk]

Wow, that was amazing. I replaced Link with Totoro and now I have my custom animated Ghibli background. Thank you!

[nezbro]

Where was this whenever I first started learning blender, man this is awesome. Thanks!

[Jmmmm]

Thank god i found this video, this is so cool! Pls make more tutorial.

[bshane]

give this person a trophy, you are great! thanks!

[ХачуняМику]

1:30 "Hair" now in render properties named "Сurves"

[mattsalt]

Amazing, didn't even know blender could do this!

[Pneumanon]

So to get cast shadows onto the grass for your scene, you'd need to model it out the scene with any buildings etc, light it, render an ortho top-down view to get the shadow shape, use that to paint your shadows into your base grass texture and then bring that in to blender to drive the colours of your grass. I'm going to try it out now...