Tutorial 3: Creating animated grass in Maya 6.0 using Paint Effects
This is a tutorial describing how to create grass that moves using Maya Paint Effects.
Step 1: Open a new maya document. I am using Maya 6 for this tutorial, although I think it may apply to later versions.
Step 2: Select the Rendering menu set.
From the Paint Effects menu select Get Brush... Choose a grass; I have chosen to use "Alien Grass" brush for this tutorial.
Step 3: Click and drag on the grid to draw your grass stroke in the 3D space.
Step 4: Right click on the grass stroke and select "strokeAlienGrass1..." (your grass may be named differently) to open up the Attribute Editor. Here you will see the settings for your grass.
Step 5: To turn on the animation for this grass click on the grey drop-down arrow next to "Tubes" in the Attribute Editor to view the subcategory options; Choose Tubes>Behavior>Turbulence>Turbulence Type. The default setting for Turbulence Type is Off; Set this to something else to set animation on your grass; I have set mine to "Local Force".
Step 6: Play your animation on the timeline; You should now see your grass animating. Here is a movie of my so-called alien grass (right click and "save link as..." to save to desktop). Enjoy!
