How to create forests with Maya MASH and Arnold

How to create forests with Maya, MASH and Arnold.
This tutorial will go over the basics of scattering using MASH, how to setup up colour variation with trees and offer tips on rendering and comping your forest shot.
I have built two tree variants for this tutorial, available on Gumroad here:
gumroad.com/l/Nplfmj
Additionally, for those who would like the cloud VDBs I used for the fog, they are also here:
gum.co/difwDN
Texture for the ground plane was from here:
texturehaven.com/tex/?c=terra...
HDRI from here:
hdrihaven.com/
Interested in this tutorial? You might like this one I've put together on CGCircuit:
www.cgcircuit.com/tutorial/cr...
timestamps:
00:00-00:10 - intro
00:11-02:53 - creating tree standins/proxies
02:54-06:13 - creating ground and importing trees
06:14-16:48 - creating tree scatter
16:49-22:59 - creating cloud scatter
23:00-32:05 - render setup
32:06-42:47 - comp

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Something I omitted to mention in the video; make sure you have the MASH set to instancer mode and not repro mode, Mash instancer accepts the Arnold StandIns whereas Repro does not! This can be changed by going to MASH tab (in Maya FX menu) and scrolling down to "switch MASH geometry type"

[@trick29420]

do instancer objects casting shadows? only getting shadows when using repromesh

[@pablovelasco3d]

very important. Thanks, i was looking for this

[@booleanvisuals8564]

Thanks for this breakdown. Been trying out Mash for a month and am amazed people don't usually talk about it.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Thanks for watching! Mash is underrated, great for a lot of things!

[@kiyansahandi6630]

Thanks so much !! there is not a lot of high quality & fresh content for maya in youtube i hope these continues ! tnx again

[@Novemmusic]

Great stuff, very useful and very professional. Very appreciated :)

[@prezent1979]

thank you man! amazing work!

[@antstar1005]

Great tutorial! Thanks.

[@mengqixu2402]

Thanks for your tutorial!! really helps me !!!!!

[@hanheecho6437]

More fusion tutorials pls!

[@evengreven5515]

fantastic content, i learned alot. keep going this is just what i need to see :). the tree pack from gumroad was 100% worth it!

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Love to have feedback like this! Cheers!

[@evengreven5515]

@@SamBiddlevfx would love to see more nature related content, such as grass, mountains, snow, water, etc!

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@evengreven5515 definitely got more stuff in the pipeline!

[@TheNproject1]

Thank you so much very easy understanding

[@ricardop.g.2812]

Thanks bro! great video

[@oscarcampbellhobson]

I had to give a like cos it’s almost 1k likes and a rly good helpful video

[@joshpage4547]

god damn genius 💛

[@victorodinukweze8485]

thanks for the video

[@sackmonius]

I would like to see and learn from you on how to create the 3D camera in Fusion. Thank you for this video training! It has helped me very much!

[@periskop]

Fusion accepts maya camera perfectly fine. Just export your camera as .ma

[@VisitBeforeHumanPollute]

This is worthy tutorial for my lap 😒 But im here ⚡

[@plexeus]

amazing work! Question for you @Sam Biddle, whats your workstation specs? I just built a new workstation 12900KS, 3090tiOC, 128gb and my arnold render performance for scene comperable to this are DOG WATER... TIA!

[@alborznazari]

Great! But why my trees are not distiributed? Some of them roaming in Y axis. I changed the stand in file pivot I saw no change, Is it because of pivot not baking upright?

[@blockyscript6798]

Looks like a great tutorial. Would I be able to do this and import the trees and terrain into Unity?

[@jacksonlamme]

Thank you for this.. Question, the pine tree says it has a bump map but I can't find that in the textures, and another if you have time: The textures are pointing to a folder in the D drive, and I rerouted them to my download; do they mirror where they were in your folders when you uploaded them? Thank you!

[@SamBiddlevfx]

I was using the diffuse texture as a bump map, so you can see the diffuse texture feeds into a bump2d node and then into the bump/normal slot on the shader. As to texture locations, you can put them wherever, as long as you point the maya nodes to the correct folder you'll be good to go.

[@gdkermit9953]

So what’s the downside to using mash networks without a standin? Like just using the model of the tree and putting that in mash?

[@tltmgk9254]

Does anyone know why my MASH network of standins wont render in arnold? It renders the standin itself before i create the mash network, but after that when I create MASH it wont render

[@EvelynHernandez]

is there a camera culling option for MASH??

[@edboymovies]

Nice tutorial! Would setting system to GPU for rendering make much difference?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

I might revisit this soon - been a couple of versions of arnold since and might be worth checking the GPU renderer again.

[@edboymovies]

@@SamBiddlevfx awesome! I understand there are pros and cons to both, though I can’t recall what CPU does better in comparison

[@user-ki2xg1ho7g]

Great tutorial, thank you very much! I was just wondering if i missed something, a little setting change maybe. My tree beauty layer is completely black when Ai Matte is turned on. So the fog layer renders correctly, but the tree beauty doesn't anymore. It seems to be either one or the other. I don't want to have to duplicate the trees and everything of course, that would probably crash my scene and would make no sense as using it like this should be one of the advantages of render layers. What am i missing here?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

In the beauty layer you'll want to have Ai Matte switched off, so create a layer override for it in the beauty layer; you only need Ai Matte active in the fog layer.

[@user-ki2xg1ho7g]

@@SamBiddlevfx awesome, thanks for the fast reply! i probably turned that on by mistake at some point and didn't notice

[@itilosi9929]

what's the liscense for the trees?

[@danilovX]

btw Which Ryzen do you have ?

[@Zindagikebaadbhe]

hello sir while exporting ass file my textures are vansihed. what's the soultion?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

make sure you have expand procedurals, export all shading groups and export shaders all ticked on the .ass export options.

[@prezent1979]

Amazing tutorial! 🔥 I have a little problem.. when I select the tree and go the the Arnold menu to export it as a standin, I don’t have this standin menu in the Arnold tab… So I tried just selecting it and “export selected” as a ASS file, and when I select this file in the standin as my path, and then clicking the mash button, it says that it can’t make the scatter because my model is not a mash… Can you please help me? Thank you 😁

[@SamBiddlevfx]

See the pinned comment, that should allow you to select standins in the creation of a MASH network.

[@prezent1979]

@@SamBiddlevfx i mean that i don't have the standin menu in the arnold tab... so i can't export my tree model as a ASS file...

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@prezent1979 what version of Maya are you using?

[@prezent1979]

@@SamBiddlevfx maya 2022

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@prezent1979 Strange that it's not in the Arnold menu. The other method of exporting you mentioned should work: docs.arnoldrenderer.com/plugins/servlet/mobile?contentId=40111292#content/view/40111292 What I would try is to set up the mash using a cube as the source and then swapping that for the standin file. (remembering that you need to have switched from repro MASH).

[@EdAllenlol]

I got a question, I am using your trees but for some reason the texture are not loading. Neither the viewport or the render. The tree are coming black and white, do you know how can I fix it? Also, if I click on UV editor I can see the texture over there. By the way very nice tutorial and helpfull.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Thanks for watching, sorry to hear you're having trouble with the trees. Off the top of my head, it might be maya version (these were made in 2020), or perhaps relink the textures, see if that works? If you're importing the .ma files it should be all setup but sometimes relinking textures might be needed. Let me know if that does it. Might be worth chucking on some new grey shaders to double check that there's nothing else going on as well.

[@EdAllenlol]

@@SamBiddlevfx Thanks for the quick reply, I figured out that if I reload the texture on the bark of the tree, it works. But on the leaves no. I tried on both .ma files and I am still trying to figure it out why the leave's texture will not load :(

[@EdAllenlol]

@@SamBiddlevfx Ok, good news. I found out that Maya is not taking the ColorJitter, by deleting it, it works. I will find a solution for it :)

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@EdAllenlol Ah half way there, maybe next thing to check with the leaves is to try a shader on the leaves with the leaf texture loaded as the diffuse but no SSS. Depending on scene scale the SSS may cause the leaves to render wrong colours etc.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@EdAllenlol Glad to hear it, might be that you can just replace it with a new jitter node and get it working that way.

[@anishthakur941]

Arnold procedural settings not showing in standins Please help

[@jacksonlamme]

I'm having same issue did you find fix?

[@dylanfernandez3910]

Hey man, great tutorial, I've been searching for this forever. Have you seen Blender Guru's cabin in the woods video? Do you think you could do something similar, but in Maya instead?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I just checked that out, seems like a great format sort of looking at workflows, that's definitely something I'm considering in the near future.

[@dylanfernandez3910]

@@SamBiddlevfx I'm learning maya in school now and I like making landscape type art, but I've not learnt it yet. It would be awesome if you could make some tutorials on grass, rocks, and maybe water.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@dylanfernandez3910 Water is something I'm about to cover so stay tuned for that!

[@editfx72]

Hi, I tried following the tutorial in maya 2022 but get an error when importing my stand in. Mesh mode only accepts meshes.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

You need to change the mash type from repro to instancer, then it'll accept Arnold standins.

[@bobsplintch9221]

@@SamBiddlevfx How do i change the mash type ?

[@coinsinfo977]

when i am adding mash, the scatter is happening somewhere in mesh like outside of mesh in a distant location.any idea??

[@grzdiz]

Same. Have you solved this issue?

[@coinsinfo977]

@@grzdiz Yes long back

[@lunacat4455]

@@coinsinfo977 what was the solution?

[@coinsinfo977]

​@@lunacat4455​you have to create a new maya file and export that old models(FBX) you're trying to to apply mash then import your models in a new file and try to apply mash it will work

[@youngs912]

Hi i purchased your trees and to show your textures I have to reselect the file. but every time I make a change e.g make a cube or add a standin it goes back to a paper like green texture

[@youngs912]

(not the cube part but more standins when import yes)

[@youngs912]

even when I export it and I check renderview it goes pack to flat paper :/

[@CGDave-hc9nx]

I am unable to purchase your cloud pack. This website is not accepting any sort of payment. Please help me.

[@xXThatGuyWithAPcXx]

I don't have a .ass file? Might be making a mistake on my half but bit confused

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Hi Connor, that's correct, I don't include the .ass file with the tree assets - the reason is that an .ass file is a reference to an asset on disk, so if I export one and include it, it'll be pointing to my texture directory when you load it and therefore fail to render correctly. What you'll need to do is export the trees as .ass files like I do at the start of the tutorial. This way you'll have everything pointing to your directory. Hope that helps!

[@ksjammy12HD]

Hey, i have just purcashed your trees on gumroad however, it is an rar file. Cant seem to get in converted into a obj or fbx any help

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Hi James, you will need to unzip the rar file first using either winrar or any other unzipping program. Then you will be able to access the obj and .ma files.

[@ksjammy12HD]

@@SamBiddlevfx perfect thank you for replying. Great advice as well made getting used to mash super easy

[@SamBiddlevfx]

How to import 3d cameras into Fusion is now live, check it out kzbin.info/www/bejne/oIuvkKWEd5mberc

[@merazhossain5774]

#Sam_Biddle I select the pine tree and i hit the mesh tab but nothing happened and showing...."Mesh mod only accepts meshes" how can i solve it?

[@shanj7649]

Dude, did u fix that? I have the same trouble LOL

[@pavanraju575]

@@shanj7649 bro select mash channel box select instance it will work.

[@annchien7065]

when i use the trees from ur gumroad, they arn't textued? do you know how to fix that?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

You'll need to relink the textures, you can do that in maya before you export the trees as .ass files. On the top toolbar go to windows>general editors>filepath editor and then point to where you have the files on disk.

[@annchien7065]

@@SamBiddlevfx ok great let me try

[@HaroldVictor1911]

how many ram do you have sir ?

[@SamBiddlevfx]

My machine has 64gb

[@ULTRA8DMUSIC09]

Can You pls Provide Free VDB Cloud pack...pls its an Genuine Request to you

[@tenspirit1582]

I paid for your tree, but I didn't get it.

[@SamBiddlevfx]

Hi TenSpirit, do you mean you didn't receive the files from Gumroad?

[@tenspirit1582]

@@SamBiddlevfx yep

[@SamBiddlevfx]

@@tenspirit1582 Okay lets check out a couple of things; were there any files at all to download?