Note: the easiest way to get realistic materials is by using our Corona Material Library. You can either apply the materials from the library directly to your objects, or you can drag-and-drop them into the material editor to adjust them if needed.
Here are some guidelines for creating realistic materials for leaves or grass:
- Use curved geometry for leaves and grass blades instead of flat planes so it can reflect light naturally
- Use textures instead of flat colors for diffuse and translucency
- Use translucency, but not too much (usually fraction value at about 0,1 - 0,3)
- Put diffuse texture into translucency slot and tweak its appearance using Color Correction map (for example make it slightly more yellowish)
- Use high reflectivity but low Fresnel IOR value (Fresnel IOR at about 1,3 usually works well)
- Tweak glossiness value until the material looks realistic and doesn't produce visual artefacts (See: I can see bright pixels in grass!)
- Interactive rendering is very helpful when tweaking parameters of materials (See: How to use interactive rendering?)
- Do not use subsurface scattering for objects with no thickness. For grass / leaves it is best to use translucency.
See: How to use subsurface scattering? - Do not use refraction for leaves/grass materials - use translucency.
Examples
Example grass material setup.
Result
Example leaf material setup.
Result