Desert Landscape

Technical Guide:
The scene consists of three ground planes, each in its own geometry node. Height field scatters are responsible for the plants' placement, and the plants have been copied to points in separate geometry nodes that are specific to the height fields they apply to. You can control the number of plants in the scene from the object level by selecting the foreground node and using the plants slider.

The plants are created using copy-to-points on a flat circle and curves to resemble blades of grass. I used various attribute randomizers to make the tuffs of grass more natural and a sweep node to give them volume. Once I liked the shape of the tuffs, I scattered them with various sizes so that they formed larger groups of plants. I layered two masks to create a placement of plants that felt random and natural.

To light my scene, I used a Karma physical sky since the original reference also only uses the sun as a light source. I also added a dome light with a warm hue and a Karma sky atmosphere to achieve the same distance and warmth. Lastly, I added a dome light with a cloudy HDRI and added a light linking node to prevent it from casting light on the scene.