Grass and flowers

Painted masses, not blades. Thirteen art rules, two hands on either side of the wall, and the rules for a flower card.

Grass and flowers are the ground of every frame, so they carry a lot of the look. The rule in one line: a meadow is two or three colour shapes; blades are drawn only where the grass has an edge.

This chapter holds the art rules. The technique (washes, tufts, dab flowers, the gust texture, budgets, build order) is a design in the grass portfolio and is being built in the game on its own branch; the game's docs/flora.md will describe what was built. Where the build changed a number, that number replaces the one here.

Inside the wall at a child's eye height: a sunlit yellow-green meadow in soft masses, big lupins on the left, drifts of daisies and buttercups, the wall and thatched houses beyond. — Inside, at eye height (1.25 m). Masses of colour, blades only as a ragged fringe nearest the eye, at least two thirds of the meadow open.

The thirteen rules

R1. Masses before blades. A meadow is two or three colour shapes. Blades are drawn only where the grass has an edge against something else: the nearest 3 to 4 m, the crest of a rise, the rim of a path or a stone. In the middle of a field there is colour and a few brush marks, no blades. Check: in a lit patch 8 to 20 m away, the standard deviation of display luma in a 64 by 64 px window is under 0.035.

R2. A blade's foot is the ground's colour. The darkest thing in a tuft is its foot, and it is only a little darker and cooler than the ground beside it: times 0.86 inside, 0.78 outside, never 0.5. Light sits at the outer and upper edges.

R3. Vary hue, hold value. Across a lit field the value stays within 0.05 luma; the hue wanders between a warm and a cool version of the zone's green in patches 10 to 40 m across, with dry, yellowed patches 5 to 15 m across. Check: hue spreads at least 6 degrees inside and 4 outside, sampled every 4 m.

R4. Four values in a meadow frame. Sky lightest, the lit ground next, slopes and cloud shade next, upright things (trees, the wall, her) darkest. A lit meadow is lighter than any tree beside it.

R5. Light crosses the field as shapes. A cloud shadow is one flat shape with a soft edge, cool, never dark (luma about 0.24 outside). Use one of two schemes: shade near with a patch of light in the middle distance, or a fringe of light near with the shade behind.

R6. A gust is a band of pale grass with a front. The leading edge is sharp (1 to 2 m), the tail fades over 15 to 35 m, bands lie 20 to 40 m apart and bend with the ground. In the band the grass is lighter by about 0.15 luma and less saturated (#9B9771 against #777141), because the blades show their pale sides. Flowers in the band lean, and seeds and petals travel with it.

A hillside in wind: three long curved bands of pale silver-sage grass sweeping across, each with a sharp leading edge and a fading tail; a bent birch; yellow flowers leaning in the band. — R6: a gust is the subject. Outside, it is carried by hue and saturation, not by brightness alone, because the paint pass flattens luma.

R7. Flowers are masses too. A drift is one kind and one colour, with a ragged edge and a thick middle. Inside, drifts are small (3 to 6 m across) and many; outside, few and big (10 to 30 m). At least two thirds of a meadow is open grass on both sides of the wall. Check: no flower kind is spread evenly over a field; the share of ground under flowers is at most a third.

R8. Three sizes of flower. Near (to 8 m): a few big simple shapes, in groups of three, one large and two small. Middle (8 to 40 m): dabs, a hand's width each. Far: a patch of colour with a soft edge, no dots. The same drift is all three as she walks up to it.

A sunlit hillside valley with drifts of yellow, violet and white flowers as flat patches of colour, nearer ones larger and brighter, farther ones paler and bluer. — R8 and R10: far drifts are patches, not dots; the far field is a wash.

R9. Detail is spent at her feet and on the skyline. The fringe of drawn blades is the nearest 4 m and the crests. Flower cards are hero shapes within 8 m. Nothing else gets detail.

R10. The far field is a wash. Beyond the blades: flat colour shapes that follow the land, cooler and lighter with distance, the warm colours dropping out first.

R11. No line on grass. Line belongs to figures and silhouettes; grass and flowers are paint.

R12. The wall is the change of hand. Inside: soft, blended, round, bright, tidy. Outside: visible strokes, combed by the wind, muted, with flowers as the glow. Near the gates the two meet over a band.

R13. Dusk keeps the colour. At dusk the meadow is three greens (a glow-facing olive, the body, blue-violet hollows), the fringe takes a peach rim, the flowers go a little deeper and the white ones glow. The game's rule stands: ground luma at least 0.2, hue green.

A meadow at sunset under a violet and orange sky; three greens in the field, lupin and daisy drifts in the foreground, fireflies, the wall and a cottage with lit windows. — R13: dusk keeps the colour.

A polka-dot meadow where every flower is drawn and blades cover the foreground. — Rejected (R1, R7): a polka-dot meadow, every flower drawn, no open grass.

A dusk meadow where every blade is rim-lit and flower clumps carry dark leaf rosettes. — Rejected (R1, R13): every blade rim-lit, so the field is noise; dark leaf rosettes on every clump.

The two sides of the wall

	Inside the wall	Outside
Grass as paint	soft masses in two or three close tones; blades only as a fringe at the near edge and on crests	long level strokes in three tones leaning with the zone's wind; blades only within about 8 m
Tuft	short, broad, upright	longer, narrower, leaning downwind
Hue	yellow-green `#6DB33F` to `#8CC84B`; painted sunlight is yellower than the game's, so tips `#A4CF52`, dry patches `#B9BE4E`	the zone's own green; muted
Gust	a soft warm lightening (`#D6E88F`)	a pale greyed band with a hard front (`#C2C89A`)
Flowers	in tubs, boxes and beds near houses; in meadows, drifts of one kind 2 to 3 m across	one signature flower per zone as its only big drift; other flowers as single dabs
Flower share of a meadow	up to a third	up to a sixth
Cards	the cute set: chunky, big heads, thick stems	the painterly set: flat strokes, leaning, blossoms in accent colours
Height	seed grass at most 0.6 m (a child sees over it)	0.9 to 0.95 m; marram 1.2 m (she wades through)

Outside at eye height: olive grass combed by wind in long strokes, a drift of gold flowers in the middle distance, harebells in the foreground, a far fortress town. — Outside, at eye height.

The game camera outside: a meadow with a gold drift, violet harebells and white cotton grass, the princess stand-in running through. — Outside, at her camera.

The game camera inside: a green meadow with lupins, daisy and buttercup drifts, the princess stand-in walking away. — Inside, at her camera. The princess here is a stand-in; the game's own model is not redesigned.

Grass by zone

The zones' own greens come from the zone cards. Where the grass portfolio's table (built on the earlier two palettes) differs, the cards win. Tips, heights, density and lean are the portfolio's; check the tips on a still.

Zone	Body	Tip	Height (m)	Density	Lean	Drifts of flowers	Signature
Inside the wall (Hjemdalen)	#6DB33F	#A4CF52	0.20 to 0.38	4.0	0	1.4 to 3 m radius, on a 6 m grid, 80 % of cells	daisies, lupin, buttercup, harebell, red clover
Nordalen	#6F9A55	#8C9A52	0.35 to 0.60	4.0	0.15	5 to 12 m on a 24 m grid, 45 %	globeflower (gold), harebell; cotton grass at the shore
Fjellfoten	#4F7A3A	#7E9060	0.25 to 0.45	3.2	0.08	3 to 7 m on a 20 m grid, 35 %	harebell in the sun, wood sorrel, foxglove in threes; ferns and moss carry the old wood
Sørvika	#9AA66A	#A3AD78	0.30 to 0.50; marram 0.75 to 1.20	3.0	0.30	6 to 14 m on a 20 m grid, 70 % (Blomsterenga)	marram on the crests, thrift in the lee
Sørmarka	#55703A	#B09A4A	0.45 to 0.70; pasture 0.12 to 0.20	4.4	0.12	4 to 10 m on a 22 m grid, 40 %	buttercup and clover as dabs; poppy and cornflower within 4 m of a wall or a way
Fjellet	#6E7448	#A39258	0.10 to 0.22	1.6	0.40	0.8 to 2 m on an 8 m grid, 30 %, only on gentle slopes	moss campion, mountain avens, cotton grass
Alvheim	#2F5D58	#7FCDB6	0.20 to 0.35, width x 0.6	2.0	0	ribbons 1.3 to 5 m from a way, rings 2 to 4 m round the old trees and the well	elf bell (cyan), elf star (violet), glowing

Kinds of ground

Ground	Look
Meadow	the zone's row above
Pasture	height about 0.45 of the meadow's; buttercup, clover and daisy as dabs, no cards
Moor	half the tufts, low, straw-coloured (tip `#B59A5C`), heather as a carpet that lies in drifts
Bog	tall sedge, wine red `#7A3A34` in clumps, cotton grass in bands
Dune	marram 0.75 to 1.20 m, leaning hard, `#8EA078` to `#C9C08A`; thrift cushions in the lee
Birch wood	height times 0.8; wood anemone and forget-me-not as dabs
Old wood	a third of the grass; moss, the map's own colour

A heather moor in late sun: wine-red and rose heather lying in drifts over rounded lichen rocks, a bent pine, a far fjord. — Moor: heather in drifts.

A boardwalk across a bog with cotton grass in bands, rust sedge and a tarn. — Bog: cotton grass in bands.

Pale dunes with marram combed one way and thrift cushions in the lee, the sea behind. — Dune: marram, all leaning the same way.

A glowing path of flagstones through teal moss under old trees: cyan bell flowers and violet star flowers in ribbons beside the way, a moon and an elf village far off. — Alvheim at night: the elf bell and the elf star, glowing. Alvheim's own book holds the rules for its glow.

Flower cards

The painted clump card is replaced by a spray: stems and blossoms, with the grass as its leaves. A clump with a leaf rosette brings its own green and its own shade into a field that already has grass, and repeated at one size it is a sticker. Rules for a card, each checkable on the cut-out:

Blossoms cover more of the card's solid pixels than stems and leaves do.
A stem is at least 4 px wide in the 256 px cell (1.6 % of the cell). Thinner stems vanish in the mips.
Three to six stems of uneven height from one point at the bottom middle; one leans out.
No leaf rosette, no dark leaves. Any leaf is in the zone's tip colour and sits in the lower 42 %.
Three values on a blossom: light, middle and a coloured shade (violet-blue inside, teal outside). Nothing under luma 0.2.
Outside, blossoms are at least luma 0.55 and lean right (the game mirrors half and the wind does the rest).
Lit from above, no cast shadow, plain light grey behind.

Eight inside flower sprays: lupin, daisy, buttercup, harebell, red clover, forget-me-not, wood anemone, dandelion with seed clocks. — The inside set: chunky, big round blossoms, thick soft stems.

Eight outside flower sprays: violet lupin, fireweed, globeflower, oxeye daisy, heather, thrift, red clover and seed grass. — The outside set: flat strokes, leaning, clear colour.

Three plump lupin spires in pink, violet and cream. — A good inside card: lupin.

Five golden globeflowers on sweeping stems. — A good outside card: globeflower, gold, painted in a few strokes.

A botanical lupin with thin stems. — Rejected: a botanical illustration. Stems 6 to 8 px at 1024 are under 2 px in a 256 px cell and vanish in the mips.

The prompt blocks for cards are on the prompt blocks page. In Krea prompts write without similes: "like stacked beads" came back as bubbles.

The small stuff

Two rows of grass tufts: upright rounded tufts inside, long leaning blades with seed heads outside. — Tuft design. Top: inside. Bottom: outside, leaning downwind.

A close-up of a meadow wash from above: broad mottled patches of warm and cool green, a gust front and a soft cloud shadow. — The ground wash for Nordalen, seen from above, with one gust and one cloud shadow.

Open questions on grass (the card's turn to the camera, how yellow the inside may be, tall flowers outside) are in open questions.