Though I encourage you to apply personal experience or meaning to your projects, I can't say this one means much to me. Rather it just looks cool, and that's fine motivation too!

Also water droplets on foliage seems like a fairly iconic subject in the macro photography genre. So...when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Here's the main things you'll learn:

1. Animating randomized wind instead of simulating it. Sure armatures and keyframes might not be as sexy as a dynamic simulation, but it still gets the job done very well. With a simple armature, a keyframe, and an f-curve modifier we'll be able to reliable control and loop believable wind (and water jiggle) behavior.
   
   
2. Looping randomized animation. We'll utilize F-curve modifier parameters to loop the animation of our grass blade variants. Admittedly my method isn't the prettiest and it's a bit brute-forced, but it works well enough.
   
   
3. Adaptive Subdivision. This is a critically important tool for macro renders because it facilitates something called "micropolygon displacement". It enables us to achieve maximum polygonal detail from texture input without melting our computers.
   

Having trouble keeping up?

Blender has a steep learning curve and it's a lot to keep track of, especially if you're new. Here's some tips for getting the most out of these lessons:

Slow down the playback

Our video player has the ability to slow down play back speed to 0.75x or 0.5x. This can be very useful for catching every detail of the workflow.

Watch each video twice

I highly recommend this approach to get the maximum informational value out of each lesson. Watch once for a broad grasp of the workflow, concepts, and techniques. You don't even need Blender open for this. Great for a commute or while you're prepping dinner.

Then watch through a second time with Blender open to follow along. Having an idea what's going to happen next will enable you to track the information much better.

Depending on how comfortable you are with Blender, you could even watch the entire chapter once before the second viewing.

Optional Pre-requisite Courses

Though this course is designed with Beginners in mind, it still assumes you're at least familiar with Blender's UI and basic concepts about 3D creation.

If this is your very first time opening Blender, it might be best if you watch some of these courses first:

1. Blender Basics
2. Fundamentals of Materials and Shading
3. Fundamentals of Digital Lighting
4. Fundamentals of Rigging
5. Fundamentals of Animation

Learn more like this?

For more about foliage in Blender, see these courses:

For more bite-sized projects, watch the first SESSIONS course, Minimalism:

The seed that led to SESSIONS was actually planted years ago during livestreams. Kent recorded several projects to fit within a 2-hour streaming window and they're all collected in this Playlist: