Guild of Writers

I hate to admit it. I really do. But there's something here I'm not understanding.

After my triumph with the soil, I tried to Write in a patch of grass. I'd tried this before, and failed, and I'd assumed that was due to the composition of the soil--I needed to add some new elements to make it viable, and so this time I did that, and all my tests indicated that the necessary sustenance for a living plant was there. I carefully defined the edges so that they didn't exceed the boundaries of the soil, and described the grass accordingly. Then I linked in.

It was dying. The edges of the grass patch were all black, and sharply defined rather than gradually thinning out. I could almost see the blackness encroaching on the living grass at the centre.

I don't understand it. It's not lack of air--I made sure of that from the outset. I like breathing, me. I haven't Written in any water beyond what's bound in the soil, because I don't know how to yet, but that should be enough to sustain life for a little while at least. Whether the atmosphere isn't shielding enough of the sun's rays, or there's some inimical chemical in the rock that's leaching into the soil, or what, I don't know. In my panic I went back and deleted the grass, and found I'd accidentally deleted the entire middle of the landform, which definitely shouldn't have happened. I didn't dare touch the Age for days after that. I've managed to restore the land and even the soil, but I can't go any further without some advice.

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My vertex painting isn't working. The default colour seems to be black, and when I paint in white and then try to paint the edges black black's what I get. Also, shift+D is not making a duplicate of the selected faces as the tutorial says it's supposed to, so that when I take the grass out the land goes as well. I've tried it numerous times and it doesn't seem to work in any mode. I'm sure this is a bonehead mistake, but I can't see the way round it. Can anyone help?

Well, the mystery is solved, to a degree. I now know why the grass is dying. There's no ground underneath it. I still don't know why it's happened, or what I can do about it, but at least now I know what the problem is. Perhaps I need to Write more mass in...

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Shift+D is not working consistently for me. If it does work, I can't separate the duplicated plane from the original: if I can separate the plane, it hasn't been duplicated. Therefore the edges of the grass are not black, but transparent (thank you Nadnerb).