Michael is totally right. Also, this was one of the first plants I made in TPF. When I took the screenshot, I hadn't created an order for the nodes yet, so the graph is clearly a mess. I should revisit the flower and simplify the graph anyways, now that I know the software almost inside out with about every nook and cranny after one year. There are many ways to achieve certain things and I am sure I could now find more elegant solutions for a couple of my graphs.
In general, all the green lines are responsible for the geometry. All the blue lines are responsible for the interactive changes when using the Age and Health sliders. I attached a screenshot of another flower that I gave away for free on C3D where you can clearly see that the amount of nodes is a lot less. Most of the nodes with the blue lines make up the custom interface that you can see in the screenshot and also enable the user to select between five different colours of the lily with the season slider. So yes, there is indeed a little bit of additional complexity involved in this graph, too, but it is entirely optional. The plant itself is made up of all the green lines and nothing more.
If all you need to build is a simple plant without Age, Health, Season or any other custom controls, then 5 - 15 nodes should usually do the trick. If you know what to do to achieve a certain effect, then building a plant in TPF is a relatively fast process. I personally did not find the learning curve to be that steep, but I know that I am relatively alone with this assumption. All the people around here who are used to TG's node-based workflow will DEFINITELY be able to master the software with a little time and dedication, though. Personally, I find TG to be a lot harder to get to grips with, but that's just my opinion. It could be different for everybody else.
Regarding the EULA, yes, there still are restrictions. But I am with zaxxon - they got a lot better now.
- You can give plants away for free on the C3D exchange area. Everyone can download the plant and use it with the free exporter. All the limitations of the exporter were removed. You can now export static meshes with arbitrary resolution, generate new variations of the plant (if the designer included variability, but that's basically the case with every TPF plant out there), tweak published parameters ( = custom controls), use Age, Health or Season (if built in) and work with presets that the designer included. Vue users can use the plant directly inside Vue, too.
- You can privately give away a plant to a specific person. You can directly upload the plant to C3D from within the software and TPF will generate a download link that you can send to someone else. The download link will work only once and then the item will be automatically deleted, but you can re-upload the item and get a new link as often as you wish.
- You can sell static meshes in any online shop and price of your choice with the requirements mentioned by Robert. You need to mention that the object was created with TPF and you need to upload the original native *.tpf - file to C3D. My guess is that this is partly a commercial choice (so as not to exclude C3D completely from sales), but also to prevent plagiarism, as zaxxon explained. It's debatable, yes, but I think that not supplying the source file opens the door for everyone who ever purchased a payed-for or free TPF plant to simply use the exporter to export static meshes from their purchase and sell them as their own.
- You cannot share scene files with other people, except if you own Producer. Scene files from lower versions are encrypted to your license.
- You cannot directly share an exported tpf-species-file, because this one is also encrypted to your license. It has to be parsed through C3D first to taylor it to the buyer's license.
Honestly, I think e-on loosened up quite a bit and listened to the negative feedback. I don't want to defend every choice or neglect the remaining limitations (heck, I love the software for its capabilities, but I am not a fanboy of a specific company), but with the current EULA, I really feel as if it's a compromise you can live with, especially if you look at the alternatives:
- XFrog: clearly the best solution for vendors. No restrictions in selling whatsoever. The downside is that the software is relatively outdated (especially the standalone version) and not up to par with ST or TPF.
- Onyx Tree: No sales allowed, because you modify existing presets.
- Speed Tree: no sales allowed, no freebies allowed.
- TPF: public freebies allowed, private freebies allowed, sales allowed if the source is sold on C3D. Static meshes can be sold anywhere then. Sharing or selling of files - in any case - is only possible through downloading them from C3D due to DRM and encryption mechanisms that will be taylored to the buyer.
TPF is somewhere inbetween all the solutions mentioned. It is not as free as XFrog, but also not nearly as restrictive as Speed Tree. Here's a more readable version of what the EULA means:
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/wiki/ThePlantFactory/index.php/Documentation/Appendices/Questions_and_AnswersIf you want to use the plant that I attached, you can get it from here, btw:
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=13127&from=Exchange%20Area&page=0