The Plant Factory Discussion - share your experience and workflow etc. :)

Started by Tangled-Universe, June 11, 2013, 05:37:05 AM

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Dune


zaxxon

Reading these EULA's is truly a major slog through a legalistic jungle. However, I still think they have loosened the restrictions while maintaining a level of integrity to the original creator. TPF like Speedtree has a powerful 'randomization' tool. This allows an almost infinite variation on any mesh and could easily be used to muddy any trail back to the original. For commercial producers this would certainly be a deal breaker. Vue and TPF actually allows individuals to become commercial creator/vendors within a protected environment. For non-license holders the possession of the base mesh files from TPF could not be used at any rate. As Robert Czarny points out in the Vue forum thread referenced earlier; the graph charts are quite complex, and hard to decipher even for the originator after a little time has elapsed. But having them archived by E-on would certainly help prevent quarrels over who made what and when. After another re-reading of TPF's EULA it still seems to me that 'static' meshes can be freely given (shared). If that is indeed the case, than good for E-on!  I'm really curious as to how many freelance plant builders could really make a commercial go of it if these EULA's were to be fully opened?  I've now built a number of plants in ST, but while they may look good in the context of that scene, for the most part they are not strictly botanically correct. For commercial presentation that's more than a little sloppy. Folks like Walli, and Robert Czarny, et al; they build to a more exacting standard, one that would entail much work and talent to emulate. Both E-on and IDV (ST's producer) sell vegetation meshes that enable their users to modify that specific plant almost endlessly within the proprietary software, very different from buying an Xfrog  static model (I realize with the Xfrog software you can make variations as well, but the program is years out of date and lacks the tools that both ST and TPF contain). I would really like it if  IDV would follow E-on's lead here and allow the free distribution of the static meshes to the general CG public, but that is certainly a different topic from this thread.

JMBarr

Is it easy to create plants in Plant Factory?

JMBarr

Quote from: Bluestorm on September 24, 2013, 12:33:17 PM
Something new...

A pansy, comaptible with Age and Health.



Is this the kind of complexity you have to deal with when creating in Factory Plant such a small flower as pansy?

And I was thinking that Terragen interface is too complex.

How much time have you spent creating such model?

mhall

I would say that adding user controllable age and health options to that plant has increased its complexity ... If you look at the diagram and discount the items that stem from the Age and Health nodes, really only the right 1/3 or so of the node view seems to make up the plant. From  the "Stangel" node (forgive me for the missing umlaut!) to the right looks to be the plant minus Age and Health.

~Micheal

Bluestorm

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_Answers

If 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

TheBadger

Good Back and forth guys! Thank you. It helps me to sort through it all!

@Bluestorm
Good info from you as well. I saw that you have some kind of group. Do you have Tuts?

It has been eaten.

Bluestorm

If you are referring to the 3D Plant Designer Group on Facebook, then yes, people post tips and tricks there for every kind of plant software they use. XFrog, TPF, Onyx ...

It's a very good resource for anyone who is getting into procedural vegetation modelling :).

If you are referring to "real" tutorials, then I have a couple of them on my YT channel. I am not that skilled in narrating yet and English isn't my native tongue, so there are a lot of "uhms" and verbal repetitions in there, but I hope to get better and increase my fluency.

Here's a video on how to model a leaf in TPF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYKrt5sE2c8 . I do have another one in English on my channel (the third one is in German) and I hope to find the time soon to do more. (Edit: Just saw that I posted the video some months ago on page 8 of this thread, anyways. Ah, well, whatever, you asked for tutorials :P).

czarnyrobert

Daniel, nice to see you here :-)   Already back from holidays ?  :-)

The problems with TPF licensing remain quite unchanged :

1) e-on forces locking of every tpf model only to your license of TPF, which makes your tpf files unreadable on anybody else Vue of TPF.  There is no such restrictions on any other 3D software, neither XFROX, ONYX, or Speed Tree.  *

2) Option of selling models on Cornucopia3D is just theoretical considering their always changing requirements and whims, or how they torpedo your products.   Vendors are abandoning Cornucopia3D because of such attitude.

3) In your opinion, what e-on needs your tpf models for ? 
So they request that every model passes through C3D ? 

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* e-on seems quite paranoiac about copy protection systems - they force the same "locked to your license"  system on other Vue content distributed from C3D, and I was also confronted with problem that Vue Complete users could not open materials saved from Vue Infinite.  Apparently it was intended to force artist versions owners  to buy content from e-on C3D instead of getting it directly from other people.

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http://GREENGENE.republika.pl/
Green gene - Virtual vegetation hub

TheBadger

QuoteYou need to redownload and reinstall the application from your e-on account though to get the updated content.

Just before this post I updated my soft. There was no note on the download page that I had to do a complete reinstall. Im on mac, but the widows version is on the same download page.

So I have to reinstall or just run the update? Did not find any links or posts on this matter.

???

....

Well just tried exporter for the first time. Crashed when I clicked on one of the listed plants... was open for all of 7 seconds.
It has been eaten.

Bluestorm

You just have to reinstall if you want to get the updated sample plants with better and more understandable graphs (for studying purposes). The content is encrypted to your license during installation, that's why you can't download it seperately, but have to do a full re-install. If you don't care about the updated sample scenes, then just a regular update is fine.

Never tried Exporter, maybe I should.

TPF 2 also shouldn't be too far away, I guess. One thing that e-on made public with a screenshot on Facebook a few weeks ago was that TPF 2 will have full Quad support. Not much more is currently known.

Robert, thanks for your nice and long mail! I'll reply to it, soon, but I have so much at hand at work and university right now. I am swamped :(