http://www.speedtree.com
http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/
Any opinions on which of these will work best with TG2 and other packages? I'm enjoying a Speedtree demo and can't try the Plant Factory yet, but e-onsoftware's package looks interesting.
What is the price point for factory? Speed tree in nearly $900 for the small version.
According to the site, it has not been decided.
Which means one of two things:
1. It will probably be along the same price point as their other software.
2. It will be centered more on the professional side of the FX houses.
Or they could make different versions at different price points. As they do with Vue.
IMO
Hopefully, eon will be useful for hobbyists. It would probably be my first choice, due to SpeedTree's pricing.
Small version of SpeedTree is $495, but the options are waning.
I think SpeedTree will still be superior, but knowing E-on that probably means nothing, so don't expect the price of the PlantFactory to be below SpeedTree's price.
They probably have the guts to ask >$1000 because they have large fanboy base who will buy this anyway along with obligatory ridiculously expensive maintenance paths.
So despite what it can do and how stable it will be, they will sell many copies of it.
With speedtree you can have all of your tree to be geometry and that remains to be seen for the Plant Factory, since Vue can't cope with too much geometry very well.
It might be well possible that it will be a lot of opacity mapped stuff.
Slightly off topic: I've seen a little video of Plant Factory and I was yet again surprised to see how much nomenclature and tools were ripped from XFrog and SpeedTree. These guys at E-on are pretty shameless ;D
Ha, reading this back may seem like a kind of rant, but isn't meant to be :D
It's just my expectations: an unstable, expensive and possibly competitive product for SpeedTree.
We'll see!
I just wish Greenworks had continued to develop XFrog as a stand alone product.
Richard
@cyphyr - yes
@TU - I hope not - I wish for real geometry with the standalone and something affordable, while still useful. We might find out soon. Have you seen this on the PlantFactory site?
Your Questions Answered!By e-on software on Tuesday, April 2 2013, 14:47Thank you for your feedback and your questions. Here are some answers:
- When will the Plant Factory be released?
TPF will be released this quarter (Q2 2013). The pricing structure is not yet finalized.
- Will TPF be a plug-in for other applications or a standalone product?
The Plant Factory will be a standalone application (compatible with all 3D products) that will also integrate more tightly with Vue.
- Is Vue a requirement for TPF?
Not at all, even though using Vue with The Plant Factory will give you more environment power.
- What version of Vue will work with TPF?
Plants created with TPF in .veg format will be compatible with Vue 11 and up. However, all Vue versions will be able to read static plants exported from TPF as .obj or .3ds .
More answers will come in time. Thank you for your patience.
I'm curious about the e-on product as well, we'll see. I also have a demo version of Speedtree Studio and the modeling possibilties are really exciting. Making it work well with TG (or Vue for that matter) is the question. There are some threads on this forum from MGebhart who has used Maya to modify the Speedtree output for TG import (sounds like considerable work in Maya to do so). I queried the folks at the Speedtree forum for any examples of finished renders or workflows out to TG or Vue with no answers to date. There is a thread from a Vue user regarding Speedtree export as obj. files:
http://www.speedtree.com/forum/showthread.php?527-Importing-detail-texture-into-other-apps (http://www.speedtree.com/forum/showthread.php?527-Importing-detail-texture-into-other-apps)
Seems that the "export unwrapped option" may be necessary to get the detail for close-up hero objects, that option is not available on the $495 version, but is on the $895 vers. The thread also mentioned "open collada" as an option for the Vue folks, is that a possibility from Planetside?
What about Onyx? Anyone here tried that one?
http://www.onyxtree.com/about.html (http://www.onyxtree.com/about.html)
The pricing seems reasonable. There is a Gnomon DVD out using Onyx with Maya that has some good looking trees:
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/995/#.UV8GUpPvv4Q (http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/995/#.UV8GUpPvv4Q)
Still looking for the best package for the money.
If we could convince Andrew at 3D Coat to continue to develop his TreesGenerator........
I have looked at these programs time and time again. And speed tree really looks like the most serious soft for this kind of thing.
It always came down to Speed tree and Xfrog. But I just read in this thread that Xfog is no longer being developed?
Did someone say they had the speed tree demo? What are the limitations with that? I take it that its limited so no one can test a pipeline?
I have become a little biased against eon because I think they are over priced, and that makes me not very inclined to buy anything else from them. Speed tree is really expensive in my eyes too. But is it worth it? I think for Vue, no. But what about speed tree? The plants I have seen from speed look really quite good.
Onyx just does not look like a serious program. the site says 21 years but the UI looks like its from 1999, that and the sample images in the gallery make me not even want to think any more on it.
Maya has paint effects. There is a number of DVDs mentioned^^ above. That group of DVDs is made by the founder of the Gnomon school, if I remember right. In three of those DVDs The focus is on maya and paint effects alone. There like $80 each though. I have really been thinking about trying one.
[size=78%]http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/989/Creating-Plants-in-Maya%7B47%7DMental-Ray#.UV8Ytr8Zebx[/size][size=78%]http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/993/#.UV8Y378Zeby[/size]
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/991/Grass-and-Plant-Instancing-in-Maya%7B47%7DMental-Ray#.UV8Y8L8Zebx (http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/991/Grass-and-Plant-Instancing-in-Maya%7B47%7DMental-Ray#.UV8Y8L8Zebx)
I should have been more clear.
XFrog is still being developed but as a plugin for Maya and Cinama 4D. It's only the stand alone version that is no longer developed although it IS still sold.
Still great software and if you get any of their libraries (or win the current NWDA "Roadside" contest !) all the trees,shrubs and other plant models can be infinitely edited.
SpeedTree looks good. I had a play with a demo (exported models had every 5th poly missing! Hate it when they do that.) I found it complex but it looked like I could have mede sense of it if I had persevered. The preview was faster than XFrogs.
Looking forward to Treefactory. The stuff on the site looks cool but until I see it in the flesh I'll reserve judgement.
Cheers
Richard
YES! If... ;D
Quote from: jaf on April 05, 2013, 02:10:32 PM
If we could convince Andrew at 3D Coat to continue to develop his TreesGenerator........
Quotebut until I see it in the flesh I'll reserve judgement
Yes, your right. But speculation on this is kinda fun, as aposed to politics, which stresses me out ;)
I looked at the Xfrog plugin for Maya. Its half price right now. But Im nervous to spend money like that on software I have no experience with.
Winning the contest would be good just for the sake of the stuff in this conversation. XFrog is giving their soft as a prize, I thought I read.
I've been playing with speedtree evaluation.
Fast but prone to crashes
lots of parameters which are not intuitive
Very flexible, an excellent creative tool.
Expensive but probably worth it - will probably get the architect version
Best when used with meshes for leaves - lots of work and planning needed
Some documentation and youtube vids not a great deal of depth though.
Export to TG is easy just tick separate trans maps and export as .jpgs.
Mick
Here's a screen shot 10 min at most to make the tree
Thats rather nice given that you did it in ten min. Well its nice anyway. But imagine what you could do in 1hr!
Not a lot more ;)
...and that was the architect version...
I really do want to make my own trees.
I bought the gnomon workshop for maya and paint effects yesterday. If it works well Ill let you know.
I got part 1, only.
But if its good stuff for me, Ill get part two, and so on. I could not find a used version from amazon or a book store. And 80 bucks felt really like a lot for a few vids. But If it makes me better...!
Anyway, I hope its as great as it looks.
I think it's pretty comprehensive Michael and that you'll learn a lot from it!
The issue for me is that you can only make hand drawn trees in studio at $895!!!!! another example of top end software rip off.
Rip-off for the hobbyist, but for game studios or other studios this is nearly pocket money.
Even serious freelance landscape artists (arch-viz I'm mainly pointing to) would probably consider this a viable option?
My expectation is that Plant Factory won't compete for price.
"Knowing" E-on they're probably as over-confident with this as with Vue, so I expect prices higher than SpeedTree.
In the end nothing will happen in prices which would make SpeedTree, or even PlantFactory, affordably for us hobbyists.
Again, my expectations only.
I wish is wasn't all or nothing there's no upgrade path or module structure. I would happily buy the software otherwise. Now I'll probably buy it unhappily!
Nice tree, but there's a kind of 'circular' look to the way the leaves are oriented. You might want to take a look at that.
Yes, I noticed that too, there is are limited number of ways of adding leaves to the trees. I have since found ways to improve the look but custom meshes are probably the way forward. In many ways the trees are much better than I can get from XFrog. Speedtree is very good but still has many limitations. I wish the stand alone version of XFrog was still in development.
Which limitations of SpeedTree are you referring to Mick?
The placement of multiple trunks, placement of leaves and control over their angles are the main ones but there were other things that I can't remember. There are probably solutions but in my short acquaintance with the program I haven't found them.
Yeah, I will be avoiding speed tree. Not a ton of documentation, little in the way of instructionals, and the tuts that I did see they wanted $250 in addition to the software. This last thing really pisses me off. It' like these smart phone apps that you get for a dollar, and then you realize that for it to be of any use, you have to spend 20 more dollars for game levels, or whatever. And they never tell you this when you buy the software.
"Hey guy, we built this software, its really great, look for you self. See? Isn't that great? Yeah? Ok pay us and try and use it in a real project. Oh, your not having the success you expected? Ok, well, for 250 more dollars will give you the manual."
Also, when people who use TG2 well, say that speed tree is complex and difficult. Well thats like a dentist telling you, "this is going to hurt a little." ;D
So I am officially scared away. I will wait to see the tree factory, and I want to give a real look at Xfrog. But Im not sure there is much hope for me and a stand alone for plants :'(
Hmmmmm, maybe Im just in a bad mood? No, software really is difficult.
Don't be scared away by speedtree, there's enough free documentation out there and a helpful forum to get you started. It's the more exotic things that my artist mind wants to do that are difficult. I am annoyed by the loss of drawing in the architect version or any kind of upgrade path. I shall, nevertheless, be buying it in the next couple of months.
The link in the OP for TPF has been updated. There are some videos in the link now showing TPF in use. I have to say that they make what they show look easy...
We will see, I guess.
Still waiting for the price though!
Yeah given what I know so far the price will be key to its success, but also to my interest towards the software.
Also I'm curious to see whether I'm obliged to purchase a maintenance path along with it and how much that will suck from the budget.
If they want to release it before the end of June then it's about time to reveal some pricing info!
What would you guys say the price should be? Im arbitrarily saying I feel like I don't even want to spend 250.
They just had another pretty useless update on their site showing that you can model other things than plants...so exciting :-[
Anyway, there's another update coming monday and hopefully that will finally reveal the pricing of the product.
I still think it will be around the 4 digit number, since SpeedTree studio is $899
Quote from: TheBadger on May 16, 2013, 07:55:00 PM
What would you guys say the price should be? Im arbitrarily saying I feel like I don't even want to spend 250.
Where do you base that feeling on?
Of course I also would like to pay as less as possible. I hope it's around 100 dollars, dirt cheap :)
However, given the featureset and it's potential power (partially demonstrated so far) it's not very sensible or reasonable to say you only want to spend 250 max on it.
Or anything below 500 basically. The features and tech just have more value.
Also, given the company who's developing it, I think it's unlikely to expect it to cost below 500 anyway, which isn't a really good argument of course, but based on its features and tech it will likely not be very cheap.
QuoteWhere do you base that feeling on?
Wishful thinking I guess.
Its a dilemma, Martin.
I need to have access to lots and lots of plant objects. The venders like Walli make great stuff, but not everything I need. Besides, you could spend a fortune buying up all the assets that are out there, and still not get everything you need for a given project. Even so, I would still buy from Walli just to save myself time and energy. But for everything I need that he doesn't sell...
So thePlantFactory is looking pretty darn nice (
easy, fast, good results). But when you say $800 I just cringe, because I know it will have problems. None of this software works as well as you think it will when you buy it, there are always issues.
So spending 800+ to get software I cant use, or is very time consuming to use is a worry.
Than again, it really could end up being the "best plant soft on the planet". But I don't want to be the guy to test that at 800+ $.
Hope they release soon. I need to make up my mind.
Sorry to bump this with nothing new to say. But I just keep coming back to this
[attach=1]
Thats pretty darn nice looking!
And if its as fast to make as the videos make it look. Well, thats something.
That's definitely an impressive one :)
Tomorrow we'll know more as a new post is announced for the 20th of may.
Fingers crossed that it will finally reveal the pricing and stuff!
OK, so this is looking like its going to be a long slow tease :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgSxH4GdJcM&feature=youtu.be
Painting tress in TPF
Pretty!
Yeah now the next announcement is exactly a week later again.
So every week 1 update. Well, it might be a long tease indeed, but after all it's always better than the pace some other companies can have ;)
I find it interesting to see that they mention that there will be a version available for every budget.
This either means that it will compete severely with SpeedTree or that it won't compete because they offer a cheaper version which is stripped too much of its functionality to be able to compete with SpeedTree.
A ~$300 version would be awesome, but it shouldn't be stripped of its core functionalities.
I hope their cheapest version can model without restrictions and has zero animation stuff.
That would be fine enough for me to start with.
Then they can have a ~$900 version with animation and an even more expensive one for the whole kit and caboodle.
I hope it's going into such a direction.
Rests only a thorough update on TG's raytracer for objects and then we can make some really photographic looking stuff :)
Quoteupdate on TG's raytracer for objects and then we can make some really photographic looking stuff
That is why I am here! When I can make a 3D image, and all the things in the image by my self, and then make a render that is photographic to all but the most discerning eye. Then I will be the digital artist I want to be.
yeah, 300, no animation. I can work with this. But really, going above 400 for everything sounds a little crazy. After all, the software only does one thing.
Zbrush is, what 600? I cant believe a modeler that has such a narrow focus could be too costly. In the end TPF wont do a single thing that other programs cant, Right? Its just that TPF is trying to make things faster and simpler?
Well faster and simpler is worth a few dollars. But 1000? Probably not so much.
And I saw that stuff about TPF "being so powerful it can model things other than plants", too. Yeah well, so can hexagon ;D and thats free.
I couldn't care less if it models things other than plants...What do I have Maya for?
Correct, I wouldn't pay more than 300 for something that I would merely use for making trees.
Yes I tend to agree with that statement too if you consider it will be a version with modeling capacity only.
Hopefully they will reveal it the 27th.
New update, but not on prices yet:
http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/05/27/Plant-Factory-Recursive-Plant-Modeling
I hope this recursive modeling allows for hand-coding growth rules. On algorithmic botany there are pdf's which describe supernice recursive models for branch growth so it would be great if the software could make use of those via this functionality.
^^ Well that looks nice.
Like now some of the branches look blighted or dead. I hope thats mostly automatic, and we can just alter the percentage of leaved and unleaved branches.
Prices are out!!!!!
Seems I wasn't that far off about both pricing as well as E-on's arrogance of not seeing the need to really compete with the competition.
Given the line-up of the products they probably expect to sell a huge amount of <Studio licenses to the Vue fanboys and a significantly smaller volume of Studio/Producer licenses.
So they removed the 1M polycount export limit, good.
Now they need to remove the reselling part of the EULA and also make features available like driving stuff with fractals and dependencies.
I really don't get the restrictions of the Studio/Producer products.
They just don't follow their own naming convention/paradigm.
I have to ask myself do I need it? for 1/3 the price I can get speed tree architect or for 1/2 the price speedtree studio. Not quite as versatile but for my needs just as good.
"Plant Factory Producer ($1,495)"
HAHHAHHAHHAHH AHHAHHAHA HAHAHHAHHAHHAHHA HAHHAHHA HAHHAHHA HAHHAHA HAHHAHA AHHAHHAH
You cant sell anything you make with it. I guess they think that everyone will buy plants from expert users and not buy the soft. HA! If the soft was affordable I would make my own and get exactly what I want.
Every comment on there was negative, save two. Even if its worth it, if the soft gets a bad knock out the door it wont matter. People will see 1,495 for a modeler that does only one thing, cant be used to earn, and has many stupid restrictions.
If you want to sell a plant you must do it through them. They get a cut and it can only be legally bought through their web site. Hello Daz studio
Probably if I make a print with a tree from there soft, I have to credit them and send them a royalty for every edition number.
BAh!
QuoteHowever, given your feedback, we see that this could become an issue so we have decided to remove the 1 million polygon limitation. Plant Factory Studio will now allow you to create trees and plants with an unlimited number of polygons.
HAHHAHHA HA HA HAHHAHHA hA, again!
Now lets bitch until they lower the price to something we can afford. $1,495 just to make something every other major software can do, only quicker. BS.
QuotePlant Factory creators and authors can sell their plant models on Cornucopia3D and keep 70% of all the revenue. E-on takes only a tiny 30% which is used to manage and maintain the Cornucopia3D site, handle all banking transaction details, and provide a welcoming, hassle-free experience for the thousands of users who buy e-on and e-on broker related content.
HAHHA HAHHAH AHHA HA HA AH. Its a frigging shake down! I hope some one sees these people on the street and punches them in the face.
God bless Planetside and a few other decent hardworking generous developers.
BAh!
QuoteOn Tuesday, June 4 2013, 05:29 by MAD AT YOU
quoteWe agree with the words of one of the commenters that it would be "economic suicide" if e-on were to allow the sale of plants and content created from Plant Factory outside of the e-on universe. Otherwise, people would have very little need to buy Plant Factory if, for example, they could just buy a static plant library produced by Plant Factory./quote
Sell the soft you morons, not the work others do with it! Are you DAZ now?
Sell it at a price everyone can afford and you will sell it to everyone. really stupid.
I wanted to buy your soft not plants others made with it. but at nearly 1500 hundred dollars Ill stick with slower more traditional methods
70%! 30% so you can run a website! Your worse than the american government. Do you want to sleep with our wives too?
I was really liking what I was seeing. But screw this. I can be insulted for free.
Ha! again!
They gave in on the million polly thing in one day. These are kids who are good at math. Not grown up businessman. They did not think any of this through. That pricing structure is so insulting I hope their company fails.
They won't fail.
Simply because they have a lot of customers, of which quite a majority is totally uncritical towards the software they make.
E-on isn't really loved by their customers, but the admiration for their software sometimes is of biblical proportions ;)
That in itself will make sure this investment in developing this software will pay off.
Quite a bunch will buy it and especially the Vue only versions will be quite succesful I think.
In the end this is all a total letdown:
1) No selling stuff, unless you're willing to share a 30% cut with them
2) Leafs are converted to billboards upon export -> E-on, some people use renderers which can handle leaf geometry, not all of us use Vue ;)
3) Studio doesn't even all the creative options
4) Studio has options which should belong in Producer
5) Producer has options which should belong in Studio
6) It's unclear whether an annual fee needs to be paid to keep using PF, like with Vue's maintenance paths
7) The pricing structure itself barely competes with anything else
All in all so few incentives to buy this.
When do they learn that these kind of lame things in itself aren't an incentive to buy software, in general?
No wonder piracy is so thriving.
I had a bunch of hundreds dollars ready to be spend, guess I'm gonna use it for something else :(
Just looked at speedtree again think I'm going to go with the studio or architect version.
^^ Yeah. I had my hopes up too because of those images and videos. I should have been spending my time learning Xfrog, speed, onyx, GrowFX. And deciding what will work for me.
They all have some funny stuff about them too. But not like what I just saw with TPF.
Billboards! Man. I just don't get that. 1500 and its not even real geometry. I feel sorry for that poster who already bought it, and finds the plants to be ugly outside of PF. Worse than Vue plants he said.
here is Maya 2014 video with paint effects... Add a plugin from the list in my first line and you got some power. I think all of the plugins are less than 500? And with maya you actually get a proper 3d soft that does more than one thing.
http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/exploring-maya-2014-with-duncan/
Turns out you can do real geometry leaves, not just billboards. So thats good. At least its not total crap. THey posted some images of it. But it really looks like they just hastily posted it as a response to the feed back. So it does not look as pretty as the earlier images they put out.
I have not been around as long as most of you. But is this the worst roll out you have ever seen from a big name in software? I completely understand now, why Matt, Oshyan and Jo are so cautious about what they say and post here, with respect to their program. If expectations are made to rise high, and the result does not live up to it. Then it can get really ugly. Probably does not help that e-on is responding to the criticism poorly.
But I don't feel sorry for e-on at all. Its no different than a movie, or a car, or anything. If you make something to sell, and something about what you made pisses people off, your going to have to hear about it.
Seems that the real problem is just the licensing and multiple versions of the soft. If they would release one all or nothing version at a price like3-400 dollars. And the soft is as great as they claim. Then everyone would buy it.
Their prophet would be in volume rather than much fewer sales on a more expensive product. at 390 bucks they would corner this part of the market and guarantee a long run. No one would use anything else, if its as great as they claim.
Another strange thing is that they are selling versions for OSX, months before a release with no promise of a refund if said version does not happen or sucks.
Its really a disaster. From what I have been reading, most of their user base is made of amateurs and students. How are students and hobbyists going to spend 1500 for a toy? Nothing about what their doing makes much sense to me. Maybe I just can't see the forest from the trees?
mhaze
Some things about speedtree studio do look really nice. The maya plug-in, for one thing, looks great. It even makes using Maya easier. It also looks like a much better pack than the least expensive version, relative to the full version.
Maybe e-on will change their minds and put out a full version that makes sense and is priced more honestly? Because right now, I do think what their doing is very shady.
Quote from: TheBadger on June 05, 2013, 12:09:38 AM
Turns out you can do real geometry leaves, not just billboards. So thats good. At least its not total crap. THey posted some images of it. But it really looks like they just hastily posted it as a response to the feed back. So it does not look as pretty as the earlier images they put out.
Yes indeed, it's a nice example of damage control.
Quote
I have not been around as long as most of you. But is this the worst roll out you have ever seen from a big name in software? I completely understand now, why Matt, Oshyan and Jo are so cautious about what they say and post here, with respect to their program. If expectations are made to rise high, and the result does not live up to it. Then it can get really ugly. Probably does not help that e-on is responding to the criticism poorly.
I remember years ago Planetside did handle publically announced deadlines and such, which indeed caused expectations of something being released at a certain time, hence the name deadline. One or two deadlines weren't made and thus this is why they don't do this anymore.
I think given the size of the business and in relation to the things you say Michael, that that's a good thing.
There's only one possible downside I can see and that's having lack of deadlines means there's not as much incentive to get things done as when using deadlines. However, easily it could be that internal deadlines are being used. I don't know, doesn't really matter.
In the end they (Planetside) do this smarter than E-on.
Quote
Seems that the real problem is just the licensing and multiple versions of the soft. If they would release one all or nothing version at a price like3-400 dollars. And the soft is as great as they claim. Then everyone would buy it.
Their prophet would be in volume rather than much fewer sales on a more expensive product. at 390 bucks they would corner this part of the market and guarantee a long run. No one would use anything else, if its as great as they claim.
...
Its really a disaster. From what I have been reading, most of their user base is made of amateurs and students. How are students and hobbyists going to spend 1500 for a toy? Nothing about what their doing makes much sense to me. Maybe I just can't see the forest from the trees?
Exactly. However they think completely different about this. They aim to sell many licenses of the Vue-related versions to current Vue owners.
These versions are at the pricing sweet spot you mentioned.
Vue users hate E-on, mostly, but tend to be obsessed with the software and think nothing compares to it.
You can see that in a comment on FaceBook where E-on replies saying that sales are going very well, because happy people don't post and complain. In other words they say that the mass critics are just non-sense. Just another insult like the 1M poly cap.
This is of course a nice fallacy, but imagine if it is true then this definitely fits with my description that Vue-adepts lack skepticism and criticism.
Quote
Maybe e-on will change their minds and put out a full version that makes sense and is priced more honestly? Because right now, I do think what their doing is very shady.
Believe me, they won't. They have a tunnel-shaped vision with a bright dollar sign at its end.
I agree TU, the Vue user will jump at this and it will make a big difference to the quality of Vue plants. Big studios might go for producer and smaller ones for studio, maybe. Whatever happens, E on won't lose out too much.
I'm going for Speedtree architect and I might upgrade to studio later. After playing with it for a while it really is flexible and relatively easy to use, it has it's quirks!. It's very reliable and there's good feedback from the forum
Hi Mick,
About SpeedTree Architect...
I find their website quite confusing and I especially mean that I miss a kind of comparison chart which would clearly tell me the difference between SpeedTree Architect, Studio or Cinema.
Architect comes at $495, which is ok for me budget-wise, but studio is $895 and I really need to think really well about it before buying.
Knowing their differences to see which fits my needs best is critical of course.
The website says Architect allows full use of "The SpeedTree Modeler" and that's basically all you know.
Clicking on it shows some info about it and here and there you see a couple of lines what Studio and Cinema have, but little on Architect...sigh.
I suppose I can't export animated trees with Architect. I would "only" be able to model trees and export them to any desired format including FBX.
That's correct, isn't it?
Cheers,
Martin
Yes, I know the problem. There is a comparison chart. Go to buy or evaluate and on the top menu and hover over "tree rendering softtware tools" and there's a compare editions option. The only significant things you cant do in architect is draw by hand(didn't find that all that useful) and unwrapping of maps again not essential. Yes animation is excluded - though it could be done in other programs.
BTW you can download an evaluation copy of each to test which you want.
Quote from: TheBadger on May 19, 2013, 02:03:35 PM
Sorry to bump this with nothing new to say. But I just keep coming back to this
[attach=1]
Thats pretty darn nice looking!
And if its as fast to make as the videos make it look. Well, thats something.
That's a great looking tree for sure but you don't need all your trees to look that great. As for E-on, I can see why people would use that software to quickly churn out stuff for movies etc that then probably has to have substantial postwork to look good. I packed in with E-on at an earlier Vue version.
There is actually a free tree generator which in some ways works quite well. It's called Arbaro. It's not easy to use. You can't see what you are doing so it takes practice. There are a few other issues. Branches are separate but with the right combined software you could definitely get some good trees just not so ready made. This is a render of a palm created with it:
(http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7794/arbarotree1.jpg)
Here's another render of a model I churned out of Wings3d which is great for modelling organic stuff. This took about 30 seconds to create. I'm intending using this combination. E-on are simply a joke with their pricing and all the various versions of the software.
(http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/2041/shape7.jpg)
Because of Wings3d's advanced selections you can apply formulas and travel through these Arbaro trees without performing a single manual selection. Since there is a regularilty of sorts you can arrive at certain places in the system like the beginnings of thousands of branches to apply operations. Hundreds of thousands of faces or edges being extruded, edge looped, apply bends or whatever. You can keep the leaves moving with the branches as well. You can also save the selections. You can apply a material to each selection.
I'm working on trees by hand.
Ignore the funny pattern on the selection. That's due to size reduction of the picture.
(http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/7817/30000selection.jpg)
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/forum2/viewforum.php?f=14
Check out Pamela's long explanation about the various top company 3D tree producers and her experience with Plant Factory to get more information than you've probably heard.
Another thing I was wondering is if any of you have tried this (it's free) - www.3d-coat.com/files/3d-Coat-2-trees.exe
If Andrew from 3D Coat would continue his experiments with tree generation it would make 3D Coat awesome because you've got all the texturing capability.
Also, it's early days here I need to run more tests but so far I think Wings3d blows Xfrog out the water as long as you are prepared to put the work in experimenting. The reason for this is that you have total control in a way that you don't in Xfrog. I've thought of a way to creae masses of leaves as one separate object so textures can be applied to that as one whole. There could be trouble if you want to carefully design textures to fit each leaf though.
Quote from: calico on June 06, 2013, 06:06:51 PM
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/forum2/viewforum.php?f=14
Check out Pamela's long explanation about the various top company 3D tree producers and her experience with Plant Factory to get more information than you've probably heard.
Another thing I was wondering is if any of you have tried this (it's free) - www.3d-coat.com/files/3d-Coat-2-trees.exe
You mean her response here Rob?
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=6916&postdays=0&postorder=&start=20
She's acting a bit funny in that topic. I was/am thinking the same as you "what does she know what ALL others do not?"
I don't value her response that much as you do and frankly I don't see how her response made you look so differently at the product now.
She's obviously some kind of insider and has this 1 out of 100 like opinion.
The people who are complaining and bashing the product line-up, pricing and restrictions are just right.
She claims all those people don't know the market and not the significance of the technology E-on put into the program.
Then after that she's claiming things which nobody ever can check or claims to be some kind of authority on this. Pfff...
Well, what has this quoted part of her comment has to do with that?
Quote
The Plant Factory, on the other hand, has a truely groundbreaking method of fractalization that overcomes the well-known computer science problem of level of detail. This seems a historic breakthrough in the science and technology. As nearly as I can tell, the Chinese and the French have been in a contest for several years to determine who can crack this problem. I think the French just won!
wtf is she talking about? What groundbreaking method of fractalization? Applying a fractal to 3D geometry?
E-on didn't advertise or talk about any groundbreaking fractal technology.
So IF she's right, which I truly doubt, then why didn't E-on market it and made people aware about its unique nature?
This would partially "justify" the pricing of its products, because if it is truly groundbreaking and "game changing" like she's playing it, then it would make a bit more sense.
French won from Chinese? What does that have to mean? Doesn't really sound like she's neutral towards E-on and consequently towards TPF.
Also it just sounds childish and stupid.
I don't know about this lady!
See what I mean Rob?
On top of that, in that very same topic kind of everybody except her express that they feel like being ripped.
I'm not keen on patting myself on my own shoulder, but I'm happy I probably saved a lot of people from buying the Studio version by being the first one to address that it's very likely you need the producer version with all the sub-graph and fractal tools to create the trees you really want.
This whole marketing and sales approach by E-on is really operating in the grey area between legal and illegal.
From a moral viewpoint it's plain lying and deceptive, but they can safely hide their asses behind the legal stuff.
Here another example: you aren't allowed to sell your stuff outside C3D, but if you ARE a C3D vendor it seems that there are also restrictions!
This is quoted at the end of that same topic!
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People who wish to create to sell on Cornucopia may understandably be displeased. Considering the EULA and limiting sales to a store the developer of the software owns, this version should allow access to more features which will benefit both the vendors and the customers.
I'm wondering who the Chinese company might be and what they have to offer ...
I suspect PF is the best plant creator out there BUT, I'm not going to buy it. Partly because of the ridiculous pricing and EULA and partly because I expect some of the more reasonably marketed software will catch up. I also don't need it I can do everything I want with XFrog and speedtree
Martin, I am sorry for addressing you directly since you probably don't know me because I am a silent reader in this forum and almost never post here, but I have to set some of your false assumptions straight.
I am completely with you in regards to this PR-mess. E-on really did not do very well when they "communicated" the prices and product line-up. The public outcry because of the prices and feature sets is well deserved, because some decisions are downright mind-boggling which has been addressed a lot in this thread and everywhere else. However, the behavior towards e-on as a company is another story and while you kept relatively calm in your comments on Facebook and at TPF blog (yes, I read all of those) and certainly had more than enough constructive criticism to bring forward, they way you behave here, "away" from e-on, is beyond arrogant, pretentious and full of bad-mouthing. I highly respect you as a Terragen artist, I wish I had half the skill you have and I see you helping everywhere you can in this forum, but as soon as things get "Vue"- or "E-on"-related, you completely step out of line and lose any sort of objectivity, even though you might often have a good point. I fully see all your worries regarding the EULA, the pricing scheme (it really IS way too expensive) etc. and some of it bothers me, too. But people know what they are buying and speaking of "almost illegal" methods is way too far-fetched and on the edge of defamation.
Pamela (aka "forester") is one of the main content providers for Vue and has been modeling and selling plants at Renderosity and C3D for years. As far as I know, she grew up with programming and 3D computer graphics as her profession, so she definitely knows what she is talking about. Yes, she is that "1 out of 100" - person and not representative for the average user, but not because she said something positive about TPF, but rather because she is a professional who has more knowledge and insights into the workings of plant software than the hobbyist. Her comment with fractalization was very likely in regards to the automatic plant variations that have been part of e-on's Solid Growth plants from the beginning and were now carried over to TPF. These variations are based on fractals and mathematical patterns. Apparently, she read some articles in specific scientific computer magazines that were talking about new developments in plant generation and e-on was one of the companies doing research (the French), the other one was probably Chinese. After trying out TPF, she was amazed by the inner workings, so for her, the "French won". What's the big deal?! It is one sentence in her entire post and you just seem to be fishing for things to criticize and disqualify her opinion without any reason.
Next up, you make general assumptions about all the people who do business with e-on. They all hate the company and praise the software endlessly despite of its many flaws, according to you. Yes, there are people who think Vue is the holy grail for everything and there are people who are unhappy with e-on, as how this is the case with every software company out there. But there are also a lot of people who are happy with e-on while still seeing Vue's obvious weaknesses. I thought Vue 7 and especially 8 were a nightmare stability-wise and held off with an upgrade for the first time because I was so dissatisfied. I got back in the game with Vue 10 because I had heard very good things about Vue 9 since they made a lot of changes to the internal code and the units system. Both 10 and 11 have been very, very stable with only the occasional crash that I also get in C4D which is known for its rock-stable coding. I even upgraded to xStream last year which I wouldn't have ever thought I'd do a couple of years ago and had nothing but good experiences so far. e-on really improved the quality of their products during the last couple of years and so I am a happy customer now. There are still a lot of areas where Vue is lightyears behind Terragen 2, e.g. terrain displacement, realistic atmosphere colours and cloud fractals, so yes, there is room for plenty of improvement and I hope e-on gets on par in these areas very soon, just as Planetside is behind in terms of animation and interoperability. Both softwares have their advantages and their disadvantages which makes it so great to own them both (which I do). I have no problems doing business with either Planetside or e-on, I respect both companies and I could give you a long list of other people who do as well.
Next, the Plant Factory. I bought the pre-release because I thought the price of 300 € was very good, even with all those restrictions that I also encountered during my tests in the last days. Some general information:
- The interface is highly intuitive. Whoever has worked with World Machine, Vue's Function Editor or Terragen 2 before will feel at home pretty quickly. You connect nodes that are very smiliar to XFrog components (e.g. segment node, hydra node etc.), but have a lot more control. All the parameters are arranged logically and you can fully customize your workspace by moving windows around.
- You can save your custom-built nodes into a library (not yet possible in the pre-release) so that you can later "click together" a tree pretty quickly. You can build your own library made out of your own leaves, trunk types, fruits, flowers and so on and simply combine them with the click of a mouse. Take the stem of an oak, combine it with the needles of a conifer and the fruits of an orange tree. It might probably look very silly, but it is a lot of fun.
- You can draw a tree by selecting the desired component (e.g. a stem node) and clicking anywhere while moving the cursor. The component will follow the mouse movement and grow along this "invisible" spline. Again, you need to build your nodes first so that you can select them for painting later.
- You can click on any part of the tree. It will be highlighted in red and you can rotate, scale and move it with standard manipulation gizmos. Very easy and intuitive.
- The textures and surfaces are done using the same material editor with every feature that comes with Vue (e.g. SSS, normal maps, backlighting, physical transparency etc.). You can even access the function editor for driving certain parameters with a function. However, as mentioned by several people before, there are basically no function/fractal nodes in the studio version which is HIGHLY disappointing. If you have access to a copy of Vue, you can build your function there, save it and load it into the material in TPF as a workaround. Not very smooth, but it works for the time being.
- The OpenGL-display is fast, responsive and high-quality. Much better than in Vue and less crash-prone.
- There are three different ways to create leaves: either with a billboard object, a warpboard object or as a seperate option within the segment (branch)-object called "blades". The billboard option looks really good on mid-distance and in the background and is a HUGE improvement over the terribly ugly and dated Vue trees that existed so far which you probably know also as a Terragen user. The "blades"-option grows leaves directly out of a branch as full 3D-objects that can be twisted, rotated, curled, displaced etc. The "warpboard" is basically a flat polygon that you can apply a texture to and then rotate, curl and twist it as well. Probably the easiest while still good-looking method for the creation of single 3D-leaves. I'd definitely use full 3D leaves for Closeups. Of course, if a tree's leaves were constructed using billboard nodes, it WILL have billboards on export which is completely logical. e-on didn't do any "damage control" by posting the 3D-tree in response to the criticism, users were simply too stupid to take a look at the graph which was composed of - yes, you guess it - billboard nodes which are even called like this in the graph editor. This is glaringly obvious when you take a look at the graph and it is not e-on's fault that people overlooked it. By the way, all the trees that e-on unveiled during the last couple of weeks were constructed using billboards, even the acacia tree that everybody is raving about. The trees are supplied with the pre-release, so you can take a look at them. Only the banana tree has "real" 3D-leaves.
- A lot of the options that are exclusive to the producer edition are still available in the interface, albeit in a greyed-out state. This is irritating and should definitely be removed. You also feel restricted when you look at integral sliders like season, health or age that you cannot access, but that sit there right in front of your nose. These should definitely be included in the studio version as they are fundamental options for plant modelling. You can probably still do without them by manually removing the leaves in winter, changing the branch tropism etc., but it is way more work than just using a slider for the different seasons.
- You cannot customize render settings. You can select the five render presets that are also supplied with Vue (Preview - Ultra), but you cannot change a single setting. Also, rendering in a seperate window with a predefined resolution is NOT possible, you can only render in the 3D-view. It is beyond me how you can leave out such an important feature and include it only in the producer release.
- I haven't found a way to "extract" certain parameters so that they can later be accessed and modified in Vue's plant editor (e.g. stem radius etc.). I guess this is also only possible in the producer version which would be a shame.
Summary: TPF is a really, really great piece of software that enables you to create really great looking plants from scratch with a lot of options, even in the studio version without the fractal nodes. The interface is very easy to learn and the software is quite stable for a pre-release. For 300 € this week, IMO it's a no-brainer. For the regular price of 700 € < I'd think twice, though, because there are too many useless restrictions in the feature set for a studio version. Creating plants in different seasons is a fundamental concept and shouldn't be missing in a software that is priced at this range. I am curious as to how the featureset will change (if it does), at least e-on posted that they are listening and influenced by the criticism (http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/06/Feedback-on-the-Pre-Release). My advice: get the software this week, you won't regret it for this price, despite its limitations. I'd think more thoroughly about a purchasing decision next week when the sale is over. It might not be worth it for the full price of 700 €.
Hey guys, I just read from the forum Calico posted a link to, too.
So now Im really wondering again... The feed back there is mostly as negative as the announcement page we have all been following, yes?.. Seems so.
No one likes the pricing structure or edition options. 1) The price is too high for the only version worth buying. (That woman does not know what she is talking about. There is no new technology here.) All they have done is make things easier and faster.
2) The version options is perceived as dishonest or stupid or a rip off, by just about everyone posting including e-on's defenders.
So... I think something will give before the final release.
@Martin
I think you know more than me.
But my gut is saying this can go really bad for e-on. It could really spiral on them (think viral). Because this is a very small industry when you cut out the hobby stuff and kids playing with software for youtube. IF the perception becomes that e-on is dishonest, unfair, shady, or simply that they do not provide value for dollars (the most likely), then its really not going to go well for them.
Would you concede now, that at the very least, they will try to redo the versions before final release? I would think so. And I am thinking there will be some change in the pricing. Could be wrong on the last part. But its still really hard for me to think that 1500 will sell very well. BEcause plants are very narrow niche in a very small industry. I think the only reason speedtree could sell its top product at so high a price was because they were the biggest dog. But now?
Just thinking on it with you guys.
@Efflux
I like your plant at the top of this page. That has some real potential! Looking forward to your TG renders man.
You should talk to your open source communities and encourage them to develop a fee open source speedtree/plantfactory soft! That would be huge ;)
@mhaze
I like what I saw with speed, but it feels pretty costly too. I wonder if it will go on sale as a response to PF? I'll be looking for a sale, soon I hope.
@cyphyr
Me to. Some one should find out what she is talking about. Or if its just gibberish.
Im really thinking Xfrog for maya is the best value I have seen from this thread. What do you guys say is the best value/option of all? Conclusions? Or still to early to tell?
I suspect that the Plant Factory was probably first envisaged as an expanded version of Vue's internal Plant editor. Then someone at E-On came up with the idea of selling it as a stand alone product. This then necessitated the inclusion of all the "Linked to Vue" versions because of otherwise missing functionality in a stand alone version.
Also I'm stunned that you can't share assets within an office environment. Having to buy another licence simply to move an asset 6foot to the next desk is ludicrous!
Richard
@Bluestorm
Thank you for the in-depth information!
REading your link now.
You are welcome :). If you have any questions about the pre-release, please don't hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer them, if possible.
@Bluestorm - I'm so thankful for your explicit and in-depth post. Between you and Pamela I'm making my decision. You both have been fair and objective and this attitude represents Steve Bell (admin on e-On forums), who has answered all of my questions and yet with not as much information and insight as you two. Thanks!
I appreciate the fact e-On posted this - http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/06/Feedback-on-the-Pre-Release It sounds good.
Quote from: Bluestorm on June 07, 2013, 08:59:03 AM
Martin, I am sorry for addressing you directly since you probably don't know me because I am a silent reader in this forum and almost never post here, but I have to set some of your false assumptions straight.
Hey Blue,
Thanks for chiming in here, much appreciated.
It's ok to set things straight and I hope you realise that at the most possible I'm trying to emphasize I'm ventig my opinion only and not "the truth". Some more about that later blow in this reply to your extensive reply.
In a way a little pity I could only have you become active here on this forum through topics like these :) but hey, that's ok of course!
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I am completely with you in regards to this PR-mess. E-on really did not do very well when they "communicated" the prices and product line-up. They public outcry because of the prices and feature sets is well deserved, because some decisions are downright mind-boggling which has been addressed a lot in this thread and everywhere else. However, the behavior towards e-on as a company is another story and while you kept relatively calm in your comments on Facebook and at TPF blog (yes, I read all of those) and certainly had more than enough constructive criticism to bring forward, they way you behave here, "away" from e-on, is beyond arrogant, pretentious and full of bad-mouthing. I highly respect you as a Terragen artist, I wish I had half the skill you have and I see you helping everywhere you can in this forum, but as soon as things get "Vue"- or "E-on"-related, you completely step out of line and lose any sort of objectivity even though you might often have a good point. I fully see all your worries regarding the EULA, the pricing scheme etc. and some of it bothers me, too. But people know what they are buying and speaking of "almost illegal" methods is way too far-fetched and on the edge of defamation.
Exactly. I think what you describe is exactly how I kind of intend to have it.
In this place I feel comfortable and I feel I'm with people who most of the times think like-wise and share interests in relation to CG landscaping, but also general CG or even completely other topics.
A forum area like this one contains all kind of topics, some also about politics and those can get pretty heated too.
However, "outside" this little niche I'm communicating with people I do not know and not know what to expect.
Also, when communicating with E-on I'm communicating directly with them and I do realise that.
So that explains your first part where you explain that anything outside this forum seemed to be ok for you. Good.
Then I rant here about their business. You may like it or you may not like it. That's fine, really :)
I can tell you I have dealt before with E-on, sending e-mails, posting messages. Result? 0.000%
So that already gives a small (so cynical here) disadvantage for E-on.
Then their whole PR-mess on top of that.
Well, for me it explains enough and justifies enough for me to freely rant here about their arrogance and ignorance.
What you forget is that they have been very insulting from the beginning. You focus too much on words I think.
So why did E-on insult the people interested?
The 1M poly cut is a true insult by saying "dear buyer, this is what you need and what you'll get at the most from us".
It's arrogant and insulting.
Also insulting is their total lack of response to so many other perfectly understandable questions like having your license transferred to Producer, because Studio seems to be too restricted after first usage.
They are silent and seem to don't care.
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Pamela (aka "forester") is one of the main content providers for Vue and has been modeling and selling plants at Renderosity and C3D for years. As far as I know, she grew up with programming and 3D computer graphics as her profession, so she definitely knows what she is talking about. Yes, she is that "1 out of 100" - person and not representative for the average user, but not because she said something positive about TPF, but rather because she is a professional who has more knowledge and insights into the workings of plant software than the hobbyist. Her comment with fractalization was very likely in regards to the automatic plant variations that have been part of e-on's Solid Growth plants from the beginning and were now carried over to TPF. These variations are based on fractals and mathematical patterns. Apparently, she read some articles in specific scientific computer magazines that were talking about new developments in plant generation and e-on was one of the companies doing research (the French), the other one was probably Chinese. After trying out TPF, she was amazed by the inner workings, so for her, the "French won". What's the big deal?! It is one sentence in her entire post and you just seem to be fishing for things to criticize and disqualify her opinion without any reason.
Without
any reason?
So you don't agree that the "french did won" part isn't a bit off?
Especially if you claim to have some authority then it's just not very smart to put things like that.
She should have said exactly what you just explained. Thanks for that by the way.
You explained that it probably has to do with transferring SolidGrowth tech to TPF.
Despite I'm not a Vue adept I do know a bit about SolidGrowth.
However, I don't know anything about something going on between France and China and doing some fractal stuff.
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Next up, you make general assumptions about all the people who do business with e-on. They all hate the company and praise the software endlessly despite of its many flaws, according to you. Yes, there are people who think Vue is the holy grail for everything and there are people who are unhappy with e-on, as how this is the case with every software company out there. But there are also a lot of people who are happy with e-on while still seeing Vue's obvious weaknesses. I thought Vue 7 and especially 8 were a nightmare stability-wise and held off with an upgrade for the first time because I was so dissatisfied. I got back in the game with Vue 10 because I had heard very good things about Vue 9 since they made a lot of changes to the internal code and the units system. Both 10 and 11 have been very, very stable with only the occasional crash that I also get in C4D which is known for its rock-stable coding. I even upgraded to xStream last year which I wouldn't have ever thought I'd do a couple of years ago and had nothing but good experiences so far. e-on really improved the quality of their products during the last couple of years and so I am a happy customer now. There are still a lot of areas where Vue is lightyears behind Terragen 2, e.g. terrain displacement, realistic atmosphere colours and cloud fractals, so yes, there is room for plenty of improvement and I hope e-on gets on par in these areas very soon, just as Planetside is behind in terms of animation and interoperability. Both softwares have their advantages and their disadvantages which makes it so great to own them both (which I do). I have no problems doing business with either Planetside or e-on, I respect both companies and I could give you a long list of other people who do as well.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
The majority of this paragraph is about tech/stability though.
I admit my opinion is likely biased by rather seeing more negative feedback on e-on than positive.
You can see this broadly like reading topics about problems with Vue on how to do something and how it's lacking.
And frankly, you don't seem so many of those topics, but what just stays in my mind the most is that whatever I read either has to do with stability which despite that seems to have improved a lot or has to do with how they run their business and especially how they treat their clients.
And that's where my first hand experience comes in fits with what I read. They ignore a lot of requests, issues and other types of communication.
Whatever reason there is, too busy, lack of resources or lack of interest...who shall say...point is that that's what sticks in my mind the most.
Again it's ok if you disagree, really, I'm just giving you my side of the story.
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Next, the Plant Factory. I bought the pre-release because I thought the price of 300 €[/s] was very good(??), even with all those restrictions that I also encountered during my tests in the last days. Some general information:
Quote
- The interface is highly intuitive. Whoever has worked with World Machine, Vue's Function Editor or Terragen 2 before will feel at home pretty quickly. You connect nodes that are very smiliar to XFrog components (e.g. segment node, hydra node etc.), but have a lot more control. All the parameters are arranged logically and you can fully customize your workspace by moving windows around.
- You can save your custom-built nodes into a library (not yet possible in the pre-release) so that you can later "click together" a tree pretty quickly. You can build your own library made out of your own leaves, trunk types, fruits, flowers and so on and simply combine them with the click of a mouse. Take the stem of an oak, combine it with the needles of a conifer and and the fruits of an orange tree. It might probably look very silly, but it is a lot of fun.
No not silly at all :) I can really understand that that's just cool to play with.
SpeedTree's UI is also extremely intuitive. Even I understood it very quickly :)
And yes, I know it's a node based system and it's exactly why I became excited about this product, because I know the complexity and versatility it offers. Love it!
However, if I recall correctly I couldn't save SpeedTree's nodes seperately.
Can't remember exactly, will have to look for the demo once again to be sure, if possible.
Quote
- You can draw a tree by selecting the desired component (e.g. a stem node) and clicking anywhere while moving the cursor. The component will follow the mouse movement and grow along this "invisible" spline. Again, you need to build your nodes first so that you can select them for painting later.
...
- You can click on any part of the tree. It will be highlighted in red and you can rotate, scale and move it with standard manipulation gizmos. Very easy and intuitive.
Yes I saw that in the videos. It kind of works the same as in SpeedTree.
Frankly, how can you do it in a different way? I don't know, so it's understandable it is so similar.
Same goes for rotating stuff.
Quote
- The textures and surfaces are done using the same material editor with every function that comes with Vue. You can even access the function editor for displacement etc. However, as mentioned by several people before, there are basically no function/fractal nodes in the studio version which is HIGHLY disappointing. If you have access to a copy of Vue, you can build your function there, save it and load it into the material in TPF as a workaround. Not very smooth, but it works for the time being.
Really? Not very smooth maybe as a workaround, but if I'd have Vue then I'd really like that option to exchange those kind of setups between Vue and TPF.
I think this is actually very cool.
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- The OpenGL-display is fast, responsive and high-quality. Much better than in Vue and less crash-prone.
TG's OpenGL still has issues with drawing tons of stuff. I suppose the fast openGL rendering will be ported to Vue 12?
I can imagine they needed a solution for TPF as it would have higher priority than in Vue.
Quote
- There are three different ways to create leaves: either with a billboard object, a warpboard object or as a seperate option within the segment (branch)-object called "blades". The billboard option looks really good on mid-distance and in the background and is a HUGE improvement over the terribly ugly and dated Vue trees that existed so far which you probably know also as a Terragen user. The "blades"-option grows leaves directly out of a branch as full 3D-objects that can be twisted, rotated, curled, displaced etc. The "warpboard" is basically a flat polygon that you can apply a texture to and then rotate, curl and twist it as well. Probably the easiest while still good-looking method for the creation of single 3D-leaves. I'd definitely use full 3D leaves for Closeups. Of course, if a tree's leaves were constructed using billboard nodes, it WILL have billboards on export which is completely logical. e-on didn't do any "damage control" by posting the 3D-tree in response to the criticism, users were simply too stupid to take a look at the graph which was composed of - yes, you guess it - billboard nodes which are even called like this in the graph editor. This is glaringly obvious when you take a look at the graph and it is not e-on's fault that people overlooked it. By the way, all the trees that e-on unveiled during the last couple of weeks were constructed using billboards, even the acacia tree that everybody is raving about. The trees are supplied with the pre-release, so you can take a look at them. Only the banana tree has "real" 3D-leaves.
Thanks for the info.
Can you also import objects into TPF and use those as leafs or fruits? That's something cool about SpeedTree, although it requires modeling skills in 3rd party apps.
I agree people were too stupid to use the function properly which resulted in the "holy sh*t my leafs come as billboards" discussion ;)
Wasn't posting that full 3D damage control? Of course, it took away the uncertainty.
At the moment I do not intend to go through all the videos on their blog again, but if they have stated to be revolutionary for the last couple of months and didn't demonstrate clearly that vegetation can be exported in full 3D then it isn't very unsurprising to see uproar when it for a moment looked like it couldn't.
So despite that these people were stupid and wrong, it was caused by high expectations and not very well communicated feature set. I think.
Quote
- A lot of the options that are exclusive to the producer edition are still availalbe in the interface, albeit in a greyed-out state. This is irritating and should definitely be removed. You also feel restricted when you look at integral sliders like season, health or age that you cannot acces, but that sit there right in front of your nose. These should definitely be included in the studio version as they are fundamental options for plant modelling. You can probably still do without them by manually removing the leaves in winter, changing the branch tropism etc., but it is way more work than just using a slider for the different seasons.
Yeah those marketing guys of E-on creep in your mind ;)
I would share the same frustration, but from a commercial aspect this is probably exactly how they would like to make you feel; eager to get the full version.
On the other hand, graying things out is probably a lot cheaper than customising UI's for each specific TPF version.
Quote
- You cannot customize render settings. You can select the five render presets that are also supplied with Vue (Preview - Ultra), but you cannot change a single setting. Also, rendering in a seperate window with a predefined resolution is NOT possible, you can only render in the 3D-view. It is beyond me how you can leave out such an important feature and include it only in the producer release.
Hmmm...so that means you only can do a proper preview in Vue itself or another app?
Quote
- I haven't found a way to "extract" certain parameters so that they can later be accessed and modified in Vue's plant editor (e.g. stem radius etc.). I guess this is also only possible in the producer version which would be a shame.
I think I didn't understand what you mean with "extracting certain parameters".
Seems like you do miss someting from Vue in TPF to me so may be if I'd use Vue I would understand what you mean?
Quote
Summary: TPF is a really, really great piece of software that enables you to create really great looking plants from scratch with a lot of options, even in the studio version without the fractal nodes. The interface is very easy to learn and the software is quite stable for a pre-release. For 300 € this week, IMO it's a no-brainer. For the regular price of 700 € < I'd think twice, though, because there are too many useless restrictions in the feature set for a studio version. Creating plants in different seasons is a fundamental concept and shouldn't be missing in a software that is priced at this range. I am curious as to how the featureset will change (if it does), at least e-on posted that they are listening and influenced by the criticism (http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/06/Feedback-on-the-Pre-Release). My advice: get the software this week, you won't regret it for this price, despite its limitations. I'd think more thoroughly about a purchasing decision next week when the sale is over. It might not be worth it for the full price of 700 €.
Thanks a lot for sharing your view on this.
Let me be clear that I totally agree with you about the awesomeness of the software ;)
Did I say anywhere that it isn't or weren't going to be cool? :)
I'm still very keen on having it and the money is still there ready to be spent, but I still don't feel comfortable with the whole situation around this release.
The versions line-up, their restrictions and pricing. It all just doesn't add up together correctly for me.
I'll think about it and read that link of their feedback. Unless their feedback says Producer will become Studio feature-wise I'm probably not going to buy it.
I want to drive stuff with fractals and making dependencies and I can also see the ease of use of age/season adjustments.
Like I said Studio shouldn't be restricted in creative options, but only in CG pipe-line work.
Have a good weekend, cheers!
Martin
Hi Martin (please call me Daniel :) ),
thank you so much for your constructive reply. Unfortunately, I do not have the time right now to go into detail with the questions that you posted, but I will do so later and also supply screenshots so that things get clearer :)
Anyways, we are on the same page with a lot of things, as it appears :) I fully believe that you had bad communication with e-on, this is not the first time that I have heard about that. However, all I can say from personal experience is that I for one cannot complain about their support (which I am really glad about ;) ).
Anyways, I will get back to you (and everyone else) later this day or weekend and will answer your questions in as much detail as I can :)
All the best from sunny Munich
Daniel
Edit: For the time being, here is a testrender of a leaves closeup, rendered in Vue 11. Of course, it doesn't look very good. The leaves are not properly arranged or correctly attached to the branches, many of them are flat etc. But it was just a quick test for single leaves instead of billboards. Each of these leaf objects can be curled, twisted, rotated and displaced and thus be made to look "fully" 3D.
The second image is a trunk test. The texture is one that I took with my camera and that I then made seamless in Photoshop. I created a displacement map in Shadermap from the photo and used it on the trunk. Not too bad I think.
Hi Daniel,
Take the time you need. It's too good weather to stay inside! I'm on my way to the beers now :P
8 sec rendertime on the 2nd...pfff...would take (2?) order(s?) of magnitudes longer in TG at this resolution and detail.
About the leafs; it looks like some aren't connected to a branch/twig?
Secondly, and most important, they don't seem to have any kind of tropism. In other words the orientation of the leafs is too random. If you look at the leafs of oaks and many trees you'll see they don't have that ubermuch variation and all have similar orientation towards to the sun, of course with a healthy degree of randomness.
Does TPF provide tropism controls?
Actually, all of them are connected, but I made the diameter of the last level of branches way too thin, they are almost invisible.
You are right about the direction and orientation issue. e-on provides seperate options for horizontal and vertical tropism. You can finetune these settings for each node individually or globally for the entire tree. :)
As I said, it was just a quick test without any sort of parameter modifications. I just wanted some single leaves to appear on the tree and see what it looked like.
Edit: And this is what you get when you combine the branches of a platanus tree with banana leaves ;D
Thanks Daniel. Great to see what it looks like. Nice tree bark on the trunk!
Hope everyone gets this sorted out during the time period for the sale. It looks good enough to me and I have hope that e-On developers will do what is useful for the end user just as I trusted Matt and company here to get things moving forward like Terragen has - one of the best outdoor rendering software packages available.
I love the Planetside forums!
No one any place said that it did not look like great software. The anger is all coming from the prices and versions.
I read that link. They don't say too much. But it is an acknowledgment.
I would say I would buy the soft (OSX) at the sale price, now. If, they publicly promised, in detail, whatever the hell it is they are really going to do. They need to answer all of the questions before the sale is over. Because at 1000-1500. No. It would be stupid to buy it especially for OSX (site unseen) Not even a beta to play with. It is an especially shady deal if your buying the OSX version.
People keep posting in those forums and threads that peoples complaints are too emotional or flat out mean. But I think if it were not for the very angry feedback, nothing would be done about what it is people are complaining about.
e-on clearly did not expect such feelings. And they clearly are concerned. Good! They should be concerned. Their reputation is on the line. And it does not mater that its great software (assuming that its as good as they say, and as it looks) The pricing/version structure is dishonest and manipulative.
Obviously this software is desired. People want it. Their angry because they cant have it. Or what they can have, won't do what the previews made them think it would, what they thought the soft would let them do. And that is entirely e-on's own fault.
I know I was getting very excited about the release. So I don't think the anger is misplaced or overboard. I think they attempted to take advantage of early positive feedback and got bit in the backside... Good. Learn from it and do better.
But Im not rushing out to buy, just because its on sale. They need to address ALL of the questions and complaints with definitive answers. And they need to make certain promises on the things like OSX.
It was not just a screwed up role out. It was shady.
Quote from: TheBadger on June 07, 2013, 09:16:59 AM
@Efflux
I like your plant at the top of this page. That has some real potential! Looking forward to your TG renders man.
You should talk to your open source communities and encourage them to develop a fee open source speedtree/plantfactory soft! That would be huge ;)y to tell?
I've already been on the Wings3d forum and I posted a link to that black and white image and told them that Wings has great potential along this angle. I also told them how much E-on wants for plant Factory.
I'm gradually making progress here. It's all a bit complicated to explain but Wings also gives me ways to fix up trees coming from Arbaro. It's pure fluke luck that Arbaro is creating the trees in a way that Wings can grab just about any component by selection analysis. There is a fall down with Blender though which has a total cludge of a way of dealing with hard edges. However, Wings and Modo play together like heaven.
I can't explain everything here but there is giant potential to keep progressing this to get decent trees really fast. Wings is key because of it's superb selection power.
Heres another Arbaro tree. Rendered in Blender (just because I can do that - I need to mess further with Modo's rendering).
(http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/7445/arbarotree2.jpg)
@Efflux
Nice going! You seem to make very fast progress. little jealous of that. I make great use of the information I gain, but it takes me forever just to make my self even sit down to do the learning. Not to mention the learning part.
On the open source trees, let us know if you see any fires get stated anywhere on that.
@Bluestorm
Those are pretty, no doubt. And given that you say you did it in a short time, thats all the more impressive. But did I read you say that the version you have can or can not export polygons? And at any rate, can you render this same tree in maya/max, TG2, and the others? If you have time this weekend will you please post a TG2 render here with PF trees. And if you use other soft like I mentioned, a render from them.
As you already know and the view number for this thread show, there is a lot of strong interest. Certainly for me too.
Its a little bit troubling that you are are providing the needed information and not the software makers, but I'm real glad to get the info!
I've got another test where I'm experimenting with welding the first level of branches onto the trunk. That's why I cut the branches off but this could be way better. I'm not too happy with it. I should have made the root part better. Next tests will be with leaves. There is something about the way Arbaro positions leaves which seems good. I've found another open source app which can handle leave shaping much better. They key to why I'm even bothering with this though is Wings. Wings can deal with sorting the trees the way I want. I could add seriously good textures to the trunks in 3D Coat but I know that is part is reasonably straightforward as long as I can knock the trees into some general shape first. I can't get massive detail like some of these Plant Factory trees but then again I can make decent trees with low poly counts. I'll certainly be upping the amount of detailing though.
(http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6618/arbarotree3.jpg)
i agree with Badger, that tree looks good, nice lighting and shading, (on the leaves) :)
@ calico
Thanks for the compliment :)
@ efflux
Wow, this tree looks really good :) Well done.
@ TheBadger
I will render a plant in Terragen 2 and C4D, no problem :) This is everything I have access to (besides Vue). And yes, you can export plants as *.3ds, *.obj and *.fbx in the pre-release which is what I did for the Vue render (the direct link to Vue is not yet active in the beta version). There are some bugs when exporting trees right now such as a missing triangle here and there, but e-on already said that they know about this and that it will be fixed in the final release. For more information on features and stuff, read on :)
@ Martin
Ok, Martin, I will try to answer all of your questions as thoroughly as possible. :) However, I cannot compare the Plant Factory to Speedtree because I've never used it. I own XFrog both as a standalone and as a plugin for C4D, though, and have some experience with it. So if there should arise any questions regarding comparability with XFrog, I might be able to partly answer those.
First, you were surprised that I thought 300 € were a good price. Well, I really think it is. It is on par with XFrog (not counting the current summer sale) but the Plant Factory can do more in its studio version than XFrog. So yes, I think the pre-release offer is a good value. And in any case, if I will ever upgrade to producer, I will only have paid so much in total because I already got the studio version 60% off.
I hope the OpenGL view will be ported to Vue 12. The current view is ok, but Vue could definitely benefit from an improvement. Admittedly, with Ecosystem instances and all that stuff, there is a lot more workload for the graphics card in Vue compared to TPF.
You are right that posting the image of the 3D tree removed the uncertainty, which of course is a good thing. My point was that the users simply didn't take the time to look at the plants' setup, even though it was pretty obvious in the first place ;)
You can load objects from other 3D packages into TPF, there's a special "Object"-node for that. I also think that they will customize the UI further to remove the greyed-out features, because that's the way they handle it with the different Vue versions. I'd be surprised if they went down the "lazy route" after all this criticism.
Regarding rendering, you can do a proper preview inside TPF, but it is very uncomfortable. If you want to get a picture with a larger resolution, you have to resize the 3D view which automatically changes the image aspect ratio, too. E-on should at least enable the option to select the desired render resolution. I can live with the limitation of not being able to adjust render settings. After all, I use Vue or any other package for rendering and TPF for modeling. The resolution thing bothers me, though.
Here are three screenshots to illustrate what I meant with "extracting parameters". Vue has the ability to "publish" sliders and fields from a node directly into the material or object editor so that you don't have to dive into the complex node network every time you want to adjust a parameter of a function.
(http://vuescapes.homepage.t-online.de/tpf/FE.jpg)
This screenshot shows the complex node setup of a Vue rock material and one parameter that was published to the top-level under the name "amount". The next screenshots shows what this looks like in Vue's material editor. Basically, you get a seperate tab with all your published controls, so you can create your own, unique material and shader interfaces in addition to the standard controls.
(http://vuescapes.homepage.t-online.de/tpf/me.jpg)
The plant factory was said to feature this function for plant creation as well. This means you should be able to select certain parameters from your nodes such as diameter, angle, width, length etc. and "publish" them as a seperate interface that can then be accessed in Vue's rudimentary plant editor. The next screenshot depicts the current plant editor in Vue and the possibilites to modify a Solid Growth plant. My expectation is that you will be able to build your own, custom interface for later editing in the plant editor by publishing parts of your node network as seperate controls. However, it appears that this will only be possible in the producer version. Do you now understand what I meant?
(http://vuescapes.homepage.t-online.de/tpf/pe.jpg)
@ everyone
I attached a screenshot of the current interface of TPF so that you can take a look at it. Also, I created screenshots of ALL the available nodes and options in the studio pre-release. You can take a look at the huge image here: http://vuescapes.homepage.t-online.de/tpf/tpf_nodes.jpg . I guess there's plenty of information for you in there :)
Thank you! Im sure those pics will at least keep me busy this weekend.
One last question from me for the day.
What is the situation with UVs. How do you find them to be. And with regard to your other soft, when you test, please take note of any issues that arise with the UVs and let us know. Specifically, I would like you know what you find when you view the texture nodes with-in the object, in TG2.
I simply don't recall any discussion in those other forums or pages on the topic.
Cheers
@Daniel - Hey! Thanks for the screenshots, especially of the Plant Factory - reminds me of SpeedTrees interface some.
@Badger - Guess how I got into TG2? I was one of the first people here on the forums for TG2 (not so much on TG, but some) and did a pre-purchase. The pre-purchase software was absolutely nothing like it is now, but it was great working with this Planetside team and getting to know everyone here, while the software improved month by month, year by year. I was able to get in on that, but it also meant I got a discount on TG2 because it was a pre-purchase. This is what is happening with Plant Factory and now might be a good time to consider it (before next Monday), if you decide to consider other points of view rather than those less than gracious toward e-On. I think we're in for a treat, myself.
@ calico
You're welcome
@ TheBadger
I will keep an eye on the UVs and will give you a notice.
@ all
Seems like e-on was indeed listening. Nicholas Phelps just posted the following blog post:
Hello everyone,
We are pleased to announce Phase II of The Plant Factory Studio pre-release. As part of this release we will be revising several aspects of The Plant Factory Product Line:
Full Node and Graph Capabilities for Plant Factory Studio
Based on the feedback from the early adopters of Plant Factory Studio, we are lifting all graph and node restrictions for Plant Factory Studio. Therefore, Plant Factory Studio will now include the full set of plant creation capabilities including the entire range of math, fractal, and noise nodes. Users of TPF Studio can now create the same plants and models as the top-of-the-line TPF Producer product with full artistic freedom.
"Plant Factory Designer" Replaces "Plant Factory for Vue"
We are also reformulating the Plant Factory for Vue product with a new product called Plant Factory Designer. Plant Factory Designer will include all the functionality of the Plant Factory for Vue product with the addition of static plant export in FBX, OBJ, and 3DS formats. Plant Factory Designer retains the direct connection to Vue for generating fully animated plants inside of Vue 11+.
Plant Factory Studio Pre-Release II Available on Monday, June 10
Plant Factory Studio Pre-Release II will be available starting Monday, June 10. All previous purchasers of Plant Factory Studio Pre-Release I (which will continue to be sold thru Sunday, June 9) will receive free updates that include the new functionality. Pricing for Plant Factory Studio Pre-Release II will be $595 for one week (a $400 discount over the cost of the release version).
Thank you, and you all have a wonderful week-end,
Nicholas Phelps
Source: http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/07/Plant-Factory-Studio-Pre-Release-Phase-II
[Edit - Oh, I see it's already been announced here. Sweet ;D ]
HEY! CHECK THIS OUT - http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/07/Plant-Factory-Studio-Pre-Release-Phase-II (http://www.theplantfactory-tech.com/index.php?post/2013/06/07/Plant-Factory-Studio-Pre-Release-Phase-II)
The graph is now available in Studio!
Hi guys, I'm not following the Plant Factory talk but I'll probably investigate this in time. One thing I've found is that Wings recognises the fact that every part of every leaf in a tree is the same geometry. This means you can apply any geometry operation to a vertex, edge or face on one leaf and every leaf on the whole tree updates. Arbora doesn't create leaf stems, it leaves the leaves slightly off from the twig. Of ourse I can now change that. It's pretty taxing to do operations on thousands of leafs at one but it seems it works.
Arbora is the only free app that's any good. I've investigated that. Arbora actually outputs something which is a very useful base though.
Next phase is that I've got this great idea for texturing the leafs - if it works. Well, if it works it will actually be phenominal.
Quote@Badger - Guess how I got into TG2? I was one of the first people here on the forums for TG2 (not so much on TG, but some) and did a pre-purchase. The pre-purchase software was absolutely nothing like it is now, but it was great working with this Planetside team and getting to know everyone here, while the software improved month by month, year by year. I was able to get in on that, but it also meant I got a discount on TG2 because it was a pre-purchase. This is what is happening with Plant Factory and now might be a good time to consider it (before next Monday), if you decide to consider other points of view rather than those less than gracious toward e-On. I think we're in for a treat, myself.
Calico,
I must say that the support and patience I have shown to Planetside is not something typical of me or my nature as a being. Quite the reverse actually.
I did not come to art through 3D, but 3D from traditional art largely by way of these forums and TG2. So for that reason I feel more attached to this software and community than I ever could to any other. The fist time only happens once.
Having said that, there is no way in hell Im going to spend 1500 dollars to wait 3 years for any software to develop enough to be useful to me. Plenetside got all I have to give in that respect.
I am not a consumer so that others can have jobs and nice lives. Or so I can support the development of anyone or anything. I buy things for me, because I need them or I want them, and for no other reason. Who pays for college so that a teacher can have a job?
TPF (and speedtree for that mater) are very expensive. Add to that, that I would need the OSX version. And would have to wait many months to get it, but am required to buy it now. And that I have read no promise that all concerns will be cared for... And you should begin to be able to look past your passion.
Now to be absolutely fair... I really do need to be able to make my own plants. I need very specific things for my work. And I am seriously thinking about buying TPF on sale.
Bluestorm is helping a great deal with me making up my mind. But I simply cannot afford to trust. I need verifiable facts. I do not do this stuff for fun! It is not fun for me at all. I really hate computers and software. Truly, I do!
But the arts are my life. They are my lively hood. They are my families future, win loose or draw.
I have invested tens of thousands of dollars in education. Years of learning and working and thinking and emotion. All for a very tinny distant chance at being able to say something new as an artist.
I would cut off my fucking ear and give it to you to realize my vision. If that would do it. But instead I need the software these crazy geniuses invent.
I am not a benefactor. I am not their friend. I am not here for them. And with respect to what I said about planetside, no one should be.
This is business for them, it should be for us too. The world has had its fill of starving artists, and so have I.
Another update about Arbaro. You can put whatever mesh you want in as leaves. I haven't tried this yet though but this gives you a lot of scope.
Wings is having trouble applying modifyling operations to 160 thousand faces at once so I'm not sure heavy editing of the leaves in Wings is a good idea but changing the shape of polys already there seems fine.
Impressive work efflux. Well with the inclusion of the full set of plant creation capabilities including the entire range of math, fractal, and noise nodes, it's a no brainer at the pre release price so I've bought it. My bank balance isn't happy nor is my wife! Must say on first acquaintance it is very good but a manual and some examples would help to understand the intricacies of the program. Look forward to playing with it. I'm not going to make any comparisons yet.
Ok, about half a day not being present online a LOT has happened!
Studio has no creative restrictions anymore! They have listened to the slurry of feedback :)
Now the only restriction is selling stuff in C3D only, but adding in those other features, or actually removing restrictions, have now made it the creative tool I think fits the version description and target a lot better, but especially also my needs and expectations.
Still $395 now and $595 starting on monday.
So in the end I took the gamble, after having not the very best first experiences with E-on, but the eagerness of wanting to have this tool without restrictions and its good price** won over.
I just became an E-on customer and bought a license!
**Daniel, will get back to your nice reply a bit later. About the price in your reply though; I was dyslectic first and thought you had the prices in dollars and thus incorrect, much later I saw my mistake and fixed it, but got lazy to adjust my opinion on it and thus forgot to do so. Anyway, as you may have read now I think the value for (my) money is there.
Cheers,
Martin
Congrats, Martin :)
Just don't expect it to be super stable yet. I had a couple of crashes during the last days, you can clearly see that it's still a beta release.
On a side node: when the update arrives on Monday, you will have all the material and function editor possibilities that are offered in Vue Infinite. Having seen what you are able to create in Terragen (I followed your excellent Canyon Wall Tutorial), I'd be curious on your take on Vue's fractal and function nodes in comparison to Terragen's and what's possible with Terragen's nodes that is not possible in Vue and vice versa. I still think Terragen's fractals are far superior to Vue's, but the variety in Vue is bigger. Even though you cannot create terrains in TPF, you get the full shading and material system to play with. Will be looking forward to your opinion :)
That's exactly why I'm so excited about those fractal possibilities and yet indeed also equally disappointed they first weren't in the Studio version.
Anyway, history now, it will be available :)
I think Terragen doesn't have "better" fractals than Vue. Yes Vue has more flavours, wish TG had those too, but in the end I think it runs down on how the software handles these procedural primitives and at the moment that's TG's key strength over Vue.
Matt found a clever way to organise the fractal data at rendertime to keep memory footprint low and stability very high.
You probably know that Vue is rather more like a pure ray tracer with different modes, in contrary to TG which does raytracing for shadows and such, but uses a system based no reyes architecture to deal with the complex geometry derived from fractal information.
I think that's where the key lies in their differences, strengths and weaknesses.
There's a heap of info on raytracing solutions for any kind of problem vs low volume of information on reyes architecture accelaration and rendering solutions.
I suppose the 3D industry is as prone to fashion as any other (like the medical research field where I work in).
I expect some stability issues. I remember starting with TGTP (TerraGen Technology Preview) which also had stability issues and sadly enough a couple of features enabled by default which slowed renders down 3 times to learn years later that it isn't required for stills at all (this is about the detail blending parameter).
I think TG got that label of being slow then and is still fighting against it which in turn connects to the paragraph above.
Anyway, stability, TGTP was unstabl'ish at first, but I remember it has improved drastically and quickly. If I recall correctly some have even mentioned it might be one of the most stable apps in CG out there.
I don't mind if TPF crashes every now and then at this stage, as long as it isn't every 15 minutes or so...
"Unfortunately" it's too good weather now to take a crack at it, so I'll let you know about my first thoughts later!
First impressions are excellent. So far TPF is stable and seems to be very flexible. There's a lot to learn, it is not as intuitive or as quick as Speedtree but in the end I think it will be possible to create just about anything and will not have the limitations of Speedtree. Bluestorm is it possible to create bifurcated trunks? Now all I need is a good source of textures and leaves. What has become apparent to me over the last few days is that preparation and planning are paramount if you are to create top quality trees.
Please let us know your findings before the end of the sale Martin! If you have time that is.
Between you and bluestorm, I believe I will hear the real facts.
And if anyone hears anymore about how e-on will deal with the OSX release, please post on it.
Hey calico. I think my response was too harsh on you. I get to impassioned my self. Sorry if I was too harsh. Don't realize how words feel different in-person from pixels sometimes.
You guys. You know I thought they would change what they were doing (e-on). But I did not really believe it. Im a little... shocked?
I was shocked too - I wonder if sales were going as well as they claimed or if they were concerned by the hit to their reputation. If is was a genuine altruistic response, well, well done them!
Bifurcated trunks should be no problem, although I would need to figure out how to do them :) Will give it a try this weekend.
@ mhaze :
By bifurcated trunks, I suppose you mean this :
It is possible as you can see, you have to create two segments linked together to the root, rotate them differently and play with the radius filter to enlarge the base.
Yes, I did exactly the same thing as Antoine. Here's mine:
Michael, OSX version will be released later.
Upon checking out for buying they stated it's a beta version you're buying which might suffer from occasional crashes and that it's unfinished...blablabla...and at the end they said that if you buy now that you can get the OSX version later.
Just go through the ordering process and you'll see for yourself, it's shown before your money is gone ;)
lol
Ok. I give in. Its not like I did not want it.
Luckily in about 20 min Ill be in a drunken coma though. So I wont feel it anyway.
Thanks Antoine & Bluestorm - now how do I link them?????? must go and play.... ah I see easy really
Here's some more experiments using Arbaro and Wings. I'm expanding on trying to build bigger trunk trees. The branches need to be separate geometry. I've realised that now. Anything else it too much geometry. Looking at the trees people are using in TG2, that's how they are done but I've now got much better ways to create the joins, unlike this picture where the joins aren't too good and the upper parts too fluted.
(http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9420/arbarotree4.jpg)
Then I've got some more experimental stuff done 100% in Wings3d. I don't want to just do realistic trees. I want to form the trees any way I like.
(http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2193/arbarotree5.jpg)
Maybe the reason that E-on can charge such huge prices is that nobody is experimenting with how to build trees themselves. It's time consuming and will probably be in Plant Factory as well unless you just use a preset. Creating the software will also be time consuming.
Next will be coming work on leaves. I might try hanging fruit and such like.
Ha ha, I've found an even more awesome way. I can map out extremely complex branches in Inkscapes as svg then Wings extrudes it out on import into fully blown polys as branches. I can even photograph real trees and trace bitmap them into svg :D
Over two million tris Arbaro tree. Some geometry wasted here. Thousands of smaller thin twigs. I've got cool procedural bark textures in Blender now. Not much good elsewhere but I'll replicate that. A bit more colour work on leaves but I need to do more with leaves. I can make my own now.
I'll stop using Blender soon and bring into TG2 but First I need to sort out more stuff. I've got other various plants and Wings things. I want to start simple in TG2 to begin with.
(http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3935/arbarotree6.jpg)
I think your probably quite brilliant Efflux.
On the images. I would like to see a detailed break down of the construction on the thorny looking bush/tree. Its quite inspiring.
Your last tree is also very good I think.
The most impressive part is that you are building these (apparently) completely manually. But you haven't indicated how long its taking you to do each one. I would like to know that.
The real question is are you going to share how to's on your process or keep it for your self. I would understand keeping the finer points to your self. being that everything is so competitive. But Im definitely reading your posts on all of this.
About TPF and the things you are saying. For me, and I said this pretty much from the start, the real selling point is the apparent speed and ease the soft provides. I suspect you will probably get very tired of making lots and lots of trees with lots of variations the way you are making the trees your posting. It would probably kill me.
I have given up my resistance and am going to buy the PF soft now. Cant afford it. Wont be able to use it until the OSX is out. But cant resist it anymore. I take solace in the fact that we got them to change their minds on some stuff though.
K got it now. The buying process was surprisingly fast.
Cant do anything with the soft though. I don't have access to a windows system. Could run it on my mac, but would have to buy windows too. >:( ;D Ah well. I guess this is one more reason to do it. HAve held out for so long though. I think I will feel dirty if I give in now.
Anyone know if I have to activate this soft in order to get my mac copy? Could not find anything other than what T-U told me a few posts ago. Im also curious as to how Im going to get the upgrade on monday. Will it be a new download, or does it update from an internal "check for updates"?
I haven't installed it yet myself Michael, so I can't answer your activation question nor confirm whether it checks for updates by itself...
That's the trouble with some software, you have to be online to activate. I work offline!
@efflux; you're incredible, man. Fast progress and the trees are getting better and better. Is there a way to more or less randomize the placement of branches, as that's often a give-away of fake plants/trees? As Michael subtly stated; will you be doing a tutorial?
@ efflux
Wow, this weeping willow looks incredible :o ;D And you modeled it directly in Wings 3D without any sort of special plugin? That's absolutely stunning.
@ Badger
You can activate the software online which takes about 10 seconds. You just enter your account information (e-mail + password) and it's done. You can also activate by phone, as far as I know, but I've never tried that before.
When there's an update available, you will receive an e-mail from e-on with a download link for a new setup file. Since some providers have trouble with e-on's mails (they don't pass their spam filters), e-on also created a list in your account of all the e-mails that were sent to you. If you login at the e-on website and click onto "My account", you will get a list of all your purchases, invoices and updates for your products and can download the update from there, too.
Quote from: Dune on June 09, 2013, 03:02:18 AM
...Quote from: Bluestorm on June 09, 2013, 04:35:06 AM
@ efflux
Wow, this weeping willow looks incredible :o ;D And you modeled it directly in Wings 3D without any sort of special plugin? That's absolutely stunning.
...
@efflux; you're incredible, man. Fast progress and the trees are getting better and better. Is there a way to more or less randomize the placement of branches, as that's often a give-away of fake plants/trees? As Michael subtly stated; will you be doing a tutorial?
He uses Arbaro,which is free and a portable app,so you can try without any installation,
even from a memory stick.It is pretty easy to use.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/arbaro/
Edit: sorry the quotes got mixed up somehow.
@ bluestorm
Thank you for the info!
Hope you will continue to post after things quite down again. Especially in image sharing!
J meyer.
Ah yes!
Hope I did not infer that I thought efflux was manually extruding and connecting every stem and leaf. Still, I expect it is much more manual than Speed/PF/Frog, or I just wasted 400 dollars.
@j meyer
Oh, somehow I forgot that efflux mentioned Arbaro. I knew about this program, but had never tried it before. The results are indeed quite stunning.
@TheBadger
I'd LOVE to create some good Terragen 2 renders, but I've yet to manage a good one. All my attempts so far have been ugly, to say the least, because I have troubles achieving exactly what I want. It's like hit and miss for me with all the different nodes :( After a day or two of following tutorials and still not getting closer to producing anything worthwhile all by myself, I keep getting back to Vue because I know my way around the software very well, sigh. I wish I was on the same level of skill both with TG2 and Vue. Besides this, I've never been an active forum poster anyways, no matter which community we are talking about ;) I like reading a lot more than participating, it's just not my thing ;).
Btw, I can't check your UV issue at the moment. Every tree that I export right now is exported without materials, even though I managed to do it once for the leaves render that I've shown before. It appears to be a bug in the pre-release. Sadly, I overwrote the originally exported tree. I will try it again with next week's pre- release phase 2, though.
QuoteBtw, I can't check your UV issue at the moment. Every tree that I export right now is exported without materials, even though I managed to do it once for the leaves render that I've shown before. It appears to be a bug in the pre-release.
Im getting nervous again :-\
No need to become nervous yet Michael...it's a beta version, still.
Had my first crash trying to assign materials. The modeler part seems stable haven't tried exporting yet.
There are three basic methods I've used to create the trees. One is straight Arbaro. That Weeping willow type tree is one of those with a few small tweaks in Arbaro to give it more leaves and obviously textured in Blender. That was a test to take things to more geometry. The next method involves using Arbaro to generate mesh and tweaking in Wings3d. The last method is pure Wings3d. The thorny bush was done that way (even athough the file name of the picture suggests otherwise) but as I use Wings more I'm getting more advanced results. For example, Wings can place objects on a model like an array except it's new geometry. Because of Wings advanced selections you can select an object and replicate it all over another object at specific selected faces.
The most fum way is pure Wings but Arbaro obviously creates a mass of geometry in particuilar leaves. I think Arbaros initial fall down was that when it was first deveoped,there wasn't the computer power to really handle the kind of detail on say that weeping tree.
Another point is that looking into how Arbaro creates the trees gives you a perfect model of how to do it yourself. I think Arbaro does the job extremely well. There are some fluke outcomes from the trees which enables easier editing in Wings. Each branch level can have a cross section of faces one less than the previous level. In Wings this means you can auto select all the levels but it feeds back into realising this is the way to do it straight in Wings as well.
Wings is one of my favourite programs now. It's a very powerful modeler with masses of hidden features. I can tell you that learning this program is worth every minute spent. At first you may think it's a simpler little box modeler but you will quickly find this is not the case at all.
These are the ways to get trees from my experiments no matter where you're doing them. Certain apps will handle certain parts of this better than others.
The main trunk and basically all the branches need to be seperate geometry or at least it's best that way. My thorny tree doesn't have separate geometry, those branches were extruded from the trunk. For small trees, tha'ts fine but for big trees it's best to have simpler geometry, at least definitely higher up the branching system or WAY too much geometry has to be created. You essentially have cones of mesh. How those cones grow out of previous cone will work in different ways depending on the style of the tree. They could just come out at a fairly sharp angle or you have the bottom face of the cone lined up with an edge ring in the branch it's coming from and the cone bends out gently but is locked at it's base - classically how trunks look. This creates your entire branching structure.
The next problem is that branches are not usually straight so you have to bend them about. It could be a reasonably straight bend up or down (obviously the weeping willow bends down) with maybe some gentle twisting. In many cases the branches need to bend and twist around a lot like that Plant Factor Acacia tree. I'm still looking at the best way to achieve that. I have several ideas but if it's done in your 3D modeller it will depend on it's capabilities. Say if it has paths or whatever. Personally, I think mapping out branch shapes in a path like way first before it becomes polys is the way to go. I'm going to test doing this as svg then importing to Wings.
The last problem is attaching leaves. The leaves positions need to reference geometry points in branches and be bent to different angles and jittered about some. Arbaro obviousdly does this but you don't see it all happeing in a preview because it's massive geometry and too much to handle. It gets heavy work in any 3D app. There also has to be an ability to make the leaves any shape. You can actually do this in Arbaro. You design the tree and the leaves as normal but reference an external geomtry shape for the leaves. I must admit I haven't tried this but I'm assuming it works.
The Wings "put on" tool means attaching say fruits to trees is easily possible. Within reason though. I don't know how many objects it can "put on" without a slow down. Maybe thousands. Wings is not multi core. This is fine for big geometry where small edits are happening (which is what most people are usually doing) but if you apply a giant edit calculation it can take a lot of time and max out a single core for a bit of time. Maybe leaves can be done this way, I've yet to test it.
I've got a stack of stuff in the pipelines to do with several apps and I should be daily adding it all to a website. I need to sort this out. I need my own website.
The ideal way to create leaves would be as arrays but you can't maintain that from one app to another. For example I can make trees with full branches in Wings then one leaf. I can sort out selections of polys to connect leaves to branches. That poly selection can be maintained via materials to Blender. In theory, in Blender I should be able to take than one leaf and array it into thousands of leaves over the tree. This is currently theory though. If that's possible then building giant forrests in Blender would be easy. I already know that Blender will go to huge levels of full tree arrays. Then tree arrays with arrays of leaves i.e. arrays within arrays. I can't operate in such efficient ways in TG2 but TG2 may be better at creating arrays than Blender. I should hope so.
Just another point. Arbaro has one advantage if you just use it's trees straight. It can create seeds so many variants of the same tree. Personally, I think Arbaro does a great job for trees that aren't viewed close up. I think it creates nice natural variations. It's a hugely underused app considering it's free.
Also, Wings has huge selection capability. This is key. You can even select polys using a light. You shine a light on the object and those polys get selected. Then you have random selection of different %. This selection works within a previous selection so you could have extrusions moving towards a light. It's amazing because for example Modo has NO intelligent selection at all apart from basics like edge rings.
I have done some exportation tests towards Vue, Modo, Blender and Terragen. It seems that tiff formats during exportation are not supported for now in TPF.
Here the first result with Terragen. The only things to do for now are to manually redirect to the alpha image for the leaves, the bump for the trunk texture and some reflectivity correction.
Don't look at the apparence of the tree in itself, It is just a rough one quickly done without proper adjustments, this was just an exportation test.
David. (Antoine is my third name)
One branch created in about 10 seconds. This is the beginning of a new angle. In Inkscape I can draw a bunch of lines, not just one as you see here but fill a page with them. Fractalise them (Inkscape has a bunch of methods to create and distort svg even L-systems). Save and import to Wings which automatically extrudes to polys.Then the second image is tapered in Wings.
Better would be to to have a trunk in the middle and taper at both ends. Then on line become two branches. The line is obviously only fractalised in 2D but that's not bad.
(http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7117/branch.jpg)
OK. I wasn't going to post but I'll post every so often when I get a new technique in Wings which moves things forward. This one is highly regulated which we don't want that but I'll get into how to jitter things around later. I'm also not posting anything which isn't quick.
The method here was - create a cube, smooth (subdivide) the top. Change to vertex selection, reduce this selection (so it's the central vertex), move this vertex fractionally outwards by normal (to splay the sweep extrude), change to face selection and sweep. Start again and keep doing the same. Once you have enough splits you will need to use select edge by length to get only the short edges. Invert this selection (so you have long edges) then cut the edges and slide to near where the branches join. Repeat this for the other side of the join. This keeps smoothing tight around joins and you get the result in this render. Base was also splayed out a bit. I was going for angular branches but there is an extra way to make it bend. One step at a time though.
This actually goes against my branches as separate geometry but it seems there are several ways. This technique does keep the geometry low poly and Plant Factory will not create trees with this technique. it will lack the intelligent geometry decisions you can make at every step of the growth to change the effects.
I will not be using Plant Factory, that's for certain.
(http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/1076/wingstree1.jpg)
your plants really have a signature to em'. I really am looking forward to the scenes! And slowly but surly, I have begun to look into the software you have been telling us about.
I believe Wings could be useful no matter what other software you use. What you have to do is investigate it quite thorougly because on the surface it might seem quite simple but actually, it isn't. One key thing is right click on the context menus as you choose the tool. That opens up more powerful features but you have learn what they do. As you grasp it you can start assigning key commands. Those are assigned by hovering over the tool on the menu and keying Insert. Then you choose the key you want and you will see it appear on the menu. This is fast and easy to see the key commands. It's not possible for me to quickly say all the things it does. You could in fact write quite a large manual. The info line at the bottom takes you through what can be done.
For organic type stuff Wings works great but it has a mechanical slant. I don't know what you'd call it. It's hard surface modelling of a kind but with masses of tweaks. It's fun to use. You can constantly experiment and find odd things. I don't get this with other software. I find a lot of it quite boring to use.