The Rock Essentials

[Kadri]

Have you seen this? If i had spare money i would think about this.

http://www.blenderguru.com/product/rock-essentials/

[yossam]

If it wasn't for Blender........................

[Kadri]

If it wasn't for Blender........................

Yes but it should be exportable. Not sure how good-and or easy. Any Blender users around ?

[yossam]

Plus its got a funky EULA like Speedtree..............can't share anything you make with it. 

[Kadri]

Plus its got a funky EULA like Speedtree..............can't share anything you make with it. 

Yes that is a little more problematic.

[AP]

The plugin still requires to some degree using Blender to make changes.

[masonspappy]

The maker claims each rock model has been re-topologized to shrink mesh size. There's an option to get 3 sample rocks for study/test so I'm doing that 'cause would like to see how these models would actually render.   There seems to be quite a few items included in the package. Not just rocks, but brushes and ground scans (which sort of takes away the fun of terragen, though) .

[masonspappy]

So got three demo rocks and rendered them in T4. Looks pretty decent, even has a modest poly count.
Didn't realize at first that these apparently come through Andrew Bart, who is to Blender what Dune is to Terragen.
Got a new image I'm working on now, might try to work these into it.

[Kadri]

Looks good. Any problems at exporting?

[mhall]

So got three demo rocks and rendered them in T4. Looks pretty decent, even has a modest poly count.
Didn't realize at first that these apparently come through Andrew Bart, who is to Blender what Dune is to Terragen.
Got a new image I'm working on now, might try to work these into it.

Andrew Price, actually.

He's the guy that put together *tons* of free Blender tutorials and some paid courses, including ...

The Nature Academy
The Architecture Academy

as well as a number of plugins/resource projects for Blender:

Grass Essentials
Rock Essentials
Pro-Lighting Skies
Pro-Lighting Studio

He says he employed 8 artists creating the Rock Essentials pack and it cost over $100,000 to produce. It's definitely worth it to check out the artwork that was produced to promote the product:

https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?404220-The-Rock-Essentials-Artwork

That's a major reason why his EULA does not include the right to re-distribute. He says he's been burned in the past where someone bought his resources which included the OK to include in a product and they then packaged them all up in one .blend file and sold it on TurboSquid.

Anyway, quite knowledgeable and very approachable. I'm considering going all out and just buying all of his resource packs and powering through the Architecture Academy this Fall.

[masonspappy]

Looks good. Any problems at exporting?

Becuase I only exported one-at-a-time (so I had three .OBJ files instead on one .OBJ file containing 3 rocks) I had to make sure "select only" was checked on the export dialog.  Also had to save out the image files manually because they didn't export with the .OBJ files.  (Wouldn't swear that wasn't a short-coming on my part).    Otherwise they rendered fine.

[masonspappy]

Andrew Price, actually.

Ahhhhh....see, this is what happens when you get old.    Andrew Burt is a sci-fi writer and founder of the Critters writers workshop (http://www.critique.org/    ) that I belonged to for a few years.  But I can truthfully say that Andrew Burt  is to writing what Andrew Price is to Blender what Dune is to Terragen.   

[Kadri]

Looks good. Any problems at exporting?

Becuase I only exported one-at-a-time (so I had three .OBJ files instead on one .OBJ file containing 3 rocks) I had to make sure "select only" was checked on the export dialog.  Also had to save out the image files manually because they didn't export with the .OBJ files.  (Wouldn't swear that wasn't a short-coming on my part).    Otherwise they rendered fine.

Thanks.

[mhall]

But I can truthfully say that Andrew Burt  is to writing what Andrew Price is to Blender what Dune is to Terragen.   

Hahaha! Yeah ... I can relate to that getting old thing. I've been having the darnest time with words slipping my mind lately. I can sit and describe the concept perfectly, but the word eludes me. And I've always been accused of having a painfully good memory, so it's quite irksome.

[TheBadger]

Hey guys, pretty interested in this too.

Cam, would u mind trying a photo real quality render of one of the exports? Would like to hear about how you are able or not to use them in TG at a high level.

Also, can anyone describe the plugin for this? Read the links and watched the video, looks pretty nice and all, but I'm rather weary of promos, especially when the product cost several hundred dollars... money back guarantee or not.

Also thinking about giving in and doing a blender course this fall.

Up and running again, just gotta move apps and files to the newer machine. Better processor but only one so fewer cores. curious how it will handle things. Not a bad but not a great GPU... looking forward to buying a real workstation to last the next 5-6 years, hopefully 

Anyway...