Laubwerk releases new 3ds Max procedural plants kit

[peterguthrie]

looks very interesting. Downloading the demo now!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

timm.dapper - this appear to be a great software to work with. I just had around 5 min with it so not sure how it will work in production environment.

However 1 thing that jumps out is the fact that I cant control the seed of tree to get different variations...

Another cool thing to see would be an option to have high detail in meshes soo..

Subdivide mesh to 1 mil + polygons, add displace moddifier with trunk texture and just push geometry out to produce really detailed trunk. Then make it a proxy and render high res looking trees.

Thanks, bye.

[timm.dapper]

Hi Dariusz,

this appear to be a great software to work with. I just had around 5 min with it so not sure how it will work in production environment.

we did extensive testing and are confident, that it will do a good job. However, this is a young product and if you run into anything that doesn't work as smooth as it should, we're really eager to hear this so we can straighten out any bumps that may still be there. The same goes for feature requests, that will help with getting a smooth workflow.

However 1 thing that jumps out is the fact that I cant control the seed of tree to get different variations...

This is true. While we use a fully procedural modeling system internally to build the models, we do not offer seeds at the moment. Getting seeds to produce believable results with all (or at least most) combinations of parameters is a very tricky thing to get right. Therefore we decided to have a fixed number (3 at the moment) of variations which are procedural and then hand-craft the last few steps.

That being said, we are working hard on getting more features for variation out to customers! I can't tell you too much, but we may take a different route to get to the unlimited variation kind of functionality. Have you checked our research page? That may give you a rough idea of which direction our development efforts might take.

Another cool thing to see would be an option to have high detail in meshes soo..

Subdivide mesh to 1 mil + polygons, add displace moddifier with trunk texture and just push geometry out to produce really detailed trunk. Then make it a proxy and render high res looking

Have you checked the Subdivision Parameter? This allows you to add arbitrary detail to the trunk and branches. As far as I understand, this should enable you to get the results you were looking for? Of course, being able to have something like this working inside our product automatically is something worth thinking about.

Thanks for giving us this heads up. Please definitely don't hesitate to get in touch with us (also directly at info@laubwerk.com) with any problems and suggestions you may have!

Best
Timm

[voltron7]

Hi Timm, just seeing if there have been any developments on this plugin? Might be ready/willing to buy it soon...

Thanks

[timm.dapper]

Hi voltron7,

Hi Timm, just seeing if there have been any developments on this plugin? Might be ready/willing to buy it soon...

we're actively developing, another update is out soon. The biggest change here is additional support for CINEMA 4D and 3ds Max 2014, as well as lots of general bugfixes. The next update will bring some more features (e.g. on the material side of things) and workflow enhancements. Also the second Plants Kit is due pretty soon. Our FMX special (10% off) just ran out yesterday, but if you're quick, we may extend it for you (send me a PM for that) Future service updates are free.

Later
Timm

[voltron7]

Hi voltron7,



we're actively developing, another update is out soon. The biggest change here is additional support for CINEMA 4D and 3ds Max 2014, as well as lots of general bugfixes. The next update will bring some more features (e.g. on the material side of things) and workflow enhancements. Also the second Plants Kit is due pretty soon. Our FMX special (10% off) just ran out yesterday, but if you're quick, we may extend it for you (send me a PM for that) Future service updates are free.

Later
Timm

Timm,

PM sent, thanks

[voltron7]

Update: Well, I bought it and overall am impressed, except for one big bug, I think.
After going from the freebie kit to the non-free kit (kit1) my single render node won't participate any more. It just keeps restarting the spawner.
Will have to see what I hear from developer, but I can't resolve it expect by either hiding the Laubwerk plants, or not using DR

One other thing is that the naming seems a bit buggy still. sometimes it names them with the species and an iteration number, but others it just names "plant1", "plant2", "plant3", etc.)
And I am not sure why...not a real big deal for now.

But, on the brighter side, interface-wise the workflow is really nice and simple...

[timm.dapper]

Hi Voltron7,

Update: Well, I bought it and overall am impressed, except for one big bug, I think.
After going from the freebie kit to the non-free kit (kit1) my single render node won't participate any more. It just keeps restarting the spawner.
Will have to see what I hear from developer, but I can't resolve it expect by either hiding the Laubwerk plants, or not using DR

One other thing is that the naming seems a bit buggy still. sometimes it names them with the species and an iteration number, but others it just names "plant1", "plant2", "plant3", etc.)
And I am not sure why...not a real big deal for now.

But, on the brighter side, interface-wise the workflow is really nice and simple...

thanks for the Feedback!

Regarding the DR issue: Do you have a simple test scene this is happening with? Would you mind sending me your Skype so we can get this issue reproduced and resolved asap? That'd be awesome!

Regarding the naming: May this be connected with some plants being from the freebie vs. the latest Kit download? Do you have a hint which species this is happening with?

Apart from that, thanks for the heads up and we'll get those issues fixed!

Best
Timm

[voltron7]

Hi Voltron7,



thanks for the Feedback!

Regarding the DR issue: Do you have a simple test scene this is happening with? Would you mind sending me your Skype so we can get this issue reproduced and resolved asap? That'd be awesome!

Regarding the naming: May this be connected with some plants being from the freebie vs. the latest Kit download? Do you have a hint which species this is happening with?

Apart from that, thanks for the heads up and we'll get those issues fixed!

Best
Timm

Thanks Timm,
Sorry, no skype here, but have sent you a couple of PMs...
Seems to be all species, but not every time...have already removed freebie stuff...still happens.
DR was happening on a simple max scene with a plane and one Laubwerk plant (tried different species, it did not matter.)
As soon as I hide the Laubwerk plant, DR works as usual.

[3DMK]

So can you modify the trees or create new ones??? It seems to me just a tree library??? It also seems expensive compared to most other software out there - [150 euro for a library set of only 10 different species]

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

3DMK:
I think it would be very wise to wait a little bit for the release of the Plant Factory to see how fast the creation process is there and how it works with seeding. Looks like a great alternative to GrowFX but it seems less steep when it comes to learning.

[timm.dapper]

Hi 3DMK,

So can you modify the trees or create new ones??? It seems to me just a tree library??? It also seems expensive compared to most other software out there - [150 euro for a library set of only 10 different species]

it is indeed a library, but the trees aren't completely static. Currently you have automatically generated simplified viewport representation and can control leaf density as well as the level of detail. Furthermore you have, for each species, the choice between three variations in three ages and four seasons. This adds up to 36 possible combinations per species and a total of 360 for the whole Kit. More features in terms of modification are on the way.

Best
Timm

[voltron7]

Hi 3DMK,



it is indeed a library, but the trees aren't completely static. Currently you have automatically generated simplified viewport representation and can control leaf density as well as the level of detail. Furthermore you have, for each species, the choice between three variations in three ages and four seasons. This adds up to 36 possible combinations per species and a total of 360 for the whole Kit. More features in terms of modification are on the way.

Best
Timm

It would be nice to see more variety (i.e. seed) per species at each age, rather than 3 ages with varying levels of details. Let's say you want 25 field maples at middle age. Does this mean the only variation between these 25 maples is level of detail and viewport display? Obviously having them all with different seasons is not practical or realistic. Maybe I still need to learn it more, and it is still a young product...but this kind of feature might add more value per dollar. At the moment, I think I will mostly use it for mid to background trees until there is more variety in the same age and seasons...

For example, what if I wanted to make 6 trees of the same species and same season, overall volume/size and level of detail? Is it or will it possible?

On a similar vein to 3DMK's comment, Much of why I decided to try this over GrowFX, was the apparent ease of use for getting trees out in as few steps as possible. GrowFX seems great, but for my needs, perhaps overkill for the price.

Thanks

[timm.dapper]

Hi voltron7,

It would be nice to see more variety (i.e. seed) per species at each age, rather than 3 ages with varying levels of details. Let's say you want 25 field maples at middle age. Does this mean the only variation between these 25 maples is level of detail and viewport display? Obviously having them all with different seasons is not practical or realistic.

the 36 per species is the total count of possible variations, but obviously not all of them are applicable in all situations. If you want a certain species at a certain age in a certain season, you still have three variations you can work with.

Maybe I still need to learn it more, and it is still a young product...but this kind of feature might add more value per dollar. At the moment, I think I will mostly use it for mid to background trees until there is more variety in the same age and seasons...

For example, what if I wanted to make 6 trees of the same species and same season, overall volume/size and level of detail? Is it or will it possible?
On a similar vein to 3DMK's comment, Much of why I decided to try this over GrowFX, was the apparent ease of use for getting trees out in as few steps as possible. GrowFX seems great, but for my needs, perhaps overkill for the price.

Like mentioned before, currently you have three options, but adding more variation and making the variation more procedural makes total sense and is along the lines of what we're working on. We had to start somewhere and we figured the one thing we want right from the beginning is the "getting trees out in as few steps as possible". New features will be added as soon as we have them at a point where this is as simplicity goal is met.

Best
Timm