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Hi all, at first I just wanted to make myself a small utility to select GrowFX plants in a scene, and then I added functions to be able to modify characteristics in a list. Maybe there is already a utility that does this but I couldn't find it. In any case if there are those who want to test and make comments, do not hesitate ! I hope this can help users like this helps me. (only tested on Max 2021 but it should work also with other versions) Archimi_GrowFX_Lister.mcr

Progress With new Nordic Pine tree models made in 3ds Max and GrowfX..Full Geo Needles and no alpha masks. 3.9 mill polys.. Needles made with standard Leaves_mesh. Hope you like it.. Still much too learn in GrowFX but a fantastic software. Next step is to get them in to UE5.7 When released

@Eduard I believe we have a ton of potential to expand just a bit further with some of the tools and really change the game! We should think about having custom normal tools built into the generators. I've provided some images of both an in-scene demo and also a mockup for the UI. Ideally this same functionality should also allow us to then also use primitives to build into generators that have their own UCX tag. So when you sepperate to objects, you can have a parented collision model ready? Curious to hear your thoughts! Ethan

Super excited for this, thanks for everything! And absolutely, glad to share some ideas

Hello Olson95, Yeah, really interesting demo — it looks great! But I didn't see the timestamp, the video started from the beginning. Okay, I'll think about how to implement all of this, but after we finish our current work. Thanks a lot for these ideas, I think we'll implement all of them!

1. Yeah, it should be applied to all leaves and leaves meshes that are part of that node. 2. Exactly this yeah. So in this case if we are using a custom mesh, there could be a button to retrigger the "stealing" of normals from the custom mesh. So it's more performant and not live. But whenever you're ready to take the associated object, you can transfer the normals. There is a plugin called "Normal Thief" which essentially does this which may give you a better idea on what I mean. An example would be, I use tyflow to generate a canopy approximation that captures the large forms and secondary shapes of the hull. I can then tell the system to use the closest normal points of that mesh and directly transfer it to any part of the system I want. Helping with overall artistic reads. 3. Ideally for gameplay I would expect capsules ideally to minimize any clipping in an FPS game, and to get enough accuracy as to be able to shoot very close to the tree without it being stopped incorrectly. Or line of sight for MMO's / RPG Games. In an ideal world we have the option to control the side count for complexity depending on the need. If not, I'd say 5 would be the minimum. - They can be a separate tree as a whole, just as long as they share the same root parent (which could just be a dummy node with the name of the asset). Since the export does expect the collision and mesh to live within the same export. And sounds awesome man, super excited to see that! There is some really awesome new tech coming into Unreal Engine for using skeletons to control Realtime rigs for Nanite Assemblies (think of it as a bunch of instanced components for hyper realism trees. So in reality, if you were to be open to exploring something, I would actually expect this to be the biggest win, and probably get a lot of attention for GrowFx in the UE world. Here's a link if you're curious about it. The Witcher 4 Demo showed it off. Here's a timestamped spot of where they show it. Thank you! Ethan

Hi Everyone, I want to announce the release of the new versions 2.1.2 and 1.9.9 SP12. What's New in GrowFX 2.1.2: + Added a new DrawSurf node. With it, the user can draw trunks, branches or leaves directly in the viewport starting from the surface of a specified scene object. If you enable the Attract to surface mode, you can draw creeping plants. As with the DrawPath node, the lines drawn can be edited. + The DrawPath node has the ability to attract branches to the surface of a specified scene object. Also, some features for editing branches have been added, such as moving points with a specified falloff radius, and rotating the starting vector by grabbing any point. + Multithreading support for After Mesh Modifiers. We have accelerated the calculation of wind animation by 2 times. + Added the Node manager, where the user can quickly enable or disable nodes. + Fixed some bug in the Instanced Geometry. + Minor bugs are fixed. You can download this model here: Max file (3dsMax 2024): Ivi_Rotunda.max GrowFX file (*.gfx): Ivi_Rotunda.gfxIvi_Rotunda.mat What's new in GrowFX 1.9.9 SP12: + Fixed some bug in the Instanced Geometry. + Minor bugs are fixed. These versions are available for download in the User panel. If you're using version 2.1.2, then you don't need to download 1.9.9 SP12, since it's already contained in 2.1.2. Please feel free to ask if you've any questions. Thanks!

Hi, I have a suggestion for you or you can say a request for the feature. Can you please consider adding a Gizmo feature (like SpeedTree have) so we can rotate, scale each branch/leaf according to requirements. Link: https://docs8.speedtree.com/modeler/doku.php?id=art_director

Finally, the browser is still not implemented, and may be abandoned. If there is a plant library, and there are nodes that share GFX, it will help to actively communicate. It may be a huge plant library! It's just that everything is hypothetical

Thank you for your kind words, I have watched workflows of other vegetation softwares in the past, SpeedTree (more suitable for VFX/movies), Xfrog, PlantFactory (E-on Software) but was not convinced to use them. My observations from archviz forums regarding vegetation softwares (cgarchitect, corona-renderer, ronenbekerman, evermotion, etc.) 1. SpeedTree can be interesting for artists who have problem with imagination during creation process, because this software is more of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) pipeline, where you painting trunks, branches and everything directly in viewport and 3d space, you can create nice vegetation but I am not sure if it will be realistic enough. 2. GrowFX is considered as not as much user friendly on the forums of not so much experienced users because of very steep learning curve. You are expected to think as mathematician, because you driving curves, vectors, beziers during creative process which is not easy for everybody. Users are complaning about not available presets as starting point while creating trees for instance, they are not motivated to work from scratch and lack of discipline. For me the growFX is powerhorse tool to achieve my design ideas of all vegetation. I will use all of my available time to learn as much as possible. The main strenghts for me are: 1. CountRate tweaking for all created paths - most growFX users forget to use this parameter, but I think it is crucial to achieve realistic botanically correct vegetation. "Nature is perfect in its imperfection" 2. Affect nodes to shape dependencies between paths and create belivable plant structure 3. Metamesh - perfect connection of meshes 4. Aftermesh - wind and growth modifiers the most realistic results compared to other plant softwares And I can go on with very long list... To succeed we are condemned to maximum performance in our creative vision, we need to practise, learn, set our bar higher everyday. I wish to all growFX-ers a lot of creative vision, patience and not give up when problems occur, solutions will get in your way in reasonable time.

A bit like railclone, I think it would be handy to add notes to our graphs. it gets quickly confusing, specially if we have to open it a few days later. https://i.imgur.com/fn18QYS.png

Hi jialuo, Yes, we've almost finished developing version 2.0, which has a node editor. Beta will be available soon: Thanks!