archaeotect

First of all, congratulations! I'm really happy to see v2 arriving! Just to clarify, you mean a maintenance subscription to get new updates, not a subscription to keep the software running? Can you tell how much a one year maintenance plan will cost and if maintenance plans or upgrade options will be part of the Black Friday Sale?

Sure. I used GrowFX to create a wicker fence. The wicker rods are all GrowFX branches, originating from (invisible) vertical paths. They weave through the posts guided by the splines below. I could not get paths to randomly start somewhere along the spline, I had to manually create different versions of the guide spline (see below). I would have liked to tell GrowFX to use a random part one guide spline, not necessarily starting at origin. Then I would have been able to create one long spline weaving through many more posts and GrowFX could have filled the fence with random pieces of varying length and starting positions.

Hi, would it be possible to add a "Start %" and "End %" value to the Spline Direction Modifier, so it would consider only sections of a spline? This would also need a checkbox to define whether a higher Start value means that the later spline section is considered but with the path still starting at its origin (probably most cases) OR if the path should start that distance of the spline origin, even if it means it would be floating far from its origin (sounds strange, but would be useful for me right now). The ability to randomize Start and End with a Chaos value would be an additional bonus.

On the date of the first post in this thread our son was born. He's now a little over half a year old and has grown a lot, so I think it's only fair to ask how GrowFX 2 is developing in comparison Maybe you could share some news or even teasers to help us along?

Thanks for the quick reply!

Hi Eduard. does it work wit Max 2018? I'm just thinking about whether I'm brave enough to give Autodesk's newest version a try...

HI, I have a scene where the GrowFX objects suddenly, unexpectedly start the "creating mesh" process again - even though all those objects are set to manual update and also hidden and frozen, just to make sure. It keeps happening frequently, for example at every scene save (even autosave), when I create a new spline object, change the UV coordinates of an unrelated poly object - basically randomly in the middle of working on something else in the scene. The trees are quite big, so the process takes some time and sometimes crashes the scene. The trees are used in Forest Pack objects, but these are also set to manual update, disabled, hidden and frozen. Still ForestPack may be the problem here? But I've often used GrowFX objects in ForestPack objects and never encountered this. Any ideas? Thanks! Ralph PS: Max 2014 & GrowFX 1.9.9 SP1

A man pushing a dugout canoe through tall reeds to attempt a crossing of a large lake in dubious weather. This was my submission for the ArtStation Challenge "The Journey". As always, the plants were created with GrowFX. You can see some work in progress here: https://www.artstation.com/contests/the-journey/challenges/3/submissions/3579 This is a raw render (except that I rendered background and foreground seperately and added them together again).

I found a nice fix (at least with ForestPack): 1. Use the Wind Animation modifier & Wind helper to create the directionality for the pannicles, but make the wind affect leaves and stems, too. 2. In ForestPack use Animation > Random Samples. Forest Pack will sample different frames of the wind animation, adding variation without changing direction of the applied force. You can control the variation by how many frames you choose to sample and how much the plant sways between those frames. 3. Optionally you can still add a small amount of random rotation in Forest Pack, maybe +/- 20°. You get quite a lot of variation out of single GrowFX object this way.

Thanks ptrain03! I feared as much. The problem with the workaround is that random rotations are so powerful at masking repetition. I'm working on a wild, dense field of reeds. The feathery pannicles should all point away from the wind (more or less), but stems and leaves should not appear too orderly. Well, I guess I'll need more base models then.

Is it possible to scatter a plant with the usual random rotation (using ForestPack or manually), but still have some paths of all instances keep the original global orientation (while only the rest of the plant rotates)? For example a field of randomly rotated sunflower plants with the flower heads still all pointing towards the sun? I thought vector direction modifier plus handpicked global vector (point helper) would do the trick, but when I instance and rotate my plant the vector seems to rotate with each instance. Maybe a target point or a wind modifier would keep a global direction, no matter how the instances are rotated?

Thank you very much! That's very interesting news. I like to create my plants right within a 3ds Max scene, I think it's a great advantage, but I must admit it's wise for Exlevel to become more independent and to develop new options. Who knows where Autodesk's business model is heading! As long as you keep up the good work fixing bugs in 1.9.x versions I have no problem with you releasing 2.0 when you think it's ready. That's far better than releasing unfinished or broken software just to fit a fixed schedule. Take your time. I must admit I'm not always a big fan of node-based interfaces. Two examples: Between itoo's ForestPack and RailClone I find RailClone's node-editor much slower and more cumbersome to work with. The same goes for Max's slate material editor compared to the old one. But that might be a matter of personal taste. I can certainly see how nodes might make sense for GrowFX affects, for example. Last but not least I really appreciate how you always respond to our questions!

Could you give us a glimpse of the state and the future of GrowFX? We've seen iterations of version 1.9. since November 2012 and I'm just curious about what the big 2 might bring! This is not a complaint, I'm pretty happy with the software. I'm just wondering what your plans are.

Thanks, especially for the critique & suggestion! You are right, of course. I had tried to achieve that with a VRay DistanceTex wired to the water level. You can maybe see the effect on the right-hand rock next to the dead tree. Both rocks share the same shader, but somehow in the foreground it doesn't show as expected, maybe because of the angle or the direct sunlight or a mistake on my part? I should have set up and optimized a separate shader for each rock.

Thank you massisan & 3DMK!

Thanks Eduard! Sure you can add the image to the gallery!

The scene depicts a prehistoric settlement at a riverbend. All the plants in the scene, including roots and driftwood, were created with GrowFX. I especially enjoyed creating the gnarly roots of the hero tree using Object React and Meta Mesh. Forest Pack Pro and V-Ray were the other two main plugins which made this image possible.

This concerns the leaves mesh and path length chaos. If I want to add chaos to the leaf sizes the leaves will just get stretched by the path length. If want to have random size variation that keep the proportion of the original leaf I always have to add affects targeting the leaves mesh width and the UVs (if using absolute height/width). Maybe you could add a checkbox to the leaves mesh builder "Scale proportionally (to path length variation)"? Or add a general chaos scale factor to the leaves mesh builder, as an alternative to the path length chaos? Nothing big, but it would save a bit of repetitive work...

I wanted to add that I've bought Forest Pack Pro about a month ago and have (so far) not regretted the decision. The plugin does what it promises and I'm able to populate huge terrains with plants (produced with GowFX of course). I've even scattered dirt roads with 3D gravel because I've been too lazy to paint the textures. It's really amazing just how many instances and overall polygons it can render. There are a few more options and features I'd like the plugin to have, but nothing major.

I was wondering if the random seed generation in the Main Parameters Rollout is really random? I'm creating iterations of a certain tree, but when I'm just hitting the "new" button next to the seed some of the same numbers constantly re-appear. That shouldn't really happen with 7-digit numbers if they were truly random, should it? I mean, what are the odds?

Sorry, too early. Just had it crash again on cancelling a calculation. But at least not every time...

Thanks for the quick fix! I just tested it and the crash no longer occurs. Great support!

Nice update. But I experienced a new kind of crash while I continued to work on some trees created with the previous version. GrowFX crashed (twice so far) when I hit the cancel button during a calculation that started automatically (update not set to manual). That hasn't happened before as far as I can remember. Not a big problem, just wanted to give some feedback.

As I've noted above, you could use the Noise modifier instead of the random direction modifier to add irregularity.

Thank you for your example. I would've never thought of using the Hard bend modifier. I noticed that your tree-building method is completely different to mine. I've always tried to let all paths (including trunk and primary branches) grow to their finest tips and have all lesser paths branch out of their sides with path distributors. While you've attached smaller and smaller branches to the tips of their parents with path position distributors at 100%. Very interesting.