Hi Paul,
what to expect from the ideal plant system:
- being able to choose from a vast range of existing plants presets.
- no import/export hassle of huge meshes. Everything is generated
on-the-fly in the host app (XSI).
- edit/adapt procedurally in XSI to be able to manufacture plants
exactly to fit the scene/geometry, with realtime feedback during everything.
Do I understand this right: Flora a standalone-app built with creation
platform, and also a plugin embedded into XSI?
- growth animation/dynamics/fracturing/collisions etc. are not 100% my
party, but who knows, and it sure might be for others.
- save presets for later use or for others, maybe also cross-platform,
because the pool of artists creating more plants would be greater.
There's no option yet for XSI fulfilling all of this.
T-Gen is pretty much the only decent plant system plugin for XSI (some
ICE experiments aside), but as I mentioned, it lacks a good library.
XFrog e.g. comes with a plugin for Maya and Cinema4d, not for Softimage.
It has a standalone app, too, but that is old and terrible.
Onyx has those weird standalone-apps the plant preset files are
generated with and then imported in e.g. 3ds max, where some minor
tweaking is possible.
Those two companies also provide plant presets as part of their
business. I understand if you don't want to do that yourself, but it
would be highly desirable then to have some 3rd party do the job.
There are other systems, but none of them is no-nonsense...
Flora seems to be the next candidate...
Best,
Eugen
Am 30.01.2013 17:25, schrieb Paul Doyle:
Hi Eugen - thanks for the feedback. At this stage we do not have plans
to provide plant libraries with Flora. It should be noted that the
trees in the demo videos were purchased from TurboSquid and then used
to create the pieces for procedural generation. As for importing - if
you have purchased an asset I assume you have the rights to use it in
other applications. If so, then as long as it's in a common format
like obj then it will be fine (that's how we got the turboquid trees in).
The goal of the module is to make it easy to procedurally generate,
tweak/edit, simulate and render trees - the authoring of the original
plant pieces is something we leave to artists. I actually think it's
non-ideal that each system comes with it's own library - surely the
ideal model is one that will work with any asset you want to use? We
literally browsed TurboSquid, picked a few trees that were
interesting, bought/downloaded them and used them in the demos the
next day.
The other key element here is that the whole system is open - a TD can
dig into the code and adapt any part of the system to project
requirements. Over time we may see some of this customer effort merged
into the main Flora codebase.
Thanks,
Paul
On 30 January 2013 06:07, Eugen Sares <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi,
Flora... *like*
Plant generation for Softimage was always less than ideal...
hopefully this is going to change now once and for all!
Please allow me some positive critics: the plants in the demo do
not look too convincing yet. I know it's early...
Don't forget: any decent plant generator needs a decent plant
library. Any plans? Even botanically "correct"? I think this is an
important point.
Might depend on your target audience... if it's the bigger
studios, there might be more time and money to create whatever is
needed, but freelancers (like me) mostly need something ootb
quickly, and might not have time to start from scratch (tried...).
Of course being able to create new plants, adapt existing ones and
simulate them is also key.
Did you think about an importer for, say, greenworks XFrog or Onyx
Trees? Is this technically and legally feasible?
This would be a real "killer" feature, since there are no decent
SI import plugins for those confessedly old but extensive and nice
libraries, and it might help pick up the pace quickly.
There's T-Gen as well, as you know, but development stalled years
ago. I wonder why. Maybe also because of the lack of a good library?
Your change of business model I think makes much sense. Includes a
broader audience of clients now, not just the coding-savvy.
Best wishes and much success!!
Eugen
Am 30.01.2013 11:07, schrieb Dan Yargici:
Sounds great! Seems like a way more sensible way of doing things
to me!
DAN
On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 4:54 AM, Leonard Koch
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
That looks like a good model.
On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 3:41 AM, Nick Angus <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Genius…
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On
Behalf Of *Paul Doyle
*Sent:* Wednesday, 30 January 2013 4:09 AM
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Introducing Creation: Flora (and a business
model shift)
Hi everyone - I'm pleased to share some news with you.
_Creation: Flora_
We've been working on a new vegetation system that we
think you'll like - we call it Creation: Flora. The
system covers procedural generation of vegetation (trees,
grass, ferns, bushes, flowers etc), editing once
generated, simulation/animation, is integrated to Maya
and Softimage, and is integrated with Arnold for rendering.
Demo trailer: https://vimeo.com/groups/fabric/videos/58470126
More information: http://fabricengine.com/creation/flora/
This system will be made available as a separate module,
which brings me onto the second part of this - business
model changes.
_Creation and Creation Modules_
The short version: we're selling the core platform at
$250 per seat, per year ($750 to purchase outright).
We're selling modules separately for things like
vegetation, crowds, hair and other 'niche' systems.
Long version that explains why we're doing it:
http://fabricengine.com/2013/01/creation-and-creation-modules/
Thanks,
Paul
CEO at Fabric Engine Inc
