Greenworks organic software has put
together a collection of plants of the USA Southwest,
created from photographs and/or scanned bark, petals, and leaves.
These plants are very accurate and have a realistic appearance.
With version 2, greenworks has completely rebuilt some plants,
while its artists have reworked others. In addition, they have
replaced many leaf, flower, and bark textures with higher quality
ones. Thus, their plants look more vivid and alive. They have done
this in all their version 2 libraries. A full product list that
includes individual products such as USA Southwest and Bundles such
as Asia Bundle can be seen starting on the XfrogPlants section of greeworks web site. There
are 21 libraries of plants, with 20 species in each library, but
there can be 3-6 variations on each species, so the total number of
models is a minimum of 60. Along with the models are 20 species of
Alpha Billboard Renders with variations, again, ranging from 3 to
6. There are also the same number of Alpha Perspective Renders. The
same billboards and perspectives are on each of the two DVDs that
comprise the set, so it is very easy to combine them along with
whatever model format you are using. In the set, of two DVDs, you
get many 3D file formats. The 3D formats are: 3ds, c4d, Iwo, max,
mb, xfr, mtl, obj, obp, and vob. There are also the necessary
textures in tif format which are on both DVDs [the Plant libraries
are also provided in a CD version]. In this review, I am reviewing the
DVD set of the USA Southwest.
 Above
are a combination of models and billboards executed and rendered in
Vue 5 Infinite.
You can download a PDF of each collection in your choice of language
[again, click on XfrogPlants and then the PDF of the individual
library]. You cannot download a PDF of all the libraries as a unit
because those links don't work. These PDFs show the different
plants as well as the different "poses" of the plants. You can also
click on each plant and get an enlarged picture of the plant as
well as information about it. The documentation on the web site is
incredible for it shows the plants from many different
perspectives.
Even though I listed the formats contained in the DVD previously,
notice the size generated by the different formats.
If you have a choice of which format to use, let size play a part
in your choice. A native XFR file contains almost the same number
of polygons as these other files. I exported a number of files into
different formats as well as used some of the files on the DVDs.
These I imported into Vue 5 Infinite. What was interesting is that
the SW06_1.xfr file contained 187,614 polygons, while the other
files that I imported into Vue contained about 184,804 when read in
Vue. If you are working in Vue, there is a VOB file format
available on the set of DVDs. What can I say about this collection?
It is beautiful and works very well. I would love to have all of
them. The desert image above uses models and billboard; however, I
used only three billboards and they are of the very small plants.
The largest plants are in VOB model format. In order to demonstrate
that the pictures in the various library PDFs on greenworks site
are accurate, I opened a number of the 3D files in Right
Hemispheres' program called Exploration and created screen
captures of them [see below]. The rendering in Exploration
is very quick and basically crude, for it is just to show the
basics of how a file looks for reference purposes.
The Staghorn Cholla below and the Miller's Pin Cushion below were
opened in Exploration while the two variations in the
beginning of the review were screen captures from greenworks' PDFs.
These plants are truly magnificent! For those who may have missed
my previous Xfrog reviews, that show more options for using the
plants and creating your own; Xfrog 3.5 and XfrogTune.
All supporting images are copyright, and
cannot be
copied, printed, or reproduced in any manner without written
permission from the artist.
- The Paula Sander's Report is a regular
Renderosity Front Page featured column, where Sr. Staff Writer,
Paula Sanders investigates and comments on graphic software,
techniques, and other relevant material through her reviews,
tutorials, and general articles.
|
August 29, 2005 |
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