Xfrog 3.5 - My 2-Cents worth.

[Karl Larsen]

I purchased my copy of 3.5 about a month ago and have spent inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out how to arrive at useable trees and shrubs in reasonable amounts of time... I use 3DS Max Design and render in MentalRay, period. Here are my thoughts:

 

1. From a user perspective, 3.5 looks like it was coded in 1995 for WIN 3.1 - it doesn't remember file paths except for the default location. If you save a model to a different location on a 'data drive', the next time you open 3.5 you will have to click through your path location one at a time till you arrive at your saved location - just like in 1995!

2. You cannot cut & paste components CTRL C & CTRL V.

3. You cannot isolate leaves and the branch they are on because if you hide the preceding branch you hide the subsequent branch and leaves too (what if I just want to isolate a branch and it's leaves to better understand the distribution and density curves?).

3. The distribution and density curves are beyond abstract - something simple like "More Leaves/Branches / Less Leaves/Branches" on the coordinate plane would make a ton more sense then just pushing curves around in the dark hoping you stumble upon a combination you can live with.

4. Depending where you are in your hierarchy the density curve works in the positive OR negative, with no indication as to which - the only way you find out is by pushing the curve around and hoping you remember what it does at that particular level.

5. To get a useable tree in 3DS Max that actually maintains the texture maps -- you have to model your tree in 3.5, export it as a 3DS, import the 3DS into SketchUp and re-apply the texture maps, use a SketchUp Plugin to get the leaf UV mapping to work properly and copy the front face texture to the back face, THEN, import the SketchUp model into 3DS Max AND replace your leaf textures with .JPG diffuse and cutout textures or you will have annoying white halos around every leaf in your model, and I am not talking about small halos, we're talking serious halos...

6. The viewport shading and rendering actually looks like it was pre-Win 3.1...

 

Someone at Xfrog needs to get on the ball - you can hire programmers from India, cheap (NO offense to Indian Programmers - heck Microsoft and Autodesk uses them ).

 

PS. One last thing I almost forgot - I received straight A's in College Algebra and PreCalculus...

 

PSS. I just noticed - when you open 3.5 the splash screen says "copyright 1998 - 2002"... My guess is it hasn't been updated since - just sayin',

Edited August 30, 2013 by karlar

[anejo]

Thanks for the review, and sorry to hear about your frustration.

 

I guess that's 1 app I can take out of my "Hope Chest"

[Karl Larsen]

It could probably be a great tool if they invested a little time and effort into it... It is very much out of date.

[anejo]

In all honesty, I do like xfrog pre-made tree (I get them from seek.autodesk.com), i've used them in some golf course rendering work, both stills and fly-overs. But I would never want to manipulate them for what ever reason.

[Karl Larsen]

From distance or from above, Xfrog trees look pretty good - probably perfect for what you describe. But when you are getting input from some kooky architect and he says "make that tree more transparent" (less dense foliage so you can see through it a little), you're in deep you-know-what.

 

I can make some basic trees and shrubs that I can get away with, but if you want to make a large ironwood looking tree for instance, good luck with that.

 

Oh, and watch out for your polygon count...

[numerobis]

yes xfrog is old and hasn't been updated for a very long time... i think GrowFX is the better program today - but there are still no libraries available.

[Janwalli]

1. From a user perspective, 3.5 looks like it was coded in 1995 for WIN 3.1 - it doesn't remember file paths except for the default location. If you save a model to a different location on a 'data drive', the next time you open 3.5 you will have to click through your path location one at a time till you arrive at your saved location - just like in 1995!

Well, Xfrog might be older, it comes from good old SGI machines. Keep in mind, Xfrog 3.5, the standalone application, has not been updated for a long time. The majority of users wanted to have an integrated solution and because of the there are the Xfrog plugins for Maya and Cinema4D. Those are the recent versions, not the old standalone Xfrog 3.5, which is actually still one of the most powerful modeling tools for plants.

 

2. You cannot cut & paste components CTRL C & CTRL V.

Right, but there´s a Copy button, which copies and pastes, either single components or complete hierarchies. It is also possible to instance components or hierarchies by shift-leftclick-drag, if I remember correctly. Actually the user interface offers many little candies.

 

3. You cannot isolate leaves and the branch they are on because if you hide the preceding branch you hide the subsequent branch and leaves too (what if I just want to isolate a branch and it's leaves to better understand the distribution and density curves?).

not 100% sure what you mean. You want to hide lower branching levels, but display only leaves and last branching level?

Or do you want to pick a certain branch and only display that one with its child objects? Thats indeed not possible. There are some approaches to help in that direction, but not exactly what you are looking for

 

3. The distribution and density curves are beyond abstract - something simple like "More Leaves/Branches / Less Leaves/Branches" on the coordinate plane would make a ton more sense then just pushing curves around in the dark hoping you stumble upon a combination you can live with.

It´s not beyond abstract, but as beginner hard to get the feeling for. But what you are asking for would limit the capabilities to much.

The point is, the "final" density comes from several different parameters. All important, all doing something specific and together they result in the overall density of your tree. I made some tutorials, probably they give some additional hints into that direction. You find them on my site http://wallis-eck.de/2013/category/artikel/tutorials/ (some textbased, some videos)

I can understand your point and I am sure it would be a good thing to have an additional, simple approach

 

4. Depending where you are in your hierarchy the density curve works in the positive OR negative, with no indication as to which - the only way you find out is by pushing the curve around and hoping you remember what it does at that particular level.

similar to the point above. Density curve per se is simple to understand. But together with some other parameters it can be frustrating at first!

 

5. To get a useable tree in 3DS Max that actually maintains the texture maps -- you have to model your tree in 3.5, export it as a 3DS, import the 3DS into SketchUp and re-apply the texture maps, use a SketchUp Plugin to get the leaf UV mapping to work properly and copy the front face texture to the back face, THEN, import the SketchUp model into 3DS Max AND replace your leaf textures with .JPG diffuse and cutout textures or you will have annoying white halos around every leaf in your model, and I am not talking about small halos, we're talking serious halos...

actually I didn´t have bigger problems to get Xfrog 3.5 objects into other applications. 3ds, obj and some other formats export the geometry, UV´s and texture paths. Keep in mind, 3ds is an old format only allowing 8 characters. I personaly prefer to use OBJ, but I don´t know how well max works with obj. And if you get halos, then something about the texture is bad. But thats nothing related to Xfrog3.5.

 

6. The viewport shading and rendering actually looks like it was pre-Win 3.1...

right ;-)

 

Someone at Xfrog needs to get on the ball - you can hire programmers from India, cheap (NO offense to Indian Programmers - heck Microsoft and Autodesk uses them ).

PS. One last thing I almost forgot - I received straight A's in College Algebra and PreCalculus...

PSS. I just noticed - when you open 3.5 the splash screen says "copyright 1998 - 2002"... My guess is it hasn't been updated since - just sayin',

as I mentioned above, the standalone has not recieved updates for a long time. Recent version is Xfrog5.somewhat, both for Maya and Cinema4D.

The standalone is still a great tool, but I think it should be more clear, that there hasn´t been new features inside the standalone for a long while.

[Hris]

Hm, i never used XFrog 3.5 or better software for plant modelling. I'm still using ATree3D script (free) and i'm still shocked how many work this stuff (script) is able to do with 3D plants. Here is my last test of tree which i'm preparing for my visualisations:

 

I know ,that PRO software is able to do maybe better trees, but for me it's enough quality (made with ATree3D). I hope the price od PlantFactory will be cutted down, maybe than i'll think about buy this software. I'm sad that CG community is not using ATree3D because "more ATree3D users=more presets to share with other users".

 

Greetings

Krzysztof Czerwiński

[Janwalli]

very nice tree, I really like it! But to be fair - the script might be free, but you need to have max, which costs 3000,- or something like that.

[Hris]

Jan - that's right.

Now i see that you are selling 3D Plants - your collection is amazing! Quality and price are awesome (low price for high quality).

Are you preparing 3D models for 3D Max too? Actually i'm using 3D Mentor bundle (the price for this bundle is really good too) but 3D Mentor models are not enough for close ups Your 3d plants are one of the best i ever seen. Do you have some bundles for 3D Max and Vray?

Greetings

[Janwalli]

thanks for the kind words. I don´t want to highjack this thread, so I will send a more detailed answer via PM. Short answer:I wish to bring the plants to max. So far this hasn´t been possible because I simply was not able to justify to buy a seat, just for converting objects. That might change now because of new licensing schemes.