Xfrog or iToo Software plants?

[Devin Johnston]

I've got a decision to make, I have to decide whether to buy Xfrog or iToo Software's HQ Plants. Both packages are about the same price but Xfrog's has 3 times more plants. My concern is quality, I have some Xfrog plant models already and the quality is good but I think the iToo plants may be better but it's hard to tell from the PDF's. Also the iToo plants come with Vray materials, I'm pretty sure the Xfrog plants don't. I'm going to be getting Forest Pack Pro and from what I understand both packages will work with it, but I can't decide which one to get. Any advice is welcome!

 

http://xfrog.com/product/XB-59.html

http://www.itoosoft.com/hqplants.php

[Matt McDonald]

FWIW. The last xfrog library we purchased did not have VR or MR materials. My only concern with the xfrog libraries is that some of those from volume 1 are pretty old. We use them, and they are ok but not nearly as detailed as the newer ones. Try downloading the london plaintree from the demo section. (http://xfrog.com/category/samples.html) I use that one all the time and I would say that it is indicative of the quality of some of the earlier models.

 

The itoo plants are actually these plants: http://www.3dmentor.ru/free-models.html

and you can download demo versions to test.

[Scott Schroeder]

I would say go with the iToo plants. Though, Laubwerk has some pretty promising plants that are now integrated into Forest. http://www.laubwerk.com/

[jsf]

Devin,

 

You should look into GrowFX, they are offering 30% off until January 10th 2014. The price is incredibly reasonable when you consider you can make any plant you need, control the mesh count, and modify each plant to your specific scene when desired.

[RyderSK]

 

The itoo plants are actually these plants: http://www.3dmentor.ru/free-models.html

and you can download demo versions to test.

 

Yeah, they're Mentor plants and they're were artificial in my opinion.

XFrog aren't newest either..

 

Laubwerk are nice..but,not really high-end per se either, but I guess they're just right for most people and they're VERY easy to use, the plugin is very smart choice. They're integrated into Forest pack like Scott said (something very recent) so that's your best candidate imho. They're cheap imho also.

 

To be honest, the latest Evermotion collection offer currently probably the best looking trees (again...no miracle). But they can be hassle to use,

they come up "un-merged" (as groups of trunks, leaves,etc..) so additional work needs to be done to scatter them.

 

Regarding GrowFX, that's not a collection but plant creator, probably the BEST out there is, and so complicated that outside of Bertrand Benoit, I have not see a SINGLE good looking tree done with it by anyone (and even his 6 trees that I bought from TS, are miles below the ones AlexRoman has created for 3rd7nth). It's not for most. We've spent 3 months with Veronika playing around with it and I honestly did not get where I wanted with the Trees..so I would take that in mind regarding its complexity. But I think this is not what you're looking for anyway.

 

tl:dr Laubwerk + ForestPack

[Guest dialog]

Juraj we use the Evermotion trees... do you switch the filtering on the opacity to off to save render times? Im not sure why Evermotion doesnt do this from the start and also collapse to one object the trees. Would make VRay Proxies much quicker to use and scatter.

[RyderSK]

I think the latest collections (100+ ) had the filtering off by default, although I am not 100perc. sure..

 

They don't collapse them because I presume some people would like the easy option of separating trees, or displacing the main trunk. It's not bad per se but requires few additional steps for scattering.

[Scott Schroeder]

They might be for Maya, but the concepts are easily transferable. It comes down to the same point as in the 3d people thread, at some point you have to put some good ole fashioned artistic work into the plants created in a plant creator.

 

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/995/Creating-Trees-in-Maya-%7B47%7D-Onyx#.UrHX5rSVS0g

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/989/Creating-Plants-in-Maya%7B47%7DMental-Ray#.UrHX57SVS0g

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/991/Grass-and-Plant-Instancing-in-Maya%7B47%7DMental-Ray#.UrHX6LSVS0g

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/993/Creating-Trees-in-Maya-%7B47%7D-Paint-Effects#.UrHX6LSVS0g

[Guest dialog]

Ahh i see. I think our newest version of trees is 100 (the fall and winter one).

I use multiscatter, but it currently doesnt work with Vray 3.0 Beta... crashes on render.