Its 2014 (almost 2105) I just discovered Onyx tree.. But are they still alive?

[Cesar R]

I am considering in vesting in their software. Based on what I have seen out of it, it looks very powerful.

However I have written e-mails and called their phone, they onine shopping page does not work and the last update was a for Max 2013.

 

I know they are small company but by the same I wonder if they are "dead" as a result of speedtree or xfrog.

I am looking for a nice inexpensive tool. Is there anything else out there I should consider?

 

Thanks

[Nic H]

they are dead (the website is a 1992 HTML 0.002 artifact from a past time)

 

try grow fx

[RyderSK]

It's a real shame though, as the workflow was far more logical and plausible for creating trees than GrowFx. But it's unusable in its current state, so dead.

GrowFx is powerful, capable for comfortably creating highly detailed and quality meshes, but regarding look "believability", it's painful eyeballing, as it has no ties with any algorithmic botany stuff, it's just raw procedural creator. Any tree will always look "off" to my eyes to some extent.

[Cesar R]

thanks, so it seems like growfx is the way to go?

[RyderSK]

Well you can have a look at few alternatives out there, which mostly are SpeedTree and Plant Factory, both kinda similar, the latter being slightly more tuned for high-end trees possible to use in visualizations, but the reactions are mostly mixed, but neither is GrowFx that big so maybe form your own opinion, each has a trial.

[elipan]

Well you can have a look at few alternatives out there, which mostly are SpeedTree and Plant Factory, both kinda similar, the latter being slightly more tuned for high-end trees possible to use in visualizations, but the reactions are mostly mixed, but neither is GrowFx that big so maybe form your own opinion, each has a trial.

 

What do you recommend?

I thought about purchasing GrowFX once, but after a few YouTube videos I realized exactly what you described above, so I dropped this idea.

 

I downloaded Plant Factory (it's e-on, right?) but it does not support Vray 3.0 and they do not respond to emails.

 

I might try SpeedTree. Don't know how I missed that.

[Cesar R]

I got a e-mail back from onyx. They are still in business. From speaking to a coworker who owns it, we realize that onyx produces trees that are a bit more "correct" that the other parametric modelers.

[Tommy L]

I got a e-mail back from onyx. They are still in business. From speaking to a coworker who owns it, we realize that onyx produces trees that are a bit more "correct" that the other parametric modelers.

 

The couple who built/operate Onyx are botanists with a healthy interest in 3d. So yes, their botanical accuracy is the best. They are also super-nice and I like giving my money to super-nice people.

[RyderSK]

 

 

I downloaded Plant Factory (it's e-on, right?) but it does not support Vray 3.0 and they do not respond to emails.

 

 

Where does rendering support come into play ? It's just asset creator, but PlantFactory and SpeedTree come with decent texture library, but building materials is unique in any engine you take the asset in.

 

Well I don't know...I don't like any of them at all, I don't know who comes up with these softs, must be pure programmers. I like Onyx but I find it almost unusable today, it's simply painful and it will also struggle to output trees over certain dimensions making it sort of limited.

[Ernest Burden III]

They are also super-nice and I like giving my money to super-nice people.

 

I guess so, but I remember having the software always chiding me about reselling model output (or something like that). I didn't enjoy the finger wagging. But no biggie. I haven't used it in a long time.

 

Where does rendering support come into play ?

 

Perhaps in creating native materials? You sometimes have alpha'd leaves.

 

Do we have a sticky in this sub-forum with a list of all the options for plants/trees/kale? If not, it would be useful.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I think the problem is there is always two type of user, one that is a super modeler control freak that would like to be able to control everything on the mesh/tree. so it can be animated as director want or fit every need, and there is other users (like me) that don't want to become a botanists to put trees or plants in the renderings. yes I need custom shapes and sizes most of the time, but modeling a tree from scratch? I don't think I have time for that, I have a large library of trees and plants but always a client come with this very specific request, and I wish i could just load that family or tree and fix, quantity of leaf, over all size and that all. laubwerk trees are as close as it will be very useful for my arch-viz business but the development of trees by their company is way to slow. I am always about to buy XFrog software in their eternal "summer sale" but again the interfase is so old and low performance, thankfully I have a copy of Cinema 4D I may buy the Cinema plug in it seems more update than the stand alone.

We own Onyx here in the company that I work for, it is easy to load a similar family tree and fix from there, but viewport performance is a joke, and color per vertext is not really useful today, mapping is fine, mesh is decent enough, not for animations but thankfully I have not done any close up animations of trees yet, if time comes maybe speed tree will be the choice, but again I don't think I would be interested to model a tree or bush from scratch.

 

 

That's my experience with all these software.

[Graphite]

I won a copy of Speed Tree a while back. I love it when I actually use it. Exports out as OBJ's, and the update now exports out Quads (It didn't prior). Materials come in standard but that's an easy conversion, but the best part is being able to export out the wind animations. I'll have to post some test footage I did. Came out looking great.