Bionatics announces the release of the version 4 of its 3D plant modeler natFX for 3ds max.
This latest version was developed to integrate even better into an Autodesk 3ds max production workflow, explains Stephan Gourgout, vp/sales director. It answers, in large part, the needs requested for the last 12 months by our clients from the varied industries such as architectural visualization, to the production requirements of the videogame industry and the 3D animation film studios, who need to build rapidly complex realtime or pre-rendered scenes.
natFXs version 4 offers a bundle of new features including, for example, the addition of a new modeling function for realtime called Volumetric Mode or another for sculpting trunks Sculpt Trunk to deform the trunk, which gives the trees a much more realistic form.
The Volumetric Mode combines the richness of a full 3D modeling for trunk and main branches associated with impostors facing the camera for the foliage. This technique associates realism of the tree with medium poly count and low texture count. It privileges the density of the foliage while respecting the architecture of the branches.
The Sculpt Trunk features allow the control of the roughness of the trunk. This feature is very useful to create natural roots at the bottom of the trunk to give a nice connection with the ground. The user has access to a library of various "displacement maps" samples, which could be applied to the trunk of any plants. Users can also create their own "displacement maps" to create special effects on the trunk such as nodes, cracks, bumps or any kind of deformation.
These improvements to natFX were developed in keeping with full compatibility with the Mental Ray rendering engine. Progress was also made with regards to memory consumption, which has been reduced allowing the user to heavily populate scenes with even a greater number of trees. Tree animation skeletons can now be exported to realtime engines in 3ds max format.
For more information, go to: www.bionatics.com/natFXmax.
Bionatics is the world leader in plant modeling and simulation technology. The company develops a complete lineup of solutions today used by leading firms in the industry of architecture, videogame, 3D animation and military training simulation. Established in 2000 by Stéphane Gourgout and Michel Murail, Bionatics was born from the scientific research lead by CIRAD.
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