PlantFactory — Reference Manual

Bentley Systems France – E-on Software S.A.R.L

 15-17 Rue Traversière
75012 PARIS – FRANCE
 Phone +33 (0)1 83 64 46 95

Web : info.e-onsoftware.com
Support and Feedback : info.e-onsoftware.com/support

Trademarks

VUE, VUE Creator, PlantFactory, PlantFactory Creator, e-on Creator Solution, e-on Professional Solution,
e-on Enterprise Solution, Cornucopia3D, Mover, SolidGrowth, Dynamic Motion Reaction, Solid3D, Render-
Cow, SmartCow, NewCow, Hybrid 2.5D, AccuShadows, EasyGI, SmartGraph, EcoSystem, “The Natural 3D
Studio”, “Natural 3D”, “The Art of Natural 3D”, “Solutions for Natural 3D Environments”, ”Digital Nature”,
”Immersive Nature” are trademarks or registered trademarks of e-on software, SARL.
Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7,
Windows 8 and Windows 10 are registered trademarks of Microsoft, Inc.
QuickTime, Mac and OS X are registered trademarks of Apple, inc.
Flash and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe, Inc. Maya.
Softimage and 3ds Max are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
LightWave is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc.
Cinema 4D is a registered trademark of Maxon, Inc.
Poser is a registered trademark of Smith Micro Software.
RealMovie is a registered trademark of RealNetworks, Inc.
ArchiCAD is a registered trademark of Graphisoft, Inc.
MicroStation is a registered trademark of Bentley, Inc.
CityEngine is a registered trademark of ESRI, Inc.
SketchUp is a registered trademark of Trimble, Inc.
Revit is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.
All other product and brand names mentioned in this manual are used for identification purposes only.
They may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and, as such, remain the exclusive property of their
respective holders.

Copyright

VUE Program, PlantFactory Program ©1997-2019 e-on software, SARL. All rights reserved.
VUE Documentation, PlantFactory Documentation ©1997-2019 e-on software, SARL. All rights reserved.
This manual, as well as the software described in it is furnished under a license agreement and may only
be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license agreement. Information in this document

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is subject to change without notice and does not represent product specification or commitment on the
part of e-on software, SARL. Algorithms used inside this software were developed for visual performance
only, and may not constitute a precise simulation of real phenomena.

Warning: This software and the accompanying documentation are protected by U.S. copyright law as well
as by international intellectual property conventions. Any reproduction, sale, transfer, transcription, stor-
age in a retrieval system, translation into any language in any form or distribution by any means whatso-
ever of this software or accompanying documentation, in part or in full, without the prior written permis-
sion from e-on software, SARL is strictly forbidden. Any such act shall constitute a copyright violation and
shall be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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Contents
1 Getting Started

System Requirements 9
Activating Your Product 10
Activating Your Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Activating a node-locked license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Welcome Dialog 12

2 Interface Overview

Visual Browsers 16
Material Editor 17
PlantCatalog Browser 18
Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Loading other Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
PlantCatalog Menu 20
File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
PlantCatalog Preset 22
PlantCatalog Preview 24
Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Preview Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Sun Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Ground mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Camera mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
LOD Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3 Creating Plants: Using the Graph

Node Selector 33
Node Observer 34

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Imported Elements 35

4 Modifying Plants: Using Parameters

Parameter Publication 39

5 Import and Export

Export 43
Generic Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
General options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Output format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Export geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Export levels of detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Export billboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Export materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Map Output Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Rigging and animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Export To VUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Export VUE Species (.tpf) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Export VUE Object (.vob) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Export VUE 2015 Mesh (.vob). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Export VUE 2014 Mesh (.vob). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Export VUE Presets (.tpf) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

6 Rendering

Post Render Options 55

Render Display 56
Render Animation 57
Atmosphere Editor 58

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Section 1
Getting Started

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System Requirements
PlantFactory is a 64 bit application, designed for the 64 bits versions of Windows® 7, 8, and
Windows 10 and Intel Mac OS X (10.10+) platforms.

Like all 3D packages, it is highly demanding in terms of computer power. Although the appli-
cation is totally multi-threaded to ensure the smoothest possible response, you have to realize
that there is a lot going on when you work in PlantFactory. This is why we feel that running it on
a reasonably recent and a reasonably fast computer is best suited. We recommend a minimum
of 4GB of RAM.

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Activating Your Product

Activating Your Product

You must activate your copy of PlantFactory before you can run it.

Activating a node-locked license

Activation Dialog

When you open PlantFactory for the first time after installation, an activation screen displays
with the activation key you have filled during installation. You just need to fill your e-mail ad-
dress and click Activate.

If PlantFactory fails to contact the online activation server (for example if your computer is not
connected to the internet, or is running behind a firewall) an alternate activation method will
be proposed:

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Activation Dialog – Offline method

Click the URL to open a web page where you can request your license file. Before submitting
your ticket, please ensure you copy all the information displayed in the activation dialog (Acti-
vation Key and Host ID), and indicate your e-mail address too. Once we receive all information,
our support technicians will generate the license file and send this by e-mail. Copy-paste this
license in the field below, and then click Activate.

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Welcome Dialog

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Section 2
Interface Overview

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PlantFactory Main Window

PlantFactory interface is made of 4 main parts :

• The Plant Browser, greeting you at the start of the application and allowing you to select
the plant you wish to edit.
• The Preview.
• The Menu bar.
• The Preset parameters dialog.

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Visual Browsers

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Material Editor

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PlantCatalog Browser

Visual Browser

The Species Browser lets you select your plants, each one displayed by small preview pictures
and organized by High Definition or Low Definition versions.

Collections

Inside the Visual Browser, items are organized in collections, a list of which is displayed on the
tabs. The items that are currently displayed belong to the highlighted collection. To display
the items from another collection, simply click on the desired collection in the list.

Collections are in fact shortcuts to directories containing your plants. You may add as many
collections to the list as you like by creating new folders in the root folder of your Plant Catalog
or by clicking the New Collection button at the end of the list and browsing to the folder lo-
cation (a Standard File Browser will appear). Browse to the new collection’s folder, and select
the desired folder. You will be prompted for a name. This is the name the collection will have
inside the Browser. Click OK, and wait for a couple of seconds while PlantCatalog builds the
item previews and displays them.

If you add files to a folder that is listed by the Browser as being a collection, the corresponding
new items will automatically be added to the previews.

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Loading other Files

If the file you wish to load is not displayed in any of the available collections, you may access
it directly by clicking the Browse File button. A Standard File Browser will appear, letting you
browse and select your file.

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PlantCatalog Menu
File

• Open: opens a browser displaying existing plants.

• Import Mesh: use this to import a mesh.
• Export as Standard Mesh: this displays the Export Options panel.
• Export as VUE Mesh: this allows you to save your work in Vue object format (.vob).
• Options: displays the option dialog
• Exit: exits the PlantFactory.

Tools

• Export Plant: opens the Export dialog.

• New Plant Variation: create a new variation of the plant by recomputing all its parame-
ters.
• Show Ruler: toggle display a gizmo in the preview showing the real size of the plant.
• Show Information: toggle display of plant geometry info (number of polygons, bones,
size along 3 axis...).
• Zoom on Selection/Entire Plant: automatically frame the plant in the preview.
• Show Wireframe: toggle display of polygon edges.
• Subdivide Less: reduce the number of polygons of the plant.
• Subdivide More: increase the number of polygons of the plant.
• Preview Wind: toggle display of the wind animation.
• Edit Wind Settings: opens the wind setting editor.

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Window

• Toolbar: toggle display of the toolbar.

• Panel: toggle display of the Preset parameter panel.
• Interface colors: open dialog to change your interface colors.

Help

• Overview: opens this documentation

• About PlantFactory: displays version, build number and installation code.

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PlantCatalog Preset

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Presets Panel

This dialog allows to edit different presets of your plant based on:
• General Parameters: Maturity, Season, and Health.
• Object to Grow On: Specify how the plant should grow on your imported mesh.
• Presets Parameters: List of all published parameters of your plant.
If several presets are available, the available presets list allows to choose a preset.

When a preset is selected, no parameter can be edited.

To edit any parameter of the current preset, you need to unlock the parameters by clicking the
lock icon.

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PlantCatalog Preview

Preview Window

The preview window is where you can look at your plant and view your preset changes in real-
time before exporting it.

You will also find here the Sun and LOD gizmos. If you press the right button on the mouse it
will pop the ’Preview Menu’, allowing to interact with the preview quickly.

Controls

Defaults controls in the preview are:

• Zoom: Alt + Right Mouse Button
• Panning: Alt + Middle Mouse Button
• Rotate around object: Alt + Left Mouse Button
• Rotate the camera: Right Mouse Button

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• Move camera back/forth: Mouse Wheel

Preview Menu

Contextual menu for preview

This contextual menu lists all the essential tools for the preview. It is another way to view the
Tools menu.

Sun Gizmo

The Sun Gizmo is located at the top-left corner of the Preview window. It is made of two
spheres :
• a small bright sphere representing the sun
• a big dark sphere representing the world the plant is growing on.
Left-click on the bright sphere and drag it around the bigger dark one to modify the sun direc-
tion. You will see the lighting and shadows change in the plant preview.

There are two modes for the Sun gizmo:

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Ground mode

The sun motion is defined by cap and azimuth angles : horizontal mouse dragging changes the
cap, and vertical motion the azimuth.

Camera mode

Toggle this mode by a double click on the sun or in the option menu (“Sun follows navigation”).

In this mode the sun position is fixed versus the current view. The lighting stays the same when
you rotate the plant for editing.

The sun motion is defined by a free rotation : the mouse drag rotates the gizmo, note this is
different from the ground mode.

LOD Gizmo

The LOD Gizmo is located at the bottom of the Preview window. It allows to control the Level
Of Details (LOD) of the plant geometry displayed in the preview.

The number of stars is linked with the number of LODs available. By clicking on a star, you
can choose the level displayed. The higher the LOD value, the less precise the displayed plant
geometry.

If AUTO is enable by clicking on it, LOD is chosen automatically depending on the position of

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the camera. In this scenario, empty stars reflect the LOD displayed.

Note this is only a display option, it does not change the exported geometry.

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Section 3
Creating Plants:
Using the Graph

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Node Selector

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Node Observer

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Imported Elements

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Section 4
Modifying Plants:
Using Parameters

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Parameter Publication

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Section 5
Import and Export

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Export
Plants created in PlantFactory can be exported in several formats.
• Export to VUE: Export for use in VUE.
• Create Component: This exports plant or plant part for use in PlantFactory as a compo-
nent.

Generic Export

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Generic Export Options

From the Export menu option, select Export As Mesh. This will export your plant as an object

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mesh.

General options
Select your target 3D software/renderer from the Export for dropdown list at the top of the
dialog to define best export options. You can find the specific instructions for exporting TPF
plants into your 3d software here.

To manually set all the fields, select Custom settings.

You can also set global Scale and Axis system for your mesh here.

Output format
• File format:
– .3ds: 3D Studio
– .c4d: Cinema 4D v5 export
– .lwo: LightWave export
– .obj: Wavefront OBJ export
– .fbx: Autodesk FBX export
• – .abc: Alembic v1.5 Ogawa and v1.0 HDF5 export
– .goz: Pixologic ZBrush GoZ export
• File name: path of the export file
• ASCII fbx: FBX exports may be written in binary or ASCII format.

Export geometry
If enabled, the vegetation will be exported as a mesh. You can control here how this mesh will
be defined.
• Meshing options: Click here to modify Meshing parameters.
• Duplicate Double-sided polygons: Check for double-sided polygons : this will generate
twice the number of polygons. This is useful if you are using a software that only handles
one-sided geometry.
• Create one part per node: Check to create separate nodes.
• Export plant position: Export plant position from the PlantFactory scene
• Apply wind: Bake first frame wind deformation on the geometry.
• Dynamic billboard baking: Define how to bake billboards dynamically facing camera for
export. The possible choices are :
– Fixed, user-defined: the billboard orientation depends only on the orientation pa-
rameters defined in its parent primitive instance.

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– Fixed, facing current camera: the position of the current camera is used to bake
the orientation of the billboard.
– Fixed, outwards: the billboard is always parallel to the plant vertical axis.
– Fixed, facing X axis: the billboard is facing the X axis.

Export levels of detail

If enabled, several versions of the geometry will be exported, each one corresponding to a spe-
cific LOD as defined here.

Check Generate 1 texture per LOD if you want to export all corresponding resized textures.

Export billboard
If enabled, a 3-plane billboard of the scene will be baked and exported. Resolution parameter
control the resolution of the baked texture. Note that using a high resolution may take a while
to compute. Normal maps are generated for each plane.

Export materials
If enabled, materials will be written and set up in the exported object.
• Convert materials (using original texture maps): This will write textures extracted from
the plant materials, setting up those in the output object. Define here how to write maps.
• Bake to texture maps: PlantFactory will generate UV coordinates and bake textures to
represent the materials. This mode can be used to export procedural materials. Beware
it can take a long time to generate those maps.
Note:
Every node tagged as “Disable texture baking” will instead use the “Convert materials”
option.
Different types of map are available:
– Specific UVs (when available):

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Baking Export Options

Produces UVs which are generally faster to compute and easier to edit
– Generic UVs: Produces less distortion, but can take a very long time to generate
– This option are only available in those modes :
* Resolution: Sets the resolution of the output texture(s)
* Texture Packing Method: 3 options are available :
· Single Texture: will produce UV on a single texture for all materials con-
tained in the object
· Texture Per Material: will produce UV across several textures each corre-
sponding to a material in the object
· UDIM: will produce UV across several textures using UDIM technique, sort-
ing by material

* Pixel Resolution: only for UDIM generation, will control the pixel resolution of
each UDIM file. The greater the value, the more texture will be generated.
– Per polygon maps (Ptex):

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Ptex Export Options

Exports the plant material as a Ptex texture: draw a small texture for each polygon.
* Resolution: The slider sets the number of pixel per unit. A higher pixel per unit
gives an export with a better resolution.
– Common generated channels option :
* Color channel: export the color channel of the material
* Alpha channel: export the alpha channel of the material
* Bump channel: export the bump channel of the material
* Normal channel: export the normal channel of the material
* Displacement channel: export the displacement channel of the material
Map Output Options
You can tune here some options to make sure exported maps will work out of the box in your
preferred 3D software.
• Place textures in sub-folder: places exported texture maps in sub-folder “Maps” of ex-
port folder.
• Relative paths: check to use relative paths for texture maps.

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• Invert alpha: check to invert alpha.

• Invert normal maps green: check to invert green on normal maps (useful to switch be-
tween conventions).
• Alpha treatment: Select here how to export alpha :
– Unchanged: this will export maps as you have defined them in the material editor.
– Extract: this will export a separate alpha map.
– Merge: this will export alpha as embed alpha channel of color map (thus merging
into an RGBA map), this will try to export the texture in the same format the color
map was originally.
• Fallback merge format: If merge alpha option is checked, chose here fallback format
for the merged texture, in case original format does not support transparency. There are
several options here : EXR, PNG, PSD, TGA, or TIF.
• Apply gamma: check to apply gamma settings used in PlantFactory to exported map.
• File format (converted maps): There are several options for the texture map: unchanged,
BMP, EXR, GIF, HDR, IFF, JPG, PCX, PNG, PSD, TGA, or TIF. Unchanged option will keep tex-
ture maps original format.

Rigging and animation

Only C4D, LWO and FBX formats give you the option of exporting rigging and animation. These
options do not display for other format exports.
• Animation data: there are three options:
– Static Bones: bones but no animation
– Animated Bones: bones and animation
– Animated Points: points and animation
• Duration: length of the animation in seconds
• Framerate: frames per second
• Cyclic animation: Check to force the baked animation to be cyclic

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Export To VUE

PlantFactory can export a plant to VUE in various formats.

Export VUE Species (.tpf)

The most powerful format is the VUE Plant Species. The main advantage of the VUE Species
is that it will enclose all the functional logic of your plant, including randomization parame-
ters, and the logic created in the function graph. This allows you to use the power of the VUE
EcoSystem to have VUE generate unique plant instances in your scene in VUE. For general pur-
pose usage, this would be the recommended format.

Export VUE Object (.vob)

You can also export your plant as a static model in VUE Object format (VOB). The object will con-
tain an exact replica of your plant in static form, without any additional randomization or other
intelligence. This can often be helpful when you do not anticipate changes to the model, and
do no plan on having more than a single instance of the model, such as a Hero Tree scenario.

Export VUE 2015 Mesh (.vob)

This option bakes the plant into a mesh then exports it in VUE Object format (VOB). This can be
helpful to optimize rendering of your plant but you will not take advantage of TPF rendering
technology.

Export VUE 2014 Mesh (.vob)

This option is similar as Export VUE 2015 Mesh but exported file will be comaptible with VUE
2014.

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Export VUE Presets (.tpf)

This option is similar as Export VUE Species but will create as many files as presets in your plant
(see Export Presets).

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Section 6
Rendering

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Post Render Options

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Render Display

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Render Animation

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Atmosphere Editor

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