PlantCatalog by e-on software: About

Your 3D vegetation nursery

Unlimited 3D procedural vegetation collection for all your CG projects

Key Features

Advanced procedural vegetation

PlantCatalog is a standalone collection of high quality procedural 3D vegetation models, suitable for VFX, archviz and real-time scenarios like games. All models are designed by our landscape architect and are botanically accurate.

We source our textures from arboretums and create smart materials which adapt to editable plant characteristics such as seasonal changes or decreasing plant health.

Native pipeline integration

Exported PlantCatalog plants fit into any pipeline and can be imported by most 3D applications. With each license, you receive the free PlantCatalog Exporter software and free integration plugins from PlantFactory for industry-leading DCC software.

These solutions allow for real-time editing and exporting of a plant model to a large variety of 3D formats. Native procedural editing and automatic shader creation in your DCC software is possible via the plugins.

Works with VUE & PlantFactory

Optionally, using the PlantCatalog with the most recent versions of VUE and PlantFactory combines the procedural plant power with Ecosystem instancing and atmospheric wind and breeze. Edit the plants natively in both applications without the need for additional software.

If you have an older version of VUE, just export baked polygon meshes with the PlantCatalog Exporter which can then be loaded as objects in prior versions.

And best of all:

One PlantCatalog license grants access to all PlantCatalog species immediately!

Infinite Procedural Customization

Stage & Shape Presets

With PlantCatalog species, you receive unlimited variability. Select one of the included presets to generate a different plant stage, from seasonal changes to smaller or bigger plants. Generate endless variations based on the current plant shape. Everything is built into just a single interactive model.

Published Parameters

Each plant is fully procedural and includes custom-built parameters. Change plant maturity, health or season. Transition seamlessly from forest growth shapes to open-field trees. Enable or disable fruits and blossoms. Add or remove branches on the fly and much more.

Multiple Resolutions

Many plants ship in different resolutions. Use the High Detail (HD) version with up to 5 million polygons for hero shots, the Low Detail (LD) version with up to 1 million polygons for instancing and the Real-time (RT) version with up to 50k polygons for game engines. Additionally, customize the mesh resolution to your liking.

Node Editing In PlantFactory

With a license of the most recent PlantFactory version, you can open the procedural plant format *.tpf inside PlantFactory and make changes to the internal node graph. This allows for even further customization. Replace materials, edit presets or even publish new top-level parameters. When you are done, just save the modified file as a new species to your library.

Pipeline Integration And Export

Compatible with

The PlantCatalog Workflow

Browse the collection, then use PlantCatalog Exporter or PlantFactory to tweak and customize the plant to your liking.

Once satisfied, export the plant to the 3D format that best suits your pipeline. Animation and materials can be included.

Open the exported file in the software of your choice. The exported mesh is yours to keep and use forever.

Alternatively, load the original procedural file with the plugins into your DCC application and convert it to a mesh from there.

Suitable For VFX, Games And Archviz

Using the included PlantCatalog Exporter software, each species can be exported to a large variety of 3D formats. This integrates all plants seamlessly into any production pipeline. Texture maps are saved to disk and written as basic materials into the mesh file.

Supported 3D formats:

*.3DS

*.ABC

*.C4D

*.DAE

*.FBX

*.GOZ

*.LWO

*.OBJ

Animation-ready

Wind and breeze animation can be included for exporting in *.FBX and *.ABC format. Choose between a fully rigged bone export or a baked point cloud animation. Select a framerate, set the animation length and a bone limit to save resources. When just a static deformed plant is required, wind deformation from the animation can be applied to the static geometry prior to export.

For lightweight animations, the real-time versions include dynamically camera-facing billboard geometry which is supported by major game engines such as the Unreal Engine 4.

Native Shader Creation

The included integration plugins from PlantFactory not only offer the editing capabilites of the PlantCatalog Exporter within your favorite DCC application. When converting a procedural plant with the plugins to a baked mesh, the plugins will automatically create native shaders for Arnold and V-Ray^®, based on which render engine was selected when the plant was loaded.

The PlantFactory plugins are available for Maya and 3DS Max with shader creation for Arnold and V-Ray. Plugins for further render engines and applications are in development.

Value For Money

Constantly updated

Every new species added to the catalog is free whilst your license remains valid. The catalog is an ever-growing library with three to four updates per year with 10 to 20 new species per update. As a reminder, most species come in multiple versions such as HD, LD and RT models. Download a detailed list of all available models here.

Keep what you exported

Every mesh exported is yours to keep and use forever, even after your license has expired. You are allowed to use the meshes for any commercial project, provided that you do not sell PlantCatalog derived meshes on any marketplaces. For more details, please check our standard End User License Agreement (EULA).

Affordable Creator version

We offer a specialized version for all users of VUE & PlantFactory Creator. This version includes only the plant models for use inside VUE & PlantFactory Creator without the PlantCatalog Exporter, without the plugins and without the ability to export the plants to other formats. The Creator version is available at a significantly reduced price point compared to the full PlantCatalog.

Miss a specific species?

Get in touch with us and we will add model requests to our roadmap for future updates or make you an individual offer.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I purchase a single species or model from the PlantCatalog?

No, the PlantCatalog is an annual license-based offering, where you get access to the entire vegetation collection together with all associated software tools, incl. all new quarterly species additions, while your license is still running.

Do I need VUE and / or PlantFactory to use the PlantCatalog?

Absolutely not!

It is not mandatory to own VUE and PlantFactory to use PlantCatalog.

PlantCatalog comes with its own standalone tools (PlantCatalog Exporter, and a set of 3rd party importer plugins) so that you are up and running without any additional hidden costs. You can of course use the PlantCatalog collections directly in the most recent versions of VUE and / or PlantFactory though (provided you activate the PlantCatalog within each application - see our full PlantCatalog FAQ for more information).

What is the difference between using the plugins and the PlantCatalog Exporter?

With the PlantCatalog Exporter, a procedural plant is baked to a standard 3D file format that can be imported into many applications. Standard 3D file formats cannot contain any advanced material information, so you will probably need to adjust the saved materials in the target application.

The plugins, on the other hand, detect which render engine is currently selected in your DCC application, and will create appropriate materials and shaders for that render engine. In other words, you will receive e.g. proper native V-Ray materials when V-Ray is the currently selected render engine. This saves you the need of editing the materials on the baked polygon mesh to create a V-Ray material manually on your own.

Additionally, the plugins contain the full procedural editing capabilites of the PlantCatalog Exporter. You can make changes to the procedural model at any time inside your scene without the need for repeated export - import workflows. So we suggest using the plugins over the PlantCatalog Exporter wherever possible.

Which 3D applications and render engines are supported by the plugins?

The plugins are currently available for 3D Studio Max and Maya. Other applications will be supported in the near future.

Supported 3DS Max versions and render engines:

2019
2020
2021
V-Ray Next for 3DS Max
Arnold for 3DS Max
Scanline & ART renderer

Supported Maya versions and render engines:

2019
2020
V-Ray Next for Maya
Arnold for Maya
Maya Software renderer

What happens to my collections if / when my PlantCatalog license expires?

All the meshes you will have exported to standard geometry formats (such as .OBJ, .FBX etc.) will continue working and are yours to keep and use (even commercially) forever – provided you stick to the EULA terms (see the question below for more information). Nonetheless, when your license expires, all species part of the PlantCatalog won’t be useable directly within VUE, PlantFactory, PlantCatalog Exporter and/or the integration/importer plugins.

All the species you will have derived from the official collections using PlantFactory and saved as PlantFactory format (.TPF or .TPFP) will also be unusable.

After your PlantCatalog license has expired, opening a VUE or PlantFactory scene that would include official or derivative PlantCatalog content in native PlantFactory file format will prompt a warning and offer to replace or skip such content.

Can I use the PlantCatalog plants in commercial projects?

Yes, you are allowed to use all plants in commercial projects, be it for moving or still images or for embedding models into compiled applications such as games, provided that they cannot be extracted by the end user.

Please note that you may not resell or distribute plants from the PlantCatalog on 3D marketplaces. See the following question for more details on commercial use and our EULA.

Can I resell (or share publicly for free) the plant species I would derive or export from the PlantCatalog collections?

In short, no. Using the PlantCatalog is subject to your acceptance of our standard End User License Agreement (EULA). This EULA states that it’s perfectly fine to create images/animations that use the built-in content (even if you intend to sell those images/animations). What you are NOT allowed to do is to export such content – altered or not - and provide it elsewhere, be it free or for a fee. This is valid for both the vegetation geometries, but also all texture maps and additional content that ships with the PlantCatalog.

Example # 1: you can use and embed the PlantCatalog content (original or modified) within your games, provided there is no way for the end user to extract and re-use the content from the engine.

Example # 2: you are in violation of the EULA if you sell or share publicly a plant species you have created from scratch, but such species uses any of the texture maps (unchanged or modified) that ship with the PlantCatalog content.

You may however use the PlantCatalog content as a means of training yourself and learning how to create your own vegetation species from scratch using PlantFactory.