Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 Posted by Jim Thacker

e-on software announces The Plant Factory


Originally posted on 27 February. Scroll down for updates.

e-on software has announced The Plant Factory, a “revolutionary new plant modeling and rendering technology”.

The official announcement only sets out the bare bones, but hints that as well as modelling individual plants, the system is intended to scale to very large scenes, in a similar way to Vue’s EcoSystem instancing technology:

  • Multi-Platform/Multi-Discipline
    Operates across all CG platforms including real-time, streaming, and offline rendering systems and caters to the needs of CG, SFX, Landscaping, GeoDesign, Architecture and Gaming communities
  • Botanical Coherency
    Allows the creation of more botanically accurate plant appearances and behaviors
  • Precise Control
    Users can create plants of any desired shape, appearance, and behavior using simple building blocks
  • Massive Populations
    Building on e-on’s leadership in EcoSystems™ to create landscapes containing millions of plants


A screenshot of a beta build, taken from an fxphd course, shows what appears to be both a node-based workflow and more conventional options to control the form of the plant by entering numerical parameters.

130306_PlantFactory

Updated 6 March: e-on software has just posted a set of renders generated with The Plant Factory. The images show nice, high-detail plants of a variety of types, including variant forms and different growth stages.

Interestingly, the images include a set of mushrooms (parasol mushrooms, if we’re not mistaken), so the system clearly doesn’t just do plants. The website promises “any kind of vegetation – real or otherworldly”.

Visit The Plant Factory website