Maxon buys Laubwerk
A scene created by architectural visualization firm Imminent Studio using Laubwerk’s 3D plant assets. Laubwerk has now been acquired by Cinema 4D and Redshift developer Maxon.
Maxon has acquired 3D plant model developer Laubwerk. All of Laubwerk’s staff have joined Maxon.
A selection of Laubwerk’s trees and plants are now available to users with Cinema 4D and Maxon One subscriptions, but the old Laubwerk e-store has been taken offline.
An established developer of high-quality 3D plants for visualization and VFX
Founded in 2010, Laubwerk develops procedural 3D plant models compatible with a range of DCC software.
Although used by VFX facilities like DNEG, its core audience is in architecture and architectural visualization, where its clients include Foster + Partners, Perkins Eastman and The Boundary.
At the time of its acquisition, it had 27 ‘Plant Kits’ available for sale, each consisting of a set of 10 plant species, primarily trees, each with 36 age and seasonal variants.
The kits were bundled with the Laubwerk Player software, which enabled users to drag and drop the assets into host DCC apps, and were priced at €119-149 each.
Now available via Capsules for Maxon One Subscribers
Those assets will now become available to users with Cinema 4D or Maxon One subscriptions via Capsules, Maxon’s library of stock content.
Currently, over 600 Laubwerk capsules are available, providing access to Redshift-ready trees and plants within the Cinema 4D Asset Browser, with more due to be added in future.
Priced at $169/month or $1,265/year, Maxon One plans provide access to all of Maxon’s software, which includes Cinema 4D, Redshift, ZBrush, and the Red Giant tools.
No details on the future of Laubwerk plants for non-Maxon applications
However, the old Laubwerk website (you can see a snapshot of it from December 2024 here) now redirects to Maxon, removing access to its e-store.
That ends the sale of individual plant kits, at least for the moment, both for Cinema 4D users and users of the other DCC apps that they supported: 3ds Max, Maya, SketchUp and Vectorworks.
Maxon’s blog post announcing the acquisition states, enigmatically, that existing Laubwerk customers for other products “should keep watching this space for future developments”.
We’ve contacted Maxon to see if we can get any more details, and will update if we hear back.
Updated 23 January 2025: We asked Maxon whether Laubwerk plants will be sold individually again in future, or developed for non-Maxon software, but the company declined to comment.
Read Maxon’s official announcement of its acquisition of Laubwerk
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