I just got my xfrog 3.5 full license Friday and could use some help as a new user. Their forums are not very active so I will attempt to ask some questions here as well.
I got the hang of using the various tools and got a decent tree made. But I ran into an issue:
When I try to load some PNG leaf textures from my collection I made in Photoshop, I get an error that says, “bad texture” and then xFrog crashes. I successfully loaded a PNG leaf and later decided to edit that PNG to make a aging leaf version for the older lower branch. I edited the PNG in Photoshop, renamed and saved as PNG. Then when I tried to load it, xFrog crashed after saying “Bad Texture”. What’s going on here? Is there something to watch for when making or loading PNG files? Why is it that the same texture loads with no problem, then is refused after a simple color edit? I feel like loading from my PNG library is a crap shoot.
Also I imported my tree into Sketchup but the leaves turned back into boxes. is there a way to get the leaf textures to appear in SU?
I’m looking for tips on making wind animations too.
For anyone following this, it turns out that though some PNG images will work, the native format used for XFrog is TIFF with transparency.
I’m really getting the hang of using this program now. Once you understand the capabilities of the components along with the parameter controls, you can pretty much let your imagination go wild. there are endless types of models that can be made that are non-plants. You can get a head start with many types of organic modeling. The only downside is figuring out how to get the polycount down.
Does anyone know about importing tree animation into Blender?
Here’s an Apple-Birch Tree…don’t eat these apples.
I do own a license of v3.5, but I switched a long time ago to Cinema 4d’s Xfrog 4.2 plugin. It makes it even easier to do all sorts of funky stuff - a lot of fun indeed.
Funny thing is I got that 4.2 license for free through 3d world magazine.
Cool.
I was asking Mathew from XFrog for any tutorials on doing wind animation from 3.5 and he told me I can follow the tutorials for C4D or Maya because the same basic concepts are in the standalone version. What do you think? I tried to follow but because I don’t know those programs, it wasn’t easy for me.
My dream plant making tool would be SpeedTree though. I will have to save up a while for that one. I also downloaded Plant Factory PLE to test it out. It was on sale last week and I almost bought it until I read their heavy handed commercial policies. That would be a winner for sure. Hopefully they will lighten up. If they do, I will definitely be putting it on my grocery list (there is an actual prune tool in it to chop individual branches at any level). The tools in that thing is awesome.
But for what I could afford now, XFrog was the best choice, especially since I caught it 50% off. To me the possibilities from all the parameter controls puts it ahead when it comes to modeling.
