This Plugin looks very promising.
We will see how usefull it REALLY is.
Kind Regards
Alain
This plugin seems awesome! It works in a very clever way, making the tree grow naturally. Probably the price is high, true, but the final quality seems better than other dedicated softwares, expecially for the quality of the twigs.
Hi guys, you write about grove 3D and NO TEST RENDER showing how good trees are made with it⌠?!
ANYONE ??
I was planning on buying this thing, but after I didnât hear back from the author, I am not sure I want to pay 110 EUR and get stuck with a product with no support.
http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=4&t=115966&page=1
From user feedback: intersecting geometry, slow simulation, tweegs seem to be nice, but overhaul shape are not realistic (may be better in r3). And some people posting many times the official renders from the author, but nobody posting renders of itâs own trees made with it.
the official pictures look nice, but the addon is too expensive
I would be willing to pay that price, even high as it is for an add-on, if I felt more assured of quality. I really want to see more renders and more of what itâs capable of.
I was going to buy it, but after getting response from the author I think I am gonna have to go with some other tree solution.
What was wrong with the response?
Just got an impression that the project isnât aimed to a broad audience and is a niche tool that isnât going to be expanded beyond what it does now.
So if you have money to spend, and you need to make wide variety of trees (not just what the tool offers now), and you plan on using them for game dev (or want to do LODs), youâd be much better off using Onyx Tree or Speed Tree. Yes, more expensive and no direct integration into Blender, but at the end of the day you wonât have be worrying about variety/diversity and range of uses.
I bought this 3/16. Since then the number of trees has doubled. The trees it produces are so fantastic I get lost for days rendering forests. I have used this to create a tree in the shape of a letter Y for a logo. The variety of trees and there dedication to the actual shape and branching of the real tree. This addon grows trees based on a number of years. You can set to say ten years and produce a great tree but growing it slowly (a few years at a time) produces interesting results.
I bought To use in Blender. Recently I got $peedtree for Unity. I tested its trees against The Grove and $peedtree lost miserably. I still need better alignment and placement of leaf planes but my they were much better looking with less tris.
The price.
On one hand it seems like alot for a blender addon butâŚ
- This kind code is impressive for if it plopped out trees from fractal math. It does grows them based on the growth of the individual species.
- This is on par or better than industrial studio level solutions.
- How do we realistically asses value in an addon market which sells addons for easily accomplished tasks found in the first few chapters af any intro to Blender.
I have questions regarding the license âThe Groveâ is licensed under. As far as I am aware, any add-on in Blender must use the GPL. However, the Grove is not.
I can imagine that twigs could be copyrighted/licensed under a proprietary license, but the add-on itself cannot be, correct?
So even when the developer states it is a copyrighted software, unless the developer created some kind of bridge to a proprietary executable, the add-on itself should be GPL by default. Based on the responses from The Grove users, the code itself is completely bpython based.
Which means that âthe Groveâ should be GPL.
Which brings me to the topic of the license of the generated 3d tree models. According to the developer these trees cannot be shared, sold, or even used in a game engine (without contacting the developer).
If the software is GPL, and no commercially licensed twig models are used (or no twigs at all), I would assume the generated tree models are also free to sell and share. How can an asset generated by a GPL addon be copyrighted by the developer? It canât as far as I can tell. It is, however, a new product created by the user, which means the copyright of that particular tree ought to be the userâs, correct? (Unless twigs are used that are copyrighted by the addon developer, of course.)
I would not be surprised if the tree bark textures are a separate install as well - because it would allow the developer to copyright these to him.
Anyway, it seems the developer behind The Grove is breaking the GPL here in regards to the addon itself and assets generated with The Grove when no proprietary twigs and bark textures are used.
I am no GPL expert. Could anyone answer these questions?
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I just read Ton Roosendaalâs Twitter piece on Blender and Add-ons.
https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1135229214607773696
Unless I am completely wrong, âThe Groveâ is GPL, even if the developer is stating otherwise.
And trees generated with it cannot be copyrighted by the developer, and are free for users to share and sell. That is, unless a proprietary twig is purchased from the developer and used, because these are sold separately and not bundled. So you would have to create your own twigs, and the generated asset becomes yours. The same probably holds true for the tree bark textures that are included.
Which means a tree generated with your own custom twigs and bark textures becomes your asset, to use, share, and sell as you like. It canât be any other way, because the addon is GPL, and therefore the assets produced by it become yours. Same as the models you would create in Blender: all yours to do with what you want.
Again, unless Tonâs assertions are incorrect and add-ons do not inherit the GPL. Which is not the case, right?
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Thereâs nothing special between texture assets and 3D model assets, when it comes to copyright, which the generation may be based on.
Also anything that has âimport bpyâ (or imports or uses any parts of Blender libraries in any way) is GPL or is under copyright violation.
The add-on is GPL, then, because it is integrated into Blender. I asked a colleague of mine who owns the addon, and the addonâs code loads bpy.
The generated trees (without the developerâs twigs and bark textures) would then also be free to share? How can a GPL addon be used to create copyrighted or differently licensed assets?
(I understand the MBLab humans are licensed differently because of the underlying models.)
This is all very confusing.
Well, assets with a different licenses can be used with GPL licensed software. Also asset use can be licensed in various ways, including restricting selling modifications of the original assets as your own, is my (non lawyer) understanding.
If you want a definite answer to this question, you would simply have to consult a copyright lawyer.
Also if youâre just using the software to create assets and not making any copy of any copyrighted code or assets, copyright in general will not legally apply to anything, because there is no copy. However if youâre copying an underlying asset as a part of your creation, then I have no clue how that works.
Which implies that a tree generated from scratch (from nothing) has no copyright, and is mine because I defined the parameters to create it.
But even on Blenderâs site it is stated that any work created in Blender becomes unequivocally yours to do with what you want. The developer of the Grove seems to be taking away my right to do with the assets created in Blender whatever I want.
What you create with Blender is your sole property. All your artwork â images or movie files â including the .blend files and other data files Blender can write, is free for you to use as you like.
Blenderâs GNU GPL license guarantees you this freedom. Nobody is ever permitted to take it away, in contrast to trial or âeducationalâ versions of commercial software that will forbid your work in commercial situations.
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Iâm thinking of getting the Grove as itâs 20% off right now. I would like to read the full license, but I canât find any info anywhere. Where did you read this?
A colleague of mine works with the add-on. He was so kind to supply the included ReadMe text. There is no particular license included, excepting for this:
AGREEMENT
When you purchased The Grove, you agreed to the following terms:
The Grove is developed for artists. Do not sell trees grown with The Grove. You as a customer MAY create beautiful trees for use in your personal and commercial artworks. Artworks may be still images or animations. You may NOT sell or distribute stock tree models (or renders of trees meant as stock collage material) grown with The Grove. Contact us for games distribution rights.
The Grove software, 3D twig models and texture images are made by The Grove and are copyright (c) Wybren van Keulen, The Grove. Regular copyright applies. Only as a customer who purchased a twig, you may use that twig in your personal or commercial projects. You may not redistribute a twig (or part of it) in any way.
The add-on makes use of bpy modules, and is therefore GPL. But the developer doesnât mention this anywhere at all, and I think he keeps it vague intentionally, because he is breaking Blenderâs GPL. Simple as that.
He cannot (1) assert copyright over this add-on (because it is GPL, or (2) insist that trees generated with it cannot be shared (because the output of Blender is covered by GPL as well, and besides, the output cannot be copyrighted since there is initially no content to copyright).
The most he may assert is that the twigs and bark textures, which have to be installed separately, are his copyright and cannot be included in models shared. But as long as these are not used, the user is free to use these tree models any way the user wants, including sharing and selling them.
My own opinion is that all this is rather dubious, and the developer is trying to take away the userâs rights regarding the add-on according to GPL and limiting the use of the output as the user wants.
The developer MUST add the GPL license to this add-on. If not, he is breaking Blenderâs GPL. Simple as that.
The fact that he does not, and he fails to mention this on his website, is at the very least misleading, and at the worst breaking the law.
But I am of course not a GPL or copyright expert. I did inform myself through GPL experts and sites, and asked a few people, who know much more about this than I questions, here and there.
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