Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 27, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
GrowFX Features
The GrowFX tree modelling and animation system is intended to make it possible to create grass and sections of forest individually or as a group and animate them with properties such as growth and wind. The Affects mechanisms are intended to make it possible to create specific parameters to influence other models, so that not all animations have to be configured by hand.
The mesh builder called Instanced Geometry is intended to enable the use of arbitrary geometric objects or a custom geometry hierarchy to create leaves, flowers, fruit and much more.
The Direction Modifier "Object Reaction Direction" is intended to make it possible to create a variety of climbing plants using Path Reaction, while "Object Slice Direction" is intended to make it possible to create trimmed plants in any shape.
Version 1.9.0
The new features in version 1.9.0 include the After Mesh Modifier, which is intended to make it possible to add the Direction Modifier after all meshes have been calculated. For example, this is intended to make wind animation faster to calculate and, in some cases, even in real time. Components are also now said to be copyable as instances, and new settings parameters are said to have been added. A new option is intended to make it possible to disable all Meta Meshes in the parameter settings.
Download
GrowFX is available as a single licence for 195 US dollars, a group licence for five users costs 495 US dollars and one for 10 users costs 750 US dollars. The Exlevel website also offers a free 30-day trial version for 3ds Max releases from 2008 onwards in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
You can find more information here: http://exlevel.com/
The animation of a growing orange tree by Alexander Lezius, created with GrowFX:
