natFX for Maya is the most advanced 3D plant modelling tool used by leading animation and game studios as such as: Sony Picture Imageworks, Weta Digital, Framestore CFC, Blue Sky Studios, Moving Picture, The Mill Facility, Walt Disney Feature Animation...

Key Features:

Simulate growth

With the built-in plant growth simulator, you can age any plant or tree. Start off with a sapling and simply change its age and natFX automatically regenerates it. Age a coconut tree to 350 years ! You can also reverse ageing by reducing the age of your generated tree.

Change seasons

Real modifications using botanic parameters actually change the structure of your plants and trees. Click Apply and natFX will do the rest

Subdivision Surfaces

Enjoy generating natFX trees whose branches automatically smooth into the trunk for extra realism. Users needing trees that are malleable, easy to shape and modify, the new subdivision surfaces is what clay is to a modeler. And even more. Subdivision surfaces are not only easy to animate, they streamline workflow since they become polygons only when rendered out.

Skeletons ready for animation

By clicking "Permit Animation" from the Plant Tuner, natFX automatically generates a customized skeleton for the chosen plant or tree. A complete skeleton saves the user precious modeling time and enables him to simply key the model to achieve desired animation. natFX does not rely on binding. Just recompute the wood for each frame and the geometry automatically follows the skeleton.

Low Poly 3D or realtime 3D settings

Certainly a feature that makes natFX revolutionary, the realtime model generator enables you to create the illusion of 3D all while maintaining a minimum number of polygons. Each billboard generated is uniquely textured and can bend to the shape of a branch. You just need to determine how many polygons you want!

Infinite number of variations for each plant

Thanks to its unique procedural plant modeling technology, natFX provides an infinite number of variations for each plant. Simply click "New" to generate a different shape of the tree you selected from the library and natFX will simulate immediatly a new natural shape with the same age and season...like in the real world! A key feature to imporve realism in your scenes.

Automatic Multiple LOD Generator

Being able to quickly and easily control the level of detail of every 3D model is crucial. 3D LODs help you optimize your scene and speeds rendering. This is why natFX’s LOD Tuning enables you to predetermine the degree of quality you need in your scene. Set background trees and plants to a low LOD and foreground to high. Plus, the Statistics Panel in the LOD Tuning shows you how many polygons there are in your tree and its texture size.

A fully Maya based workflow

natFX is fully integrated as a Maya core plugin: As a hosted application, it generates as native models as Maya artists’ handmade models. This way it offers an unparalleled flexibility and integration into your Maya workflow:

- natFX generated models are fully compatible with Maya’s Dynamics and Animations
- natFX allows direct access to a model’s specific features.
- natFX uses a botanically based hierarchy to structure a model in Maya’s Hypergraph.
- Using specific sets, the user can quickly choose 5, 10, or whatever percentage of leaves he wants. He can also select specific joints, branches or any feature of the model.

Prune your tree !

Once you have generated your tree, you sometimes wish to cutomize a part of your model for the tree to fit to your landscape. natFX allows you to prune in a couple of clicks a branch or a full hierarchy of branches of your model