Xfrog 4 for Maya is an Organic Modeling Plugin for Maya.
It allows Maya users to build organic shapes, such as Trees, Flowers,
Architectural Forms, and create powerful organic-based Special Effects.
Xfrog 4 is available for Maya 7, Maya 6.5, and Maya 6, Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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Xfrog 4 adds seven new procedural tools to Maya. By combining these with each
other and with Maya components you can create a wide variety of organic models
and animations based on organic procedures. like, for example, gravitropism or
growing and spiralling weird shiii based on Nature...like in that War of the
Worlds movie...or spinning tree parts at the speed of Light, in that Time
Machine movie a few years back. Or like, growing ivy around Uma Thurman, for
cash and profit, in that Batman thing..like to thrill Arnie the Iceman before he
became gov'ner.
Anyhow - you can keyframe all of our tools - they behave exactly like Maya
components, like as if Alias had added them to the package, eh, and you can
combine them with PaintEffects or Particle animations or whatever.. It all works
with Maya Unlimited or Maya Complete, any version since 6, and any platform you
own. and if you look at the readme, inside the download, you will notice we
wrote an Xfr importer for Maya 1.0. that's before a lot of you fikers were even
born. and we are ex-SGI employees and other wannabe rancid old fatties, So we kinda know how to write code.
Kinda. Xfrog itself was around since before PC's
had graphics cards worth beans. So its fairly bug free, mates. yes, I love to
write website ad-copy. on with the show...
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The Branch Object is for
easily building elaborate multi-level branching structures with
extensive parameters which give them a natural look and feel.. |
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The Phyllotaxis Object
arranges components on an abitrary surface of revolution, according to
the rules of nature (golden section). It is, for example, used in the
sunflower example above to arrange petals and seeds. |
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The Hydra Object arranges
components in a circular pattern. |
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The Curvature Object creates
Splines which can be used as a basis for naturally curved leafs or
twigs. |
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The Variation Object allows
you to use multiply different Objects with Branch, Phyllotaxis and
Hydra. |
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The Tropism Object lets your
spline-based objects (like the Branch, but also the CINEMA 4D SweepNURBS)
bend towards an abitrary direction or position. |
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The Deviation Object is a
simple way to add natural detail to your Branches, by deviating a Branch
Object at the places where other Branches emerge. |
All the tools can be animated over time by varying their parameters, such as
number of branches,, gravitropism, phototropism, etc. A convincing flower can be
built and animated very easily, or a tree can be modeled and grown. All of Maya
animation curve editing features can be used, as well as MEL.
Xfrog software and XfrogPlants are used by many production houses (Disney
Imagineering, Digital Domain, ILM, Pixar, Sony Imageworks, etc) and has over
3000 individual customers worldwide.
Shows - The Incredibles, War of the Worlds, The Polar Express,
Batman and Robin, The Time Machine, Blueberry/The Renegade, all used Xfrog or
XfrogPlants (or both).
