Creating plants for C4D
If you want to create good-looking plants for Cinema, how do you go about it? I'm not talking here about buying ready-made assets, but how you would actually create your own plant models?
As I'm getting more and more interested in landscape creation, especially using World Creator, I wanted to build a library of plant assets for my landscapes. There are lots of sources of these, some free, most not - and those that aren't free tend to be expensive! So what about making my own?
Apart from textures, which I won't cover here, you're going to need some software to create models. In this article I will look at some of what's available and how suitable they are for use today - and I say that, because some of this software is old.
I found five apps you could try which are still available. These are (in no particular order):
- Xfrog
- Forester
- SpeedTree
- Plant Factory
- Taiao
Xfrog
Let's start with Xfrog. Now, I have a soft spot for this. I've been using it on and off for years and kept it updated as much as I could. It's available either as a plugin for C4D (or Maya) and a standalone app. There are a number of collections of plants for it and they are pretty good and fairly low-poly as these things go.
But. There are some issues. The first is trying to discover exactly what the requirements are to run it. For the C4D plugin, it appears that it's available for C4D from R19 up to and including R26 - so it won't work for later releases of Cinema. Fortunately I have a copy of the plugin which runs in R20, which I also have, so I can still use it. The plugin lets you do two things. It provides all the generator objects you need to create a plant but you can't save what you make in the native Xfrog format, which is an .xfr file. Secondly, it lets you load an .xfr file from any Xfrog plant collection but the plants import as a single polygon mesh and you can't edit the underlying structure. If you buy any plant collection you can choose the format you want it to be in - and there are a lot of them. Mine, of course, are in .c4d format, so I can load the plants without the plugin. In other words, the plugin only lets you create plants, not edit existing ones. But they can then be exported from Cinema in whatever format you need.
There is one catch: although my plant collections are in .c4d format, they are old files and need R19 or earlier to load them. So I have two options: load the .xfr file into R20 using the plugin, then save it as a .c4d file and load that into the latest C4D version for use, or for export. Or, load the corresponding .c4d file into R19, resave it, then again load that file into the latest Cinema. Either way, it's not the fastest workflow.
If you want to create or edit .xfr files then you need the standalone app. This is...well, 'dated' is a kind way to put it. The interface is very old-fashioned and not easy to use. I can't recommend buying it, frankly. If you can use the plugin (i.e. you have a sufficiently elderly version of Cinema lying around) then that works fine for plant creation. On the plus side, it's not difficult to use for creating simple plants, but of course creating a realistic model of a real plant is never going to be a simple job no matter what software you're using.
The licensing is straightforward. With the plugin, you're only creating meshes and as far as I can tell - it's another of those things which is hard to find on the website - you can create, give away or sell any plants you create with it. It isn't clearly stated but it seems logical and fair that you can't export and sell plants derived from those supplied by Xfrog, only your own creations.
You'll have gathered from this that while Xfrog works, it is frankly obsolescent. Nevertheless, it does work and while realistically I can't recommend it, it's still worth a look. 30-day trial versions of the plugin and app are available, so if you can use it, give it a try.
Links: Xfrog Software; Xfrog Plants
Current price* (June 2025): £95 for the Cinema 4D plugin and £73 for the standalone app.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Relatively inexpensive | Old software, standalone app is very dated |
| Plugin easy to use | Plugin not compatible past C4D R26 |
| Plant collections look good | No Redshift material support |
| Trial versions available |
Summary: might be worth a look if you can run it, but be sure before buying that it does what you want.
Forester
Unlike Xfrog, Forester is specifically a Cinema 4D-only plugin.
I have never used or tried Forester, for reasons that will become clear. It was first released in 2015, and has certainly been added to and updated over the years, though it isn't clear by how much. I say that because almost all the video documentation on the website is dated 2015, though I did see a couple of video tutorials dated 2018. If the plugin interface had changed significantly in the intervening years, say with new features added, I might have expected to see more recent videos, so the extent of any updates is not clear. However, it is available for all versions of Cinema from R20 up to and including R2025.
There's no doubt it produces really good results, the plants look excellent - though it would have been nice to try it out to see what results I could get. And that's the first problem, because there is no trial/demo version at all. They give the reason that this "...is due to the fact that Forester is a generator plugin, whose elements can be made editable". Well, that's true of any C4D generator, and I'm not sure this makes sense to me. But that brings me on to the main problem with Forester: the licensing.
A Forester licence is locked to the MAC address of the computer it is to run on. That's it. No installing on two machines as long as both aren't in use at the time. What if you bought Forester then got a new PC? Forester won't run on it; there is mention of a transfer fee of $100, though it isn't clear if that only applies when giving the licence to someone else or if it also applies when changing to a new computer. Oh, and it won't run under License Server either. But by far the worst restriction is that if you buy Forester you are not allowed to sell (or presumably give away) anything developed with it. That includes any asset created with it, which seems to me extremely unfair. But it's a condition of sale.
For these reasons you will understand why I will never buy a licence for Forester - that, plus the cost, which is quite high, though not excessively so until you consider the severe licensing restrictions, which make it unattractive.
Link: Forester 3D
Current price* (June 2025): £319 for the plugin.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Plants look really good | Expensive |
| Can generate nice rocks as well as plants | Severe licensing problems |
| Runs in the latest Cinema version | No trial version |
Summary: I can't recommend it at present for the reasons given above.
SpeedTree
SpeedTree is not a plugin but a standalone app for Windows, Mac and Linux. The results really are good, SpeedTree is generally considered to be the industry standard. Especially since it has libraries for high accuracy in cinematic production and lower poly counts for games. The modeller is extremely full-featured, so much so it's a bit overwhelming at first. For me personally, I want something a bit simpler, but for production artists on large projects I don't think you can beat this. Of course, you have to export from it to a format Cinema can load, but that's only to be expected.
The licensing looks fair. There's no trial version, but there's something even better: a free learning edition with no fixed time limit, the only restriction being that you can't export from it (which is fair). For the paid versions, as with Forester you cannot distribute or sell any models made with SpeedTree.
The main downside for me is that, apart from the learning edition, SpeedTree is a subscription app, not a single perpetual licence. Sometimes there's no alternative but to bite the bullet and go along with subscriptions. In this case I don't think I need something quite as capable and complex for my needs, but I can quite well see that there are many users who do.
Link: SpeedTree
Current price* (June 2025): Learning Edition is free, Indie £147/year, Pro £369/year (node-locked licence).
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Industry-standard software | Subscription licensing |
| Superb results for games and cinematic production | No resell of created assets |
| Free learning edition (no export) | Complex to use |
Summary: the obvious choice for quality and capability, if you need it and can afford it.
PlantFactory
PlantFactory is a standalone app closely associated with the Vue landscape generator. It also comes with PlantCatalog, a large collection of plants for use in PlantFactory and Vue.
Until recently this was fairly expensive commercial software. As of May 2024, PlantFactory, PlantCatalog and Vue are now freely available with a perpetual license and can be used commercially. The only restriction is that you cannot distribute assets derived from those supplied with PlantFactory/PlantCatalog. However, if you create your own models and textures, you can freely distribute those.
Like Forester and SpeedTree, this is complex software which will take time to learn. It isn't as complex and complete as SpeedTree, but PlantFactory looks similar to Forester in terms of ease of use and quality of results. It can't be used as a plugin inside Cinema, but the C4D plugin 'Vue_xStream' is included, which can import Vue scenes and PlantFactory models. However, that is only available up to C4D R2023, so over time it will become increasingly out of date. This doesn't matter that much though, since very unusually PlantFactory can export plants made in it as a native .c4d file containing the mesh and materials.
The output from PlantFactory is really good. From the look of it, the results are as good as Forester. For any purpose I could ever want, this is ideal - no cost, decent licensing, very capable software.
Link: PlantFactory (also download PlantCatalog and Vue itself while you're there)
Current price* (June 2025): free.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free software | Can't really think of any. Learning curve is a little steep, perhaps. |
| Very capable plant modeller | |
| Lots of tutorials on the web | |
| Good integration with C4D |
Summary: the clear choice for anyone wanting a very good plant modeller at no cost, especially if you prefer a standalone app..
Taiao
Taiao is a C4D plugin and is part of the Insydium Fused collection which includes X-Particles. However, you can buy Taiao on its own if that is all you need as it doesn't require the particle engine.
Disclaimer: I was part of the Insydium team for some years, principally working on X-Particles. I'm no longer associated with them and had nothing to do with developing Taiao, so my comments should be objective.
Like Xfrog and Forester, Taiao is a plugin. In some ways it functions a bit like Xfrog, using a hierarchy of objects to build the plant, but instead of multiple scene objects Taiao uses one object with multiple layers inside it. Straightaway I think any C4D user would feel right at home with Taiao; it's quick, easy to use, not overly complex, and produces some very nice results. I really like it; it just works and produces results which are more than good enough for my purposes.
What I don't know is whether it would produce the hyper-realistic results you might need for extreme cinematic close-ups. For that you might need SpeedTree anyway, although there are some very nice example renders using Taiao on the Insydium site. For plants intended for populating a landscape, it works just fine. And unlike Xfrog it has a fully-modernised interface and is compatible with the latest Cinema 4D versions.
The only downsides I can find are that I'm not convinced by the included grass generator, which is intended to generate grassy areas (fields, lawns, etc.) in C4D, but if I wanted grass like that in a landscape I'd use modelled grass plants and distribute them by the million in World Creator. There are lots of excellent video tutorials for Taiao on the Insydium site, but they are slightly out of date in that the current interface is a little different from that shown in the videos, with more use of layers rather than including every option in the interface even if you don't need/use them. However, it's not radically changed and it's easy to figure out what is different by loading up one or two of the supplied samples and looking through how they are built. The updates do make for a less cluttered user experience.
Link: Taiao
Current price* (June 2025): £190
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to use, particularly for users inexperienced in plant modelling | None to speak of; would be nice to see more plant libraries available |
| Good results on rendering | |
| Perfectly integrated with C4D |
Summary: if you already have Insydium Fused with Taiao included, it's a no-brainer. If not then the price is reasonable - more expensive than Xfrog (but an order of magnitude better) and less expensive than Forester without that plugin's licensing restrictions.
Conclusion
There are several options if you want to create plants either for Cinema 4D or using Cinema 4D. Two are plugins, two are standalone apps, and one is both. Of the apps, PlantFactory is the obvious choice unless you really, really need something that only SpeedTree can do (which might include extreme realism). Of the plugins, Xfrog is really too old now (but don't ignore the plant model collections, which can be supplied as .c4d files not requiring the plugin or app to load in Cinema), Forester is too expensive and too restricted in its licencing, while Taiao is modern, up-to-date, and easy to use but with relatively limited plant libraries so far. Personally I'd like to see Taiao developed further and ported to other DCCs to widen its user base, but other than that, if you have both Taiao and PlantFactory you have a high-quality, cost-effective solution to plant modelling for Cinema 4D.
* Current prices are in UK pounds, converted from the US dollar price where necessary. Additional sales taxes may be applicable.
Page last updated June 15th 2025