ngPlant is a 3D plant modeling software package. Designers can use interactive tool to create 3D models of different plants and trees.

With ngPlant software devs can use the 3D API-independent library to use generated plant models in their 3D applications, or to create plant modeling plugins for different 3D modeling tools

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· ngpcore, ngput and pywrapper libraries now distributed under the terms of BSD License.
· Now it is possible to add up to 8 branch sub-groups per branch (in previous versions up to 4 sub-groups could be added).
· GLEW library (http://glew.sourceforge.net) is now required to compile ngplant, ngpshot and ngpview. GLEW-related configuration options are described in config/cross-sample.py.
· GLSL support added to ngplant. With GLSL support it is possible to see per-pixel diffuse lighting applied to plant models in real-time (normal-map support). Source code for shaders used by ngplant is located in "shaders/ngplant_default_vs.glsl" and "shaders/ngplant_default_fs.glsl" files.
· "-es" option added to ngplant. This option enables error reporting to stderr.
· "-ns" option added to ngplant. This option disables shaders usage.
· 3d-view flicker which appeared in some configurations have been fixed.
· Now it is possible to use GLSL shaders for snapshot rendering. To use shaders your video card must support GLSL. Look at ngpshot_nor_vs.glsl and ngpshot_nor_fs.glsl files at shaders directory. These shaders allow to render plant model normal-map instead of plant image. Using generated color image and normal map it is possible to create normal-mapped billboards with dynamic lighting support. To use shaders "-vs" and/or "-fs" options must be used.
· "-vs" and "-fs" command line options added. "-vs" option is used to select file from which vertex shader source should be loaded. "-fs" option allows to select file from which fragment shader should be loaded.
· P-Buffer off-screen rendering mode support added to ngpshot. It allows to use hardware acceleration for rendering.
· New "-o" command line option allows to choose between pixmaps/pbuffer off-screen rendering mode. By default ngpshot uses best supported mode. Possible modes are: "auto" - default, "pixmap" - pixmap/bitmap mode and "pbuffer" - p-buffer mode.
· C compiler presence check added to configuration step
· P3D_PLATFORM_WINDOWS macro is not used anymore
· P3D_DLL_ENTRY macros added to HLI classes which should be visible outside ngpcore in case of DLL build. To make classes visible define P3D_DLL_BUILD macros while building ngpcore DLL and define P3D_DLL_USE macros while building your application.
· It is not needed to define snprintf as _snprintf for MSVC compilers anymore
· API (HLI) change: C : Now it is possible to get tangent and bi-normal vertex attributes in addition to position, normal and texture coordinates using new P3D_ATTR_TANGENT and P3D_ATTR_BINORMAL constants.
· API (HLI) change: C : Branch group name now can be accessed using new P3DHLIPlantTemplate::GetGroupName method.
· API (HLI) change: Python : Now it is possible to get tangent and bi-normal vertex attributes in addition to position, normal and texture coordinates using new ATTR_TANGENT and ATTR_BINORMAL constants.
· API (HLI) change: Python : Branch group name now can be accessed using new BranchGroup.GetName method.