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PF2B: Under the Hood

This page provides an in-depth look at how PF2B processes plant imports, handling material setup and automated fixes to ensure compatibility.

At a Glance

When a plant is imported, PF2B follows these steps:

  1. Automated Setup

    • Configures materials, textures, and geometry using predefined rules.
    • Attempts to match additional textures from the texture folder (not included in the .fbx file).

  2. Plant Fixes System

    • Runs after the automated setup to fix known issues.
    • Uses a compatibility database to apply per-plant adjustments for materials, textures, and geometry.
    • Improves over time with community feedback.

Automated Setup

Materials

PF2B automatically sets up additional textures from PlantFactory that are not included in the .fbx file (the exchange format between PlantFactory and Blender) but exist in the texture folder. These include:

  • Roughness Textures
  • Back Textures (Base Color & Normal)
  • Translucency Textures

Since this process relies on texture names, PF2B uses logic-based matching to identify them. This works well in 99% of cases, but exceptions occur if textures do not follow a consistent naming scheme.

For successful automatic setup, textures should contain recognizable keywords:

  • Roughness Textures → contain "rough".
  • Back Textures → contain "back", along with "color" or "normal".
  • Translucency Textures → contain "translucency" or "backlight".

Additionally, materials inside PlantFactory should include a keyword that indicates the type of material they represent. Recognized keywords include terms such as leaf, bark, flower, fruit, and other variants. Including these keywords helps the addon correctly identify and process materials during import. Depending on the identification, a different shader is assigned to the material that is best suited for its purpose. Materials that are not recognized or do not fall into the above categories are assigned a generic all-purpose shader. For details about the available shaders, see the shaders section under the workflow section.

If you suspect missing textures due to inconsistent naming, refer to the Plant Fixes System section below for further details. That section explains how PF2B corrects common issues, and you can also find troubleshooting steps in the FAQ: My plant materials look off. What can I do?.

Plant Fixes System

The Plant Fixes System is an automated compatibility layer designed to correct issues that may arise when importing plants.

Please note that the Plant Fixes System is only active when using the "Browse Via Blender" mode and is not applied when using the "Browse via PlantFactory" mode.

Automated Adjustments for Common Issues

  • Uses a database of known issues to fix material, texture, or geometry problems. To view the database, check the 'Plant Fixes' section in the preferences.
  • Adjustments include:
    • Connecting, disconnecting, or remapping textures to the correct material sockets.
    • Modifying material socket values.
    • Adjusting geometry, such as scaling or applying transformations, to ensure correct proportions.
    • Applying other custom fixes as needed based on plant-specific issues.

Community-Driven Compatibility Improvements

  • The Plant Fixes System evolves over time based on user reports.
  • If you encounter an issue, report it!
  • Future imports of the same plant will be automatically corrected.

Summary

The Plant Fixes System ensures better out-of-the-box compatibility for imported plants by automatically applying known fixes. With more community feedback, seamless material and texture configurations improve over time.

Contributing

If you find a plant that isn’t importing correctly, please report it! The more reports received, the better the system becomes. For help getting started with finding what the issue might be, check out the FAQ: My plant materials look off. What can I do?, which also includes information on how to report it.