Mastering The L-system language.
F,f, +; - &,^; ! .... What do you mean? Learn all the L-system commands, not as a painful list to remember like your irregular verbs, but learn how they're  most commonly used. Learn the difference between node rewriting and edge-rewriting. Learn about parametric l-systems, stochastic l-systems, learn how to use global variables, placeholders, conditional statements, expressions.

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Pen and Paper / Application
Unlike in some other fields, L-system creation and plant modeling often require than you take you time to represent your vegetable to find its formula using a pen and a paper.  We also help the user to find its way and to explain L-systems concepts with a large number of schematics on the whiteboard. As if you were in classroom with a real teacher.

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Tree Models
L-system without some elementary notions of botany is like knowing some words without speaking the language. We introduce you to simple yet very realistic models of tree ( both coniferous and deciduous), using variables to interactively change the size of the branches, their thickness, the different angles, adding gravity etc. We show you how t o work separately with the leaves to have more control over their size and orientation.

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General Plant model
Botany is an immense field! Up to several millions of different species on earth, not to mention all the imaginary plants you may want to design!! Even restricting ourselves to the main categories, and the more common plant, we need to reduce diversity and to organize morphological description of plants. We give you some methodology to organize your plant description ( whether static or animated ) and help you find its L-system formula, starting with a general depiction of all the botanical events, then adding some timing.

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We show you how to control growth with parameters and counters, and how to have multiple growth phases and flowering sequences with simple formulas.



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Modeling Polygons In L-Systems
Even if L-systems are primarily designed for branches and branching structures, they can also be used for polygon modeling build upon a branched structure.

We teach you how to model plant leaves with l-systems in a way which takes advantage of l-system recursively to create complex-looking growing organs such as dentate slightly bent rose leaves.


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L-System as Control structures
Another use of l-system between polygon modeling and branch modeling is to use l-systems to create the control structure of a Nurbs Surface, allowing complex and yet very precise animation of this nurbs through the use of simple commands and parameters in l-systems.
This is perfectly suitable for petal opening. And here we take you to a more complex example of a multi-lobed banana-tree leaf, where we also use an L-system in conjunction with COPS to create the contour of the plant with a trimming curve.


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Phyllotaxis : The Rose
Phyllotaxis is a botanical term which describes the organization of plant organs like petals, pinecones... in regular spiral for minimal space occupation. We teach you how to create a gorgeous rose flower with multiple petals, animated with l-systems control structures, at different steps of their development using onion-skinning-like display for keyframing.





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The Author
David Gary is 25 years old, french, and has a Bachelor Degree in Pure Mathematics, a Master Degree in Philosophy and is preparing his PhD in the interdisciplinary field of philosophy of mathematics, phenomenology and cognitive sciences. Aside of his studies, he's directed a dozen of short movies and video clips, being a director/video instructor. He began to be a strong CG specialist since a long time using various tools as 3dsmax, Maya, Houdini. He's been a Maya Teacher in a french studio and is now a advocate of Houdini and its procedural paradigm.

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