Tree Dynamics

It would be ideal if we could show things being created... such as flowers popping out of the grass, trees growing from the ground etc to show that the world is being created from nothing.

I've looked at a few routes at simulating growth for models- a model 'growing' from nothing and developing at the same time (so not a simple scale tool to simulate growth). One way of doing this is to use natFXMaya which is used to create lush trees and plants. However, this program is really buggy and I couldn't get it to work unless I bought the full version with customer support. Another possibility is to use tools within Maya to show growth. The only bad thing is that we can't use models we've created ourselves from scratch- they'ld had to be created again using this method.

Maya has a tool built in which will do the job but requires that we use a tree generator rather than creating our own models. The advantage of the tree creator like tool in Maya is that Maya remembers the history of creating the model from scratch so is able to simulate the development of branches, twigs, buds and so on from a simple assigned path for a tree.

I'm new to this so my first test is a mess but is proof that what we're trying to do can be done using Maya tools. These trees can be textured and they've got preset colours so (fingers crossed) this should help make Dan Es life a tad easier :)

Useful Tutorial: http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/maya/flowers/