Beautiful, whimsical, easy-to-use, fun, and specialized all fail to adequately describe this unique, inexpensive 3D software called Groboto. Reality has no place in the Groboto universe. The product’s name is a contraction of Grow and Robot which is fundamentally how the software does its magic when creating fantastical 3D arrays of stunning beauty. You enable and combine a wide range of automatic software robots and then control where they begin growing your 3D world with point and click simplicity.
Meats Meier used Groboto for SIGGRAPH 2008 to create an other-worldly headdress for his “Animation Mother”. While Groboto can be used for individual objects, it excels at creating fantastical enviroscapes.
Long standing on the fringe of 3D, this software has been a bit of footnote in the “pro” 3D arena because it doesn’t play by the normal 3D rules of swiss army knife utility - and it makes no apologies for that myopic approach. However, Groboto received a new air of 3D professional legitimacy when famed 3D artist Meats Meier used it to create the thematic art for the world acclaimed computer animation festival and conference, SIGGRAPH 2008. Named “Animation Mother,” the artwork integrated Groboto’s artful creations into a character that was then animated as well as used to create remarkable static imagery.
Image courtesy Darrel Anderson - Braid Art Labs.
Ease of Use
Groboto is easy to use. But you can’t jump into it without spending a little time with the documentation - even if you are fluent in multiple 3D software packages. This isn’t to say that Groboto has a bad or inefficient interface. Quite the contrary. The how’s and why’s of the Groboto tool set simply need to be laid out differently than “normal” 3D software. As such, a quick skimming of the excellent documentation for about 10 minutes is required.
