Review of Spiralgraphics Genetica 2Pro

Genetica 2 Pro is a seamless texture and tile creation editor that is node based giving the user tremendous flexibility. It's geared toward professional 3D artists. It has more than 500 finished texture presets with tremendous variations possible which this review will demonstrate. This review will discuss Genetica 2 Pro, but Spiralgraphics also has a Standard edition.

Since this is the first review I have done of this product, I will discuss features in general and highlight the new ones. Firstly, Genetica 2 Pro comes with a sequential group of easy to follow tutorials. As stated in the first paragraph, Genetica 2 is based on editing nodes. The first node that appeared as I started with tutorial #1 was the group node.

When the Edit button was clicked, many more nodes appeared.

One then can make changes to the various nodes, for example, the BCL node.

Lab nodes have been added to Genetica 2. These can perform powerful tasks and have many more options than do regular nodes. Below is a simple example of an original texture with the Substance node expanded.

And next is an example of rendered modifications. The number of modifications I could have made using this one preset were astronomical and incredibly easy to do. In addition, I have just touched the surface of the program.

There is also a whole library of Lab Nodes that can be inserted into structures of Lab Nodes. For example, in one of their tutorials, I inserted the Weather Lab between the Substance Lab and the Sharpen Lab. Each of these Labs has options. I think the trend is clear. These Lab Nodes provide both direction and choice in creating these textures and tiles.

To the left, is a list of the different categories of presets.

There are a number of very interesting options available such as using a batch process to turn textures into thumbnails for web sites, extracting bump channels for use in 3D applications, and

creating volumetric data - atmospheric textures with transparency data included.

One can work with preset tiles, such as wood floors or whimsical tiles such as the ones below.

The examples are endless, but these are two more textures that I really liked.

This is a really interesting program for building textures. It is different from others that I have used and seems to have more options, possibilities, and more control to create unique textures.

Since many people use textures for 3D projects, I thought I would show some of the presets, which are just starting points, of a popular category - ground textures.

To illustrate once again, the number of customizable options available, I thought I would present a small texture tree.

Genetica 2 Standard is $129 USD for a single license and Genetica 2 Pro is $399 USD for a single license. Both programs are downloadable and demos are available from Spiralgraphics.biz. . The system requirements are:

Windows 2000/XP
Pentium III 450 MHz
256 MB Memory
15 MB Hard Disk Space

There also is a forum at: http://www.spiralforums.biz/

I highly recommend this program. While I normally do not use texture programs very much, I know I will use this one not only for creating background and 3D textures, but for use in designs as well.