Ivy.Pro - ZBrush Plugin  

ivy.pro:

• Ivy.Pro is a Plugin for ZBrush  that generates Ivy or other climbing plants on top of a polygon mesh.
• There are many variables to play with but it might be hard to understand what each of the sliders do to control the plant growth, leaves orientation, forces etc… The intention was to make it easy to use without paying too much attention to the settings panel. Loading presets and maybe tweaking a couple of things, like the amount of branches or the overall scale, should be enough to get good results.
•  If you don´t get too intimidated by the settings panel you can create your own species and model your own custom leaves or flowers.
•  You can also export just the data relative to transformations (rotation, scale and position) in case you want to use instances in other 3D software or Game Engines that supports it. You will have to write your own importer...
• I will add a importer for Blender in the future and release it together with a Blender Add-0n.
• In Blender the leaves are simply instantiated from collections while the ZBrush version doesn’t use instances. A new SubTool is added  for every leaf type but it’s just plain geometry so meshes can get quite heavy.
•  In the ZBrush version you can generate a zsphere branching structure with no leaves associated with it.

Installation:

• Plugins in ZBrush don't need to be permanently installed in order to use them. Simply unzip IvyPro.zip to your preferred folder and run the plugin from that location.
• Most likely ZBrush will be the app associated with the ZSC file extension so loading the plugin should be as simple as clicking on the ZSC file. ZBrush will launch  with the plugin loaded in the Plugin subpalette and ready to use for the session. You can also load scripts directly from the ZScript Sub Palette.
• To install the plugin, so it's loaded every time ZBrush launches, just move the IvyPro.zsc file and the IvyData folder to "Your Installation Folder" \ ZBrush 2019 \ ZStartup \ ZPlugs64 \ .
• Ivy.pro needs Microsoft VC++ redistributables. Chances are they are already installed in your PC but, if they are not, just unzip  and run vc_redist.x64 to install the packages.
• This plugin works on a mac with Catalina or newer OS. So it might not work for you.

 ZBrush 2023 Compatibility

• Issue Fixed: The plugin previously faced crashes with ZBrush 2023 due to modifications in the GoZ file format.
• I've updated the plugin to address this, ensuring our software now seamlessly interacts with ZBrush 2023 without crashes.
• Added in 1.5 Release, I made a simple installation zip file that should work for ZB2023, ZB2022 in Windows and MacOS with apple silicon chips. 
• For Mac Users, first time you run this plugin you might encounter error messages because it uses 3 unsigned libraries you have to grant access to those libraries one by one under the Privacy and security settings. These libraries are ZFileUtils.lib ExtraUtils.lib and FiberMeshPlus.lib
• 1.6 added for ZB2023 fixed an issue in MacOS in apple silicon.