What's the best way to breed entirely new plants that don’t look like anything else?

▪        Do this. For your first breeding generation, choose high variation. Keep re-breeding the same plant until you get a good starting point. Then switch to medium or low variation to fine-tune the new plant.

I dragged a plant from the main window to the breeder and it fell out of the drawing!

▪        When you drag a plant from the main window drawing area to the breeder or time series window, you must use Control-Shift-drag instead of a regular drag so the plant doesn’t move. Or you can drag from the plant list on the main window instead.

I dragged a plant from the main window (or time series window) to the breeder, but PlantStudio didn't breed the plant.

▪        Dragging a plant from the main window to the breeder does NOT breed the plant. It replaces a plant in the breeder with a copy of the main window plant, and you can then breed from the plant in the breeder. To breed a plant from the main window, choose Breed from the Plant menu.

I was breeding plants, and they all disappeared. Now I'm getting all blank squares.

▪        There are a few possibilities. 

▪        First, check the age of breeder plants (choose More Options from the breeder Options menu, then look at the box labeled Age of breeder plants). If this age percentage is low, you might not be able to see plants that are growing very slowly. Set the age percent to 100% and see if you can see plants. 

▪        If that doesn’t work, it probably means that some parameters are so extreme that the plants can no longer draw, or are drawing so small you can’t see them. Delete the plants you can’t see (or breed over them) and try breeding from a plant you can see.

▪        If this continues to happen, try using a smaller amount of breeding variation.

Why is it that when I'm breeding some generations draw very quickly and others seem to take forever? 

▪        That's because some bred plants have a huge number of plant parts (internodes, leaves, etc). Usually when a plant takes a long time to draw it's very branched. The more branched the parent plant, the more branched some of its offspring will be. There is a cutoff point to stop plants from branching out of control in the breeder; you can reduce this and thus reduce the size of highly-branched parts. Choose More Options from the breeder Options menu, then reduce the number labeled Maximum parts per breeder plant.

▪        You can also reduce the amount of branching in breeder plants by overriding the bounds on the parameter [Meristems: Branching index]. The default bounds are zero to 100; placing an override in your settings file to bound this parameter at fifty will reduce excess branching. See the help system for instructions on overriding bounds in the settings file. 

I was breeding plants and I dragged a plant into the main window, but part of it disappeared!

▪        Plants in the main window are drawn transparently (if you are using plant bitmaps) by treating one color as transparent. You can set this color in the Preferences dialog. However, breeder plants are not drawn transparently. So for example, if you set the transparent color to blue, then you breed a plant that has some of that exact shade of blue, then you drag the plant to the main window, the blue parts will seem to disappear. To avoid this, try to keep the transparent color the same color as the background color unless you have a specific reason for setting it to some other color. 

Why am I getting all black plants in the breeder?

▪        You are probably mutating colors and are using high breeding variation. With these settings, if your parent plants have dark colors the offspring can end up all the way into pure black. But it’s random, so don’t worry, just keep breeding and some other colors should turn up.

PlantStudio crashed while I was using the breeder.

▪         We have seen this happen, but only very rarely. Making lots of new plants in the breeder can use up a LOT of memory, which puts lots of stress on your system. If you see this happen, there are two things you can do:

▪        Choose More Options from the breeder Options menu, and reduce the number labeled Maximum breeder generations. This will clear old generations out of the breeder as you create new ones.

▪        Choose More Options from the breeder Options menu, and reduce the number labeled Maximum parts per breeder plant. This will keep any one breeder plant from taking up too much memory. 

Can I select more than one plant in the time series window?

▪        No. If you want to drag or copy all the plants to the main window, you have to drag or copy them one at a time.

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