Answers about early access, licensing, AI, hosting, and subscriptions.
General & Product
Yes. Natsura is designed around Unreal workflows. We support Nanite-ready exports, including Nanite skeletal mesh assembly, and provide an Unreal export wizard for batch exports. We also support Unreal’s dynamic wind systems and Instanced Skinned Meshes (ISKMs). ISKMs are currently experimental and will continue to evolve as Unreal itself evolves.
Our current target is a Natsura 1.0 release around mid-2026. This is a goal, not a promise: we will ship 1.0 when the tool is ready, not just to hit a particular date. In the meantime, we aim to release new early-access builds roughly every couple of months (again, a target, not a guarantee).
Natsura 0.5 is an early-access release: it is being used in production by some teams, but it is not a finished “1.0” product. There are known bugs, missing features, performance issues in some workflows, and gaps in documentation and learning content. It is best suited for early adopters, technical artists, and teams in early phases of a project (pre-production, prototypes, vertical slices), not for late-stage productions that cannot tolerate tool or workflow changes.
Natsura is built inside Houdini rather than bolted onto it. The tools talk directly to SOPs, attributes, VEX, USD, PDG, and your own HDAs, and can plug into layout, FX, scattering, simulation, and world-building as a first-class citizen. This makes Natsura extremely flexible and powerful in the right hands and lets it integrate deeply into existing Houdini pipelines. Long term, our goal is to wrap that power in approachable UX so Natsura becomes the foliage tool of choice for Houdini + Unreal artists.
Natsura is in early access, and the documentation and learning materials are evolving alongside the tools. Some pages are missing or incomplete, and some features have minimal or outdated docs. We are actively expanding tutorials, examples, and parameter tooltips over time. Expect gaps today, and more coverage with each new release.
Licensing & Commercial Use
Yes. Assets you create with Natsura (“Customer Assets”) belong to you. On paid tiers you can sell your trees, foliage, and environments to clients, use them in games or films, and publish them on marketplaces. Apprentice is non-commercial only. You may not sell or share Natsura itself (the tools, HDAs, core graphs, presets, or scripts) in a way that gives others access to the toolkit without their own license.
Yes, in many cases. It is fine to use third-party AI tools alongside Natsura (for layout, design help, content selection, etc.), and to run inference on your own assets. What is restricted is using Natsura itself, or Natsura-generated content, to train or fine-tune AI/ML models – especially models whose job is to generate trees or foliage in place of Natsura. That requires a separate AI Use License and written permission. Please read the EULA for the full rules.
Yes, but not under the standard license. You can always use Natsura inside your own studio or pipeline to deliver assets and worlds to clients, as long as only licensed users run the tools. If you want to build a hosted service (for example, a world-generation or foliage platform where your users press a button and Natsura runs in the background), that requires a custom Studio/Enterprise licensing deal. Contact us to discuss your use case.
Apprentice is free for non-commercial use only. It's intended for learning, experimentation, and personal projects (for example with Houdini Apprentice). If you are doing any paid work, client work, or other commercial projects, you must upgrade to a paid tier (Indie, Pro, Studio, or Enterprise).
Indie: revenue or funding under USD 100,000/year. Pro: USD 100,000–1,000,000/year. Studio: USD 1,000,000/year or more. Enterprise: a custom contract for larger teams, hosted/platform use, or special terms. If you exceed your tier’s threshold, you should upgrade within 30 days.
Natsura uses node-locked licensing. Each seat is tied to one machine at a time and is not intended for concurrent use across multiple computers. You can move a seat to a different machine a limited number of times per year (for example when you upgrade hardware or switch workstations), as described in the EULA. Studio and Enterprise customers can discuss appropriate seat allocations with us.
Yes. For now, Natsura requires online access to the licensing service while you use it. Both subscription and perpetual licenses rely on this online activation and do not support fully offline operation at this time.
Yes. Paid tiers support multiple seats, subject to their caps (Indie/Pro up to 3 seats, Studio up to 6 seats, Enterprise by agreement). When you purchase multiple licenses of the same type, they can be managed together under the same key or account. For larger teams or more complex deployments, please contact us to discuss Studio or Enterprise options.
The Natsura EULA is governed by French law. For business customers, disputes are generally handled by arbitration seated in Paris, France, as described in the EULA. For consumers in the EEA/UK, local consumer law and courts may apply, and nothing in our terms removes your mandatory consumer rights.
Billing & Subscriptions
Pricing depends on your tier (Apprentice, Indie, Pro, Studio, Enterprise) and whether you choose a subscription or perpetual license. For up-to-date prices and seat limits, see the pricing page: https://natsura.com/pricing
Yes. Perpetual licenses are a one-time purchase. You can keep using the version you bought forever, subject to the EULA, even after your upgrade window ends. Perpetuals include updates and bug fixes for a specific major version family (for example, 1.x). During early access only, perpetual buyers get all 0.x and 1.x versions; after that, future perpetuals will follow the usual “one major version + minor updates” model. If you later want a newer major version, you’ll need to buy an upgrade, but your existing version remains usable.
Early Access pricing is discounted (“Early Bird”) for all subscription tiers. Prices will revert to standard rates for all subscribers when we leave Early Access (1.0 release); we’ll notify you 30 days beforehand. Perpetual licenses are one-time purchases and unaffected.
Subscriptions (monthly/annual) give you access to Natsura while the subscription is active and include updates released during that period. Perpetual licenses are a one-time purchase for a specific major version family (for example, 1.x) and include updates and bug fixes for that family. During early access only, perpetual licenses cover all 0.x and 1.x versions.
Yes. Go to your subscriptions page in the dashboard and click “Cancel Subscription” from the action menu. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. No refunds are provided for unused time in the current cycle.
Consumers in applicable regions may have a right to cancel within a limited period if the digital download has not begun. Once download or delivery of digital content starts, the right of withdrawal may be waived under local law. Business purchases are generally non-refundable once delivered. Please see our refund policy and local consumer law for details.
Apprentice users have access to community and self-help resources (Discord, docs, examples) but no guaranteed direct support. Indie and Pro receive standard email support on a commercially reasonable efforts basis. Studio receives priority handling for blocking issues. Enterprise support is defined in the specific contract. We are a small team, so all response times are targets, not strict SLAs.