Forest Pack Lite/Pro 3.4 released

[Itoosoft]

Hi,

We have released a new version of our plugin Forest Pack

Now includes VRay 2.0 support, and many new features as: Points-cloud display mode, distribution over multiple surfaces, rotate and scale maps, density and scale fallof curves by altitude, improved scattering speed and more. You can see all changes here:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forestpack/r...ease_notes.php

Forest Lite 3.4, the free version of the plugin is also available to download in our website.

[trick]

Incredible release

[InTercepto]

Carlos these updates look amazing. We, at Blur, use it on almost every project. It saved me a lot of time on Knights Contract trailer when I had to do all those massive instancing of corn and grass. Great plugin and in combination with VRay it's just so impressive!

[cecofuli]

Carlos,
very nice update. Just a suggestion:
Make some good video to explain the power of Forest Pro

[Itoosoft]

Carlos these updates look amazing. We, at Blur, use it on almost every project. It saved me a lot of time on Knights Contract trailer when I had to do all those massive instancing of corn and grass. Great plugin and in combination with VRay it's just so impressive!

That's great ! I know the trailer from the latest Tokyo Game Show, but i didn't know that Forest was used for it. Congrats for the video, it looks really impressive.

Carlos,
very nice update. Just a suggestion:
Make some good video to explain the power of Forest Pro

Yes, i know that we need more videos and tutorials. We will work on that.

[Pixelab]

That's great news. I love your soft !

I have a question, I'm somehow confused, but is it possible to map trees on vertical surfaces now ? and on a "ceiling"? This was an issue that prevented me to use Forest for green walls on a project this summer.

[Itoosoft]

In the current version it can be done using Tree Editor->Creation Tools->Distribute by Area, but this feature is not interactive and works only in Forest Pro:

http://beta/forestpack/reference/refedition.php

For the next release, we will add scattering by UV coordinates, so will be possible to use any 3D surface in the main workflow.

[peterguthrie]

I've been trying forest pro out today, having bought it on a whim!

Everything works very well, I especially like the UI over multiscatter, just one thing really that bugs me: The random tint feature isnt as flexible as the multiscatter equivalent. Nesting your material inside a forest material is a hassle, i would prefer if forest took the 2d map approach so I can do things like put it inside a vraycomptex map.

I was just wondering if there might be some way of taking advantage of the new vraymultisubtexmap? Could forest assign random object ID's to instances, then I guess it would work.

thanks!

[Itoosoft]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for purchasing our software, i hope you find it useful.

I've been trying forest pro out today, having bought it on a whim!

Everything works very well, I especially like the UI over multiscatter, just one thing really that bugs me: The random tint feature isnt as flexible as the multiscatter equivalent. Nesting your material inside a forest material is a hassle, i would prefer if forest took the 2d map approach so I can do things like put it inside a vraycomptex map.

I was just wondering if there might be some way of taking advantage of the new vraymultisubtexmap? Could forest assign random object ID's to instances, then I guess it would work.

We use the material approach because it works better for billboards (Forest was originally designed for 2D plants), and Forest Material is also required for other operations, as the fake shadows.

But we will take a look to the VrayMultiSubTex map. I think it can be done, if not a 2D map version of Forest Material (Forest Texture ?) would a nice new feature as well.

Thanks for your suggestions !

[peterguthrie]

Thanks Carlos! That would be brilliant if you could implement something like that. As a 2d map, there are lots of possibilities, such as using it to vary reflections as well as diffuse colour, and using it to mix between textures, and as I mentioned before, within a vraycomptex.

I'll try and come up with more suggestions once I get more familiar with it.

[peterguthrie]

(double post)

[BBB3]

May I second this?

I've also been looking at Forrest lately (which I've had for some time and rarely used) because of instability issues with MultiScatter.

Having played with it again, I must admit I regret not having incorporated in my workflow earlier as it would have prevented a number of headaches. And like Peter, the one thing that I thought I was missing was the possibility to tweak proxy colours and materials using a bitmap, which I feel is pretty much a must, certainly in the case of grass and ground cover.

[Itoosoft]

And like Peter, the one thing that I thought I was missing was the possibility to tweak proxy colours and materials using a bitmap...

Only for clarify: do you want to use random tint in a texture map, as Peter suggested, or simply tweak the colours of Forest items using a map ?

This last feature is already included in Forest. The difference is that it requires Forest Material (a Material plugin), instead a Texture map:

[peterguthrie]

Can you clear one thing up for me Carlos? Does the random tint replace the diffuse colour, or tint it in some way? To me, the word tint suggested it takes the base material, be it a texture or solid colour and mixes it with the tint colour. If so, how is this mixing done?

[Itoosoft]

Can you clear one thing up for me Carlos? Does the random tint replace the diffuse colour, or tint it in some way? To me, the word tint suggested it takes the base material, be it a texture or solid colour and mixes it with the tint colour. If so, how is this mixing done?

Yes, it modifies the output of the base material, not only the diffuse colour. The tint colour is multiplied by a random factor (defined by Color Tint->Range), and combined with the HUE value of the material.

To get the best results in nature scenes, we suggest to use low-saturated tint colours, to get slightly variations of the base material. For those scenes that requires strong tint variations (cars in a parking, for example), is better to use grayscale colours as base material.