Forest Pack 5.0.5

We are delighted to announce the release of Forest Pack 5 with a host of brand-new features and fixes to improve speed, increase usability and make the plugin more flexible than ever. For a taste of what's new, check out the comprehensive release notes and demo reel below.

New Features​

• Added support for V-Ray 3.3

  • Forest Pack 5 benefits of the render performance improvements of V-Ray 3.2 and greater. In our tests speed gains were between 40% to 100% depending on the scene.
  • V-Ray 1.5 and 3.0 are no longer supported. Currently supported V-Ray versions are 2.x, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3.
  • Added a toolbar with shortcuts to: add FP object, add Forest LOD, Forest Tools and Forest Lister.

  Forest Pack 3d max bar

• Added a new Forest Lister

  Forest Pack listener window

  • This new tool simplifies the management of scenes that contain multiple Forest Pack objects.
  • It comprises a simplified interface allowing you to rename, enable/disable, hide/unhide, and select Forest objects, display useful information, and speed up editing properties.
  • For more details see the documentation.

• Forest Effects

  Forest Pack effects

  • This new feature lets you to extend the functionality of Forest Pack by adding limitless possibilities for animation, random transform, colouring, etc.
  • Similar to a scripting engine, it's based on mathematical expressions which are applied to the Forest items.
  • Effects can be loaded from a from a library, importing them from individual files, or creating your own using expressions.
  • Exportable parameters and references are allowed, letting you to create an easy interface for end users.
  • See the documentation for full reference and examples.

• Added Areas->Edge mode for Mental Ray and Corona renderer.

  Forest Pack Edge mode

  • These renderers require to use "Forest Edge" (a new procedural texture map) in the opacity slot of ALL materials used by the Forest Object.
  • Forest Edge has no effect when used with other render engines.
  • Added support for "Forest Edge" in the Material Optimizer, so it can be applied with a single click in your scene or material library

• Distribution->Diversity Map and Clusters now recognize multiple models with the same color ID, handling them as a group with their own Probability values.

  • To keep compatibility with existing scenes, this feature is applied only on new FP objects.
  • This feature is not compatible with Areas->Select models. In this case, the previous behaviour is applied (using only the first color ID match).

• Added new presets: Mulch and Rugs.

  Library Rugs

• Added support for V-Ray motion blur and velocity channel with animated objects (both proxies and meshes).

• Added "Render quality" option to the library presets. Enables you to select simplified materials for faster render times.

  • Currently available only for V-Ray materials.
  • It works by modifying standard materials using Maxscript. For example, in V-Ray it replaces VRay2sidedMtl by VRayMtl.
  • You can add your own materials procedures by editing the function "updateLibMaterial" in forestlib.ms. Please ask us on the forum for more details.

• Added copyMaterialFromObjects parameter to forestpack.ini. Set it to zero to avoid that material is copied to Geometry->Material when picking Custom Objects.

  note

  forestpack.ini can be found at C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\[max version]\ENU\en-US\plugcfg folder

• Areas->Falloff global parameters and Transform->Probability curves are imported from library presets.

• Added Maxwell materials for Lawns, Leaves, Meadows and Stones presets.

Improvements​

• Library presets can use nested Forest objects, but with several restrictions:
  • Nested objects must use only area splines, not surfaces or exclusion objects.
  • Be sure there are no duplicate names in custom objects or areas.
• Auto generated materials are optimized, removing unused and duplicated materials. This is particularly useful for nested Forest objects.
  • If your materials require the previous behaviour, this feature can be disabled by setting optimizeAutomaterial=0 in forestpack.ini
• Distribution->Max.Density range is raised to 999.
• All scattering limits (Distribution->Max.Density, Display->Max Items/Faces) can be disabled by setting the value to zero.
• Default Distribution Map is changed to "dense".
• Optimize Materials automatically replaces "Normal Bump" maps with VRayNormalMap.
• Improved memory usage rendering animations with Mental Ray.
• Max 9 to 2009 are not longer supported. Minimum version supported is Max 2010.

Fixes​

• Fixed Forest Color map names in Slate Editor.
• ForestEdge's opacity texture is applied correctly in Corona Renderer.
• Fixed distribution on Cluster using multiple items with same Color ID (new feature in FP 5, but bugged in previous version).
• Fixed 'Zoom extent' behaviour with selected items in Custom Edit mode.
• Fixed: Forest LOD using Look-At target doesn't work without a camera assigned.
• Fixed: Distribution->Collision->Radius affects to Edge mode, even with collision checking disabled.
• Fixed continuous rebuild when using nested Forests with "Consolidate Materials" off.
• Fixed crash with VRayClipper.
• Improved hit-test viewport performance for mesh modes.
• Fixed Mental Ray error using Animation->Frame from Map.
• Fixed random crashing bug rendering with Mental Ray in Max 2016.
• Fixed solid color screen after cancelling a Corona render.
• Fixed crash when navigating in viewport while Corona is rendering.
• Fixed crash using Corona interactive with Forest Color.
• Fixed duplicated IDs on Geometry list with Copy/Paste operations.
• Geometry List->Copy/Paste now copies the color ID correctly.
• Fixed bug with Areas->Object exclude->Top limit.