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Forest Pack 9

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ForestPack 9 is out now, introducing the brand new ForestIvy plugin for creating climbing plants alongside many more useful new features and improvments.

New Features​

  • Added ForestIvy, a new plugin for generating ivy and many other types of climbing plants. Features include:
    • 30 presets with high quality leaf scans
    • Library browser to create and manage your own presets
    • Custom presets can be added to the library from the scene in a couple of clicks.
    • Brand new and bespoke super-fast multithreaded algorithm, no need to wait for growth - get instant feedback
    • Combines hand drawing for artistic control combined with algorithmic growth for realism.
    • Advanced leaf controls including several different growth patterns and heliotropism
    • Leaf size based on branch age
    • Ability to add layers of items growing on the stem for example leafs, flowers, berries etc.
    • Use Forest Colour to randomize leaf textures
    • Can be used without a surface for basic bushes and shrubs
    • Intuitive controls for creating your own climbing plants
    • Gravity and ground culling to make it possible to creating hanging plants and vines
    • Viewport and render time instancing for effortlessly rendering hundreds of thousands of high poly assets (currently available for Arnold and V-Ray CPU)
  • New Display->Point-cloud mode, more optimized for recent 3DS Max versions and modern GPUs (only Max 2017 and above).
    • In classic point-cloud mode, the density of points was proportional to the distance of each Forest item to the camera which required a full redraw with each change on the viewport, triggering multiple updates to the GPU.
    • With the new mode, the density of points is fixed (all Forest items have the same number of points), and the GPU is updated only when a Forest object is modified. In this way, the point-cloud is cached most of the time in the GPU, and doesn't need to be updated. This is much faster and more efficient.
    • By default each Forest object is drawn using 250k points. As before, density can be changed using Display->Global/Local Density.
    • We included several parameters in the configuration file (forestpack.ini) for fine tuning:
      • cloudPointsByObject (default: 250000): number of points of each Forest object. Setting it to 0, reverts to the classic Point-cloud mode.
      • cloudHitTestMaxPoints (default: 1000): maximum number of points used for hit-testing (to select items on viewport). You can reduce it, to improve hit-testing performance.
      • cloudSubSelDensity (default: 300): percent of points for selected items on Custom Edit mode.
      • cloudSubUnselDensity (default: 100): percent of points for unselected items on Custom Edit mode.
    • For maximum performance, we recommend that you don't use points cloud with features that trigger a rebuild when the viewport changes. For example Camera->Enable on Viewport.

Improvements​

  • Added support of Edge Mode for V-Ray proxies.
    • To use it, you must set proxy preview mode to whole full mesh.
    • When using this mode, proxy is used just as a container of the geometry. Some parameters or features of the proxy object may have no effect.
    • It requires a recent V-Ray version (tested with V-Ray 6), and is compatible with CPU mode only.
  • Removed several pop ups and suggestions (such as Enable Camera Limits, Change to Display Proxy mode, etc.)
  • Improved memory management when rendering animated objects.
    • Previously all animated samples were stored in memory while rendering. This would exhaust the available memory when rendering heavy objects in long animations.
    • Now old animated samples are deleted while rendering, keeping a limit of 10 gigabytes of memory for all samples of Forest objects.
    • This limit can be modified with samplesCacheLimit in forestpack.ini. The value is defined in kilobytes. Setting it to zero disables the limit.
  • Several improvements to the process of loading and resizing thumbnails in the Library Browser.
  • Improved performance of Library Browser when loading multiple items using the same material library.
  • Added icon to Library Browser.
  • Distribution->Density->Draw Gizmo Corners is disabled by default.
  • Improved use of mapping channels with Distribution Map:
    • With Surface XY mode, Map Channel is no longer needed. The distribution map is evaluated for all channels of the surface.
    • Surface UV mode is no longer limited to map channel 1. But multiple channels are not supported.
  • Added option to move items from Geometry List to a ForestSet object.
    • To use it, select items and use right click->Move to ForestSet.
  • Randomize Stacked is moved from Surfaces to the Areas rollout.
    • This option works also with stacked splines, not only surfaces.
  • Added Areas->Separate Sub-splines.
    • When enabled, each sub-spline is handled as a separate Area, ignoring the hierarchy within the spline.
    • Use it combined with Randomize Stacked to create randomized distributions when using stacked splines.
  • Default rollups order is changed to a more logical way: Geometry, Distribution, Areas, Surfaces, Transform, Items Editor, Camera, Material, Effects, Animation, Shadows, Display, General, About.
    • Please note if you changed the default rollup order in 3DS Max at some time, that is stored permanently in the user's configuration (at C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\Local\\Autodesk\\3dsmax\\\\ENU\\en-US\\UI\\RollupOrder.cfg)
  • Improved behaviour of Display->Max.Items when using Camera clipping.
  • Improved stability with Corona Interactive Render and Forest Color.
  • Display->Wireframe and Opacity options are removed.
    • These are still available from Maxscript if you need them (wireframe and opacity parameters).

Fixes​

  • Fixed crash using Forest object in Custom Edit mode as excluded area.
  • Fixed: ForestSet is not properly handled when cleaning the library layer from unused objects.
  • Fixed: Area->Falloff is not computed correctly if General->Num.Threads is zero.
  • Fixed: Material library is not properly loaded from Library Browser for some items.
  • Fixed crash on 3DS Max close if Library Browser is opened without using any Forest object.
  • Fixed: modifying item after loading from Library Browser affects properties of a different item.
  • Fixed: Library Browser->Paths->Modify replaces paths backlashes (\\) by slashes (/).
    • Please note this is a cosmetic issue only. Forest internally accepts both types of slashes, converting them when needed.
  • Fixed: Library item attributes textColor and textBoxcolor have no effect.
    • For compatibility reasons, these attributes are applied only when value is different from '#000000'.
  • Fixed several issues moving/copying catalogs (Drag & Drop) in the Library Browser.
  • Fixed: Library Browser dialog has no icon.
  • Fixed: Distribution->Path->In Vertex Positions also adds items at interpolation steps.
  • Fixed: Randomization of Particle Flow items is not consistent when using multiple events.
    • This fix may change randomization of particle scenes created with previous Forest versions.
  • Fixed crash rendering Alembic proxies with motion blur in V-Ray.
  • Fixed rare crash loading Distribution Maps file ("index.dat").
  • Fixed: Forest_pro.ForestPack.exportData interface doesn't work, returning always error code 2.
  • Fixed incorrect scale/rotate values from Forest Tools->Exporter.