What's New in Forest Pack 6
In our most recent update for Forest Pack, our aim was to balance simplicity for daily tasks with new features that offer increased power and flexibility for more complex projects. This is a significant update that brings new tools into the Forest Pack ecosystem to make its parametric workflow even more user-friendly and versatile.
Enhanced User Interface Customisation
The user interface in Forest Pack has been updated to be more adaptive to individual work styles. The interface now offers greater customisation options that help you declutter your workspace. For example, users can choose to only display the rollouts they find useful by toggling them on or off via a new settings option. Additionally, advanced users will find an option to disable warning pop-ups. All these settings are saved, so you won't need to configure them each time you launch the program. Small yet impactful changes like resizable lists and tooltip enhancements for items with long names are also included.
Improved Parametric Distribution
The system for parametric distribution has been revamped for better speed and ease of editing. Newly added features like the path option enable users to distribute objects along a spline. The interactive reference mode lets you attach items to thousands of objects. Another addition is the ability to place objects on particles, which introduces Forest Pack to a myriad of new workflows.
Seamless Content Management with Update Manager
This update is the first to include iToosoft's Update Manager. This system is designed to streamline the process of downloading and managing presets, libraries, and effects. With the Update Manager, users can choose to download only the elements they need, enabling us to release new content independently of the plugin updates. This content includes a free high-quality tree pack with 11 species ready to be used in your renders.
Extended Functionality with Forest Effects
Forest Effects are small expressions that can expand the capabilities of Forest Pack. In this update, the entire effects system has been overhauled to support a wider array of features including maps, curves, particle age and speed. Users can also layer multiple Forest Effects to achieve more complex outcomes. This opens up creative avenues for users to create their own effects and share them easily.
Performance and Compatibility Improvements
Compatibility and performance have also been addressed in this release. Forest Pack and RailClone are now both compatible with Arnold, and 3ds Max 2019 support has been added. Large-scale scattering performance has improved significantly, and stability enhancements have been implemented for those working with V-Ray IPR mode. A Lite version of this release remains freely available for commercial use.
Additional Updates and Resources
Other smaller changes include new distribution modes like Path, Reference, and Particle Flow, each offering unique ways to control your scatters. The update also comes with 30 new sample effects and an abundance of improvements and fixes. For a comprehensive list of all the new features and updates, you can consult the release notes.