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Introduction to Forest Pack 9

We're excited to announce ForestPack 9, which introduces many powerful new features and handy improvements, official support for 3ds Max 2025, and the debut of the highly anticipated ForestIvy plugin, a brand new plugin for creating procedural climbing plants in 3ds Max.

Check out the video below for an overview of the new features and read on for a more detailed list of the most noteworthy improvements!

ForestIvy: A Revolutionary Tool for Climbing Plants​

ForestPack 9 brings you ForestIvy, ITOOSOFT's most recent new plugin that aims to simplify the creation of realistic climbing plants quickly while retaining the kind of control demanded by artists (and their clients!). Here's a summary of what ForestIvy offers:

  • 30 High-Quality Presets: Choose from 30 presets created with high-resolution leaf scans for maximum realism. These are great for use straight out of the box, or quickly modify them using easy-to-understand parameters, or as a springboard for your own creations.
  • Customizable Library Browser: Easily create, manage, and add your own presets to the library with just a few clicks.
  • Super-Fast Multithreaded Algorithm: Benefit from instant feedback with our custom multithreaded algorithm. In ForestIvy there is no need to wait for growth simulations.
  • Hybrid Drawing and Algorithmic Growth: Combine artistic control with procedural growth to achieve natural, lifelike results. A simple parameter controls the blend between hand-drawn and algorithmic growth.
  • Advanced Leaf Controls: Tailor your plants using various growth patterns, heliotropism, and leaf size adjustments based on branch age.
  • Multi-Layered Growth Options: Add complexity by layering leaves, flowers, berries, and more, to recreate nearly any type of climbing plant.
  • Surface-Independent Growth: Create basic bushes and shrubs without requiring a surface, offering greater flexibility in plant creation.
  • Efficient Rendering: Render thousands of high-poly leaves effortlessly with viewport and render time instancing. On release, this is supported by Arnold and V-Ray CPU, but other renderers should add support soon.

It doesn't end there; ForestPack's scattering plugin has also seen some useful quality of life improvements, including:

Distribution Map improvements​

ForestPack 9 introduces improved use of mapping channels for the Distribution Map, which is no longer limited to a single mapping channel. Now, you can use multiple Map Channels to lay out your distribution maps that don't affect the coordinates used for texturing the surface itself.

Randomize Stacked and Separate Sub-Splines​

The Randomize Stacked feature has been moved to the Areas rollout and now supports stacked splines as well as surfaces. When combined with the new Separate Sub-splines option, each sub-spline is treated as a separate area, allowing for more realistic randomizationcand natural distributions across stacked scenes like building interiors and balconies.

Convert Geometry List to ForestSet Objects​

A new option in Forest Pack 9 allows you to move items from the Geometry List directly to ForestSet objects. This feature greatly simplifies the addition of ForestSet into your workflow, making it easier to manage and organize your scatter objects and set up clusters using items imported from the library.

New Rollouts Order for a Streamlined UI​

We've reorganized the rollouts in ForestPack 9 to create a more logical and user-friendly interface. The most frequently used settings are now grouped together at the top, saving endless scrolling up and down through the user interface. Also included is a redesigned toolbar with clearer, more recognizable icons so you can activate your favorite tools at a glance.

Point-Cloud Mode Optimization​

The new point-cloud mode in Forest Pack 9 fixes the point density for all scattered objects, regardless of their size, and updates the GPU only when a Forest object is modified. This optimization dramatically improves viewport performance, particularly for complex scenes with dense scatter distributions.

Updated Library Browser​

The Library Browser has been improved, with better performance when loading and resizing thumbnails, as well as an added icon for easier navigation.

Edge Mode for V-Ray Proxies​

Forest Pack 9 improves support for V-Ray proxies, particularly in Edge Mode. This requires the proxy preview mode to be set to the full mesh, and it is compatible with recent versions of V-Ray in CPU mode only.

Improved Memory Management​

Rendering large scenes with animated objects is now more efficient thanks to optimized memory usage. Forest Pack 9 limits animated sample storage to 10 GB, preventing memory from running out during long renders. This limit can be adjusted in the `forestpack.ini` file if needed.

Improved Camera Clipping​

Improvements to the behavior of Display Max Items during camera clipping ensure better stability and performance. These improvements make it easier to manage large scenes without sacrificing render quality.

Many more improvements and fixes are included, to see a full list, visit the release notes section in our documentation.