iToo Software announced today the release of Forest Pack 4.3 Lite and Pro versions. This update adds powerful new features suggested by users, including tools to create level-of-detail models, a new boundary-checking mode to simplify the creation of clearly defined edges for large scatter areas, and the ability to limit distribution using material ID’s.

Forest Pack 4.3 brings Corona Renderer materials to the existing libraries, adds 16 new ready-to-use gravel presets – each in two versions for small or large-scale areas – plus many more features and fixes.

Key Features :

• A new Forest LOD object that allows you to switch billboard, models or materials based on distance from the camera, a custom target, or as a percentage of the screen size.
• Edge boundary checking mode to automate the creation of clean edges, especially when creating grass. Works by removing element sub-objects that fall outside the scatter area’s perimeter. (V-Ray only)
• The ability to limit a scatter to specific polygons using Material IDs when using surfaces.
• Introduced separate controls for Density and Scale Falloff Affect parameters.
• A new XML Data exporter to aid interoperability and integration of Forest Pack into large pipelines.
• 16 new Gravel presets, including detail and large-scale models.
• Materials for Corona Renderer added to existing free libraries.

To help you get up and running with these new features, iToosoft is also releasing two short tutorials :

1. Using Level of Detail demonstrates how to switch scattered items based on their distance from the camera or their size in the render view.

And

2. Boundary Checking Using Edge Mode to show a simplified technique for creating clean edges around large scatters.

The Lite version of this release, freely available to download and use commercially, and full release notes are available now on the iToo Software website.

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Feature image credit goes to The Boundary

Forest Pack 4.3 Pro & Lite Released is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Found this cool looking script today, named vCamhaxor 1.75, over at ScriptSpot. It is essentially a small front-end to the V-Ray physical camera, for faster access to the basic controls.

Requires 3d Studio Max 2008 or above, And V-Ray of course.

“Intended as a DSLR UI for use with V-Ray RT

Usage :

• Press “cam” to create a V-Ray camera from perspective view. right-click to select or match camera to perspective view.
• AF to focus on a surface, when that don`t work, use focus-plane or do it the hard way.
• The compass is meant to heighten the geek factor of the script. By 150 % or so. Right-click for flash.
• Horizontal / Vertical switch sets the frame, like rotating your camera in vertical position. Right-click for square format.
• +/- is the ISO”

Kilad, at ScriptSpot

3D Studio Max Script, vCamhaxor 1.75 is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Had a little play with the new update to the Building Generator script for 3D Studio Max. Works really good and can create nice city landscape with a few clicks of a mouse. The image you see above is the result of a few minutes of modeling and some postwork.

Check out the CGTalk thread for this script too for more information

So far i can see how it can be good for long shots, but getting near to the elements, one can see it’s not up to par with the details.

3D Studio Max Script, Building Generator v0.35 is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

A new version of the Building Generator is out with many new features and improvements. This is a very impressive script and the development of it is really fast and I can see how it can be very useful for me to generate city backdrops for urban visualizations for example.

New features highlights

Custom object support

One can now add custom objects to the wall/door facades. Each custom object added can be easily modified and placed on the facades, by tweaking the settings in the custom object rollouts that appear in the wall/door layer managers. Many custom objects can be added to a façade design as you like, and each custom object has orientation/position/scale offset controls, as well as material and distribution controls.

Preset files improved

They have been re-coded as binary files for faster input/output an are also able to save custom objects and material settings.

Brand new randomization system has been added to Building Generator

Allowing super-quick generation of randomized floor layers, wall layers, door layers and roof layers.
Here is an example of a set of buildings made in conjunction with the randomization system – just by clicking the randomize button!

Building Interiors can now be created with light objects.

Instead of having to fake lights with a texture, you can now generate simple geometry lights on the ceilings of interiors.

Check out the CGTalk thread for this script too for the full new feature list and more information.

3D Studio Max Script, Building Generator v0.7 is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

zwischendrin has released SnowFlow v1.6. It is a 3D Studio Max plugin that creates realistic snow with ease! Apeerantly all you need to do is pick an object and SnowFlow does the snow for you! This come very close to the snow discussion at the GH Challenge Forum – might be a good solution for all those winter scenes in the works.

SnowFlow Bench Scene How-To

SnowFlow v1.6 Features

• self-explaining user interface with integrated help.
• one-click-solution in most standard situations.
• multiple snow methods for different needs.
• advanced settings to get the best out of SnowFlow.
• different reality levels to control object interference.
• presets for auto-settings in common circumstances.
• full control over the calculated mesh.
• system unit check and conversion to achieve full snow details.
• autoTune options for better performance.
• caching system to prevent unnecessary recalculations.
• “SnowPlug” to stick objects into snow surfaces.

Check out SnowFlow v1.6 Website for more information

3d Studio Max Plugin, SnowFlow v1.6 is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

In this how-to article Bertrand describes in detail the way he uses the Floor Generator Script using the GH House model as an example. Check Bertrand’s full GH House making of article for more information about his work.

Back in the old days, I always struggled to create hardwood parquet floors that would work in any situation. Either my texture maps were big enough to cover large expanses of floor without showing visible tiling but they would show some pixelization when zooming on individual floor planks. Or they were detailed enough to be seen up close but did not cover large enough areas, showing repetitive patterns over a certain distance.

Initially, I solved the dilemma by actually modeling my parquets and texturing individual planks, placed at random, instead of an entire floor. But this was a protracted process and it was only really workable when the floors had reasonably simple shapes (basically rectangles).

Then CG-Source came along with the 3ds Max script – Floor Generator, and a plugin – Multi Texture Map. both written by Bercon, aka Jerry Ylilammi of BerconMaps fame that do the work for you, not just faster but better and with a flurry of extra options.

Since these free tools came out, I’ve hardly used anything else, not only for my parquets but also for all sorts of stone or tiled floor materials. I couldn’t live without them.

A side note – Good plank textures are notoriously hard to come by, so once you’ve dowloaded the free tools, do yourself a favour and buy some of CG-Source’s multi-texture maps. They are made to be used with the plugin, they are very high quality, and you’re certain to be using them over and over again.

A great thing about the Floor Generator is that it uses splines to define the area to be covered with parquet. The only restriction is that the splines must be closed (which is logical if you think of it). This means there are no restrictions on how complex the shape of your floor can be. This was a great advantage for the GH House, with its complex floor plan with few right angles. Floor Generator is also pretty intelligent. If you enclose a closed loop within your floor spline, as long as they are both part of the same spline, the script will understand that you want to blow a hole in your parquet, which is great if you have elements, such as concrete pillars (or tree trunks in the case of exterior wood decks), that must go through the floor.

Because I didn’t want to settle on a POV until I had finished texturing the house, I decided to cover the entire floor area of the GH House with parquet. The first step was to select and isolate all the floor elements, convert them to editable polys, and break them into workable bits (Floor Generator can be a bit slow when building very large areas of parquet, so better to split your floor in separate splines – one for each room for instance).

Then, I selected all the outside edges of each of these elements and converted them into splines (Edit Edges ? Create Shape From Selection ? tick “linear”).

Make sure all splines are closed, otherwise Floor Generator will not be able to use the spline as guide. At this stage, I deleted the poly objects, which were no longer needed.

Having selected one of the splines, I ran the Floor Generator script and pressed the “Create” button. A generic floor appeared. I also pressed “Interactive Update” to see my setting changes applied in real time.

The first setting regards the size of the planks. For the length and width, I simply used the number of pixels of one of my plank maps (here 1,500×70 pixels), to make sure they would not be distorted in the image. It’s better if all your planks have the same size, as the maps will be distributed randomly, but the script lets you specify the minimum and maximum length and width of the planks if you want more variation.

The initial floor showed planks that were way out of scale. You can adjust the scale of your parquet by tweaking the “Scale %” value in the “Variation Per Board” section of the script. Here, I found a value of 30 per cent of the map’s scale worked fine. I left all other values at default because I wanted a very neat, new and flat floor. If you’re working on an older floor or some slightly disjointed tiles, the Tilt value works miracles by applying micro-level random rotations to the planks that give some relief to the floor and make it look more realistic as it catches the light.

The following image shows my settings applied to all the spline objects. The only variation I made was to change the “Direction” value, which rotates the floor, to make sure the boards were all aligned with the general orientation of each room.

Now that you have your floor, the next step is material creation. (MultiText.jpg) shows the texture maps I used for my floor (well, just four of perhaps 20 different plank textures), each saved as a separate .jpg image. IMPORTANT: If you are using my settings, make sure your plank or board images are HORIZONTAL.

In the next image you can see an example of Floor Generator material (to be applied to the “FloorObject” created by the script, not to the spline object).

For the diffuse colour, I loaded all my maps into a Multi Texture. By the way, I retained the filtering in this example but it’s never a good idea as it will make your floor look blurry when seen at a grazing angle. Better to tick “None” in the filtering section.

The Multi Texture map lets you apply random variations to your texture. In this case, I just introduced a very slight Gamma variation (of 0.2), so that some boards would appear slightly darker than others. But you can also modulate the hue and the saturation.

The reflection, reflection glossiness and bump maps are all copies of the diffuse map but with Saturation brought down to zero (grayscale) and some variations in the gamma. Here, there is no recipe but only trial and error until your reflections look good. The image also shows my settings for the main floor material.

Do not worry if only one of your selected textures appears in the Max viewport. At render time, the script will load all the images in the Multi Texture map and distribute them randomly.

That’s it. If you’ve followed this to the letter and press render, you should see a beautiful floor appear. You should play with the other values in the script to obtain different looks. In addition to Tilt, you can also slightly rotate the floor boards, change the offset value for the rows, draw a bigger bevel around each plank, or add some space between the planks, etc. You could also make the planks have zero thickness (mainly if your viewport gets too slow or you’re running out of RAM to render).

The following images show what you can achieve with home made floor textures, CG-Source textures, or stone and tile textures.

Using Floor Generator Script by Bertrand Benoit is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Materialwerk has just released BRIX, a new tool for 3ds Max & Maya that offers a solution to working with tiled materials (planks, bricks, tiles, mosaics, stone cladding and more). Bertrand Benoit posted a very informative article about his first steps with BRIX you really should take a look at. You can also see some of Bertrand’s tests below.

My first impression is that BRIX is a very robust and capable plugin. Taking all the content that comes along when you purchase, it is a big time saver too. The 250 EURO price tag seems OK for all this (This is before I fully tested it), but I personally do not like the render node policy. I think the standard license should come with a few render nodes too since most solo artists do have 1 or 2 render slaves this days. Big studios can add the extra for much more nodes anyways.

Check out the BRIX product page for more complete information about the available features. There is also an online catalog showcasing all the ready made textures that comes with it (thinking about this again, the material library alone might be worth it).

Video Tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7llelMSoW8&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWvBWM3hUds&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99vp378QGEI&hd=1

BRIX by Materialwerk is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iCube R&D released a major update to my favorite scattering plugin for 3dsmax – MultiScatter. The new version now includes MultiPainter, a tool for scattering objects over any surface using a virtual paintbrush. This is a most welcome addition to this amazing and useful tool.

MultiPainter can arrange objects on the surface using a virtual paintbrush. This does not create additional geometries which therefore simplifies the process of working with large arrays of objects. Placement can be done both on one and multiple surfaces at the same time. Multiple objects of different types can be scattered simultaneously.

MultiPainter includes most current types of randomisations available for MultiScatter objects. Once created MultiPainter objects can be modified in several ways, including changing their location, scale, rotation, as well as creating copies.

Check out this short video to see how it works

Animated objects are also supported. In addition it is possible to convert MultiScatter objects into MultiPainter with few restrictions.

MultiPainter objects are fully compatible with V-Ray and Mental Ray.

You can get it and more info at the MultiScatter Forum

Major update to MultiScatter, now includes MultiPainter! is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Itoo Software, the makers of Forest Pro, just released yet another great plugin – RailClone! It is a 3DS Max plugin for parametric modelling based on custom geometry parts, definable by the user, and a set of construction rules. This concept of modelling lets you build complex and realistic structures for Architectural Visualization, Civil Engineering and Interior Design. I had the chance to take it for a spin during the beta and though I did not create any remarkable images to show here, I found it very easy to learn and the added library of common parts allowed to start using it right out the box.

The library contains preset models to create Fences, Railings, Barriers, Guardrails, Handrails or Walls. RailClone is not limited to a fixed set of primitives, you can use any geometry from the scene and define your own parametric structures too… This is the most important feature in my mind.

Taking RailClone into consideration, I can see how I just sketch line paths in SketchUP to later be used as guides to deploy parametric driven models made out of parts either from the RailClone initial offered library or hand made by me as the user. This is a big time saver and more then that will allow much more freedom in exploring as many variations as possible in a given time frame (having deadlines in mind).

Download RailClone Lite, the free version of the plugin and use it in your personal and commercial projects. If you are new to RailClone, see the Getting Started guide for videos, tutorials and more help in your first steps using the software.

RailClone Tech Demo Videos

RailClone Sample Gallery

RailClone for 3ds Max Plugin by Itoo Software is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

model+model released version 1.0 of their 3dsmax books scattering script – Bookmanager for standalone sale and with various new improvements, most notable of them is the ability to place books directly on actual shelf polygons.

Check out the following video to see how it works out… and visit the Bookmanager Script page for full information and pricing.

Bookmanager 1.0 (July 30 2012)

New Features

• Ability to place books directly into shelf polygons with auto and manual shelf adding mode.
• Create books as instances.
• Flipped books.
• Ability to set how much shelves have Leaning/Horizontal/Flipped books.
• Ability to set random quantity of Leaning/Horizontal/Flipped books on different shelves.
• Reset settings to default values.

Improvements

• New UI design with roll-outs.
• Shelf thickness was replaced by two values: Rows distance and Columns distance.
• Horizontal books depth alignment was improved.
• Leaning books quantity spinner was replaced with Min/Max quantity slider.
• Horizontal books quantity spinner was improved and replaced with Min/Max stacks.
• Horizontal books height algorithm was improved.
• Uniform distribution algorithm for books series was improved.
• Entering values to Min/Max shelf fill and Min/Max books in series spinners was improved.
• Tool tips for options were added.

Fixed Bugs

• UVW mapping may be incorrect when books are aligned with the right side of the shelf.

Bookmanager 1.0 Released! is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

RailClone2 is being released today by iToo Software, the makers of Forest Pack. It is a completely revamped version of the plugin, introducing a new approach to parametric modeling in architectural visualization. Celebrating this release in collaboration with IToo Software, I’m happy to offer all my followers a 20% discount coupon for one week only… starting now.

I’m doing 99% of my core architecture modeling inside SketchUP (The new SketchUP 2013 version is out by the way) and there was very little going on for me to change that until RailClone2 came along. I love SU components and how powerful they can be when done right, but RailClone2 is an order of magnitude beyond that and other solutions available for 3dsmax too. Its innovative approach to parametric modelling by using custom meshes, pre-made or defined by the user, arrayed along splines according to a set of construction rules to create sophisticated procedural objects is a game changer. With this tool you can conjure up complete building facades in seconds, fill a stadium with seating, layout roads, build bridges and interactively updated them just as fast too.

Check out this new demo-reel to get a better grasp of what it does :

How RailClone2 Works & Key Features

the plugin is designed to help artists create sophisticated reusable parametric models using an easy-to-understand node based editor. RailClone2 combines, deforms, slices, bevels and distributes meshes known as Segments along one or more Base Reference splines according to construction rules defined using Generators and Operators. The interplay of these three parts is called a Style and is created using the Style Editor.

All you need to do is define the construction rules, RailClone2 does the rest for you.

Here’s are a few short videos capturing the work with the Style Editor while creating…

A Brick Wall

RailClone includes a graphical Style Editor, where you can create sophisticated structures, defining the pieces, generators, and construction rules. Randomize elements, add conditionals, define parameters and much more with only a few clicks.

A Bookcase

RailClone 2 allows multiple construction blocks for each object, named Generators. Besides the default linear generator available in RailClone 1.x, the new version introduces Arrays. You can use it to create walls, pavements, facades and other fancy structures.

Stadium Seats

And Using the new Points-cloud view mode, together the native geometry shaders for Mental Ray and V-Ray, RailClone lets you create huge parametric objects, made up of thousands of detailed parts… same level of performance we came to know and love about Forest Pack.

Here is a small segment :

And the big stadium :

RailClone2 Key Features List

• Easy-to-use style editor using a familiar node-based UI.
• Create, Save, and share custom styles using the fully customizable library browser.
• Use predefined styles from an expanding library of over 280 predefined objects including Fences, Railings, Barriers, Traffic, Walls and much more.
• Create 1D or 2D arrays, target each part of the array with different Segments or create sequences and conditional rule sets.
• Using the new Points-Cloud display, even objects made from thousands of segments can be easily previewed in the viewports, making modification simple and maintaining effortless interactivity.
• Use V-Ray and Mental Ray’s native geometry shaders to automatically create instances on-the-fly. Create huge parametric objects, made from thousands of detailed parts, quickly and easily.
• Advanced algorithms deform geometry to follow curvilinear paths or create double-curved 2D arrays. With RailClone2 sloped walls, handrail stairs, domes, and stepped fences are no longer a problem in 3DS Max.
• Manipulate segments using operators. Easily mirror, combine, sequence, randomize material IDs or geometry, and create conditional rule sets all from within the style editor.
• Link properties to numerical parameter nodes to control multiple objects from a single input. Use arithmetic operations to build mathematical relationships between properties.
• Use closed splines to crop object geometry.
• Compatible with RailClone 1.x styles.

The RailClone Styles Library

RailClone Pro comes with a Library of more than 280 predefined styles, including Fences, Railings, Barriers, Traffic, Walls, and other models. The library is fully customizable, allowing you to add new categories and models with a single click and share them with your colleages.

The RailClone Gallery

Check out the images on the RailClone Gallery featuring, among others, winners of the miniCHALLENGES that were held on this blog in the past.

About iToo Software

iToo Software, founded in 1999 in Spain, is a 3D software development company, creators of Forest Pack and RailClone, plugins for Autodesk® 3ds Max® and 3ds Max Design®. This release is part of the company´s developing program for 2013, which had its first milestone with the release of Forest Pack 4, and will keep on with additional updates throughout the year.

RailClone2 by iToo Software Released is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

There’s a new kid on the veggie block that you should be aware of. I’ve tested Berlin based Laubwerk’s 3D Plants Kits for a while now, and it is a very interesting solution for populating your scenes with 3d Trees and Plants. A combination of smart content powered by a plugin from within 3ds Max & Cinema4D, supporting V-Ray, Mental Ray, Scanline and Advanced Render.

Adding vegetation to my scenes is a big part of my workflow, so any improvement on that aspect has a big impact in turn too. Considering I’m using VRay and VRayRT for rendering and doing all my 3d Scattering with Forest Pack Pro, any good solution must play nicely with both of them!

I’ve grown tired of parametrically creating trees and plants with applications such as Onyx or GrowFX. as good as these apps are and no matter how amazingly good looking trees you can make with them, it is time-consuming and not that scalable. I remember that Onyx TreeStorm plugin had a similar premise as Laubwerk’s Plant kits + Player have, but it was sluggish and just didn’t fly that well.

I found myself resorting to using static trees scattered and painted in with Forest Pack Pro manually managing all aspects of those trees… and this is where Laubwerk Plants Kit + Player came in, in between the complicated parametric approach to the simple and fast static one.

I’m going through the main aspects of the Plants Kit & Player below, but I’m inviting you to try Laubwerk’s Plants Kit Freebie. Grab it here and take it for a spin

You’ll be redirected to Laubwerk’s shop directly into the cart with the freebie kit loaded in… These plants are coming with the Plants Kit Freebie…

The Laubwerk Player Plugin

The approach of driving the content using a plugin built into 3ds Max (and C4D) is a great one! iToo Software did the same thing with Forest Pack Pro & RailClone and this represents a big productivity boost.

It can’t be any simpler then how it is implemented. Once installed you get a new menu item called ‘Laubwerk’ from which you can call up the library browser and just Drag and Drop the tree you like into the scene. Once inside you can control the way the preview is shown, age, season, leaf density and overall LOD (Level of Detail).

Viewport Preview Modes

There are 3 viewport preview mode:

1. Convex Hull – being the default and most efficient way to work in my opinion, as it offers less load on the screen refresh, and you can block in the trees very easily spotting intersection with scene geometry.
2. Skeleton – Still offering less load on the screen refresh rates but allows you to see through the tree and thus help in placing considering background elements too. With lots of trees I would not go for this one in any case.
3. Render Geometry – For the real deal! This will show you the full detail of the tree and thus offers best possible preview but at a great cost to performance, so only do this for single tree checkup and not on mass!

Here’s the preview scene in all modes…

Since I’ve made the skeleton capture above I got the latest update which looks more like a point cloud and a move in the right direction since it flows way better then wire skeletons. It is not colored currently in 3ds Max but the Cinema4D version does Both 3ds Max and C4D versions of this new skeleton preview pick the colors from the diffuse channel. Looks and flows pretty good in the viewport.

Here’s how it looks in a Cinema4D viewport…

Age & Seasons

I mentioned smart content, and season support is a great example for that. Laubwerk has taken the load off from you and each tree comes with winter, fall, spring and summer materials.

They are also provided in 3 ages and 2-3 variants.

10 trees per kit might come across as too little, but you are actually getting 360 possible variants by playing with the variant, age and season parameters.

Laubwerk Plants Kit 1 up above includes 10 highly useful, popular tree species in Northeastern America and Europe: box elder, red maple, sugar maple, Paul‘s scarlet hawthorn, ginkgo, kanzan cherry, cypress oak, red oak and globe robi.

LOD / Level of Detail

A very important feature of the plugin is the ability to control the level of detail your tree has. I did not play with that too much other than see it is there and mostly used the leaf amount reduction feature, but you can also control the level of subdivision on branches and if the will show up or not. I know there are plans to make this ‘sensitive’ to the distance from the camera, so that this LOD adjustment will happen automatically on the fly. Currently, it is up to you to prep the trees the way you like considering the distance you place them and amount of detail you need shown.

Below you can see the same tree with various levels of leaf reduction…

It might seem odd at first, as the leaf size gets bigger in relation to the reduction of amount, but considering the distance you’ll place these trees – it makes sense. With this LOD adjustment you are not actually aiming for a tree with less leaves. You still want the same visual impact but using less polys for it. See below how it looks…

With the Cull feature you can also ‘prune’ branches considering there radius size… but as I mentioned – I did not use that much yet.

VRay Proxy Support

The way V-Ray Proxy works is it basically sits in the scene and when V-Ray starts rendering, only a bounding box is passed to the renderer. When the bounding box is hit by a ray the geometry is loaded from disk and placed in V-Rays dynamic geometry cache. When the cache get’s bigger than the cache limit in the settings, V-Ray tries to free the memory for objects that haven’t been used for a while. In case a ray hits the bounding box again, it is loaded again.

Laubwerk Plant object behaves the same way out of the box..

It still makes sense to use instances, since the process above then only happens once for that instance. If you have multiple proxies of the same object in the scene, they may still be loaded multiple times and use more memory.

This feature is only working on V-Ray for 3ds Max currently.

Forest Pack Pro Support

Plants Kit are fully compatible with Forest Pack Pro and work with it smoothly in VRayRT too. For example, Forest will pick up the point cloud preview directly from the Plants Kit skeleton object instead of creating it as new. No geometry is hitting the memory like this which results in faster performance. Knowing that iToo Software and Laubwerk are working together in making both plugins work as best as possible I’m sure the level of integration will become tighter in future updates, and controlling tree parameters on mass via Forest Pack Pro could become a reality.

Summary

I really like this plugin, and I am waiting for more content for it! There’s only one kit available now ( + freebie that you can grab at the top or down below), but the 2nd is coming and I know Laubwerk is picking up speed with more kits to come. They built a simple and capable solution that mixes content and a plugin and now more content should be the focus along side the further development of the plugin.

The most important aspects of it, and what makes it shine are:

• Drag and Drop smart 3d trees
• Render Ready with dedicated V-Ray support
• Forest Pack Pro compatible
• built in variations for age and season (36 variations per tree)
• LOD – Level of Detail control

I’m very much looking forward to a tighter integration with Forest Pack Pro. One that will allow control of tree parameters on scatter. Dynamic LOD based on distance to camera will be a big boost as currently this must be done manually and not practical with large scattered areas as cameras my change… this must be done on the fly. Faster model load/build is also more then welcome. I know they are working on caching solutions so I expect this to be improved soon.

You should really dedicated a few minutes to read Laubwerk’s Technology page and see what are they aiming at. I’ll keep you updated on this one and feel free to ask any question you may have in the comment section below Don’t forget to get the freebie!

You’ll be redirected to Laubwerk’s shop directly into the cart with the freebie kit loaded in… These plants are coming with the Plants Kit Freebie…

Here are some examples from Zoran Gorski (Kizo) with the Cinema4D Version…

Cheers,

Ronen

Laubwerk 3D Plants Kit is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iToo Software announce today the release of Forest Pack 4.1.2 Lite & Pro. The new version is V-Ray 3.0 compatible, adds the ability to use density and scale falloffs with surface areas (Finally!), support for Laubwerk Plant Kits and Octane / Thea render engines materials for the presets library.

While I barely scratched the surface of V-Ray 3.0, the density and scale falloffs for surface areas are a welcome feature I waited for… duplicating boundaries with splines for that was really redundant. The introduction of a better integration with Laubwerk Plant Kits is great and I look forward seeing how this performs (Those of you coming to AD#4, next week in Venice, will get the chance to meet and chat with Daniel from iToo Software and Timm from Laubwerk).

Release Notes

New Features

• Density/Scale falloff and Boundary Checking for Surface areas (without creating an auxiliary spline).
• Added Surface->Randomize Stacked. Allow to randomize items that are aligned on the same XY position, along stacked surfaces.
• Added right-menu selector for Custom Objects, Surfaces and Areas.
• Added Display->Update All. Rebuilds all Forest objects.
• Added RGB Level for diffuse maps to Material Optimizer.
• Added support for VRay 3.0 beta.
• Added support for VRay 1.5 in Max 2013.
• Added Max 2014 to the installer.
• Increased limits of Transform->Translation
• Forest Tools assigns Object ID from the Forest object to the instances.

Library

• Added Preset materials for Octane and Thea Render.
• Some library models (daisy and white clover) were to big. They have been scaled to a more natural size.
• Added support for Laubwerk Plants catalog add-on (to be released soon).
• Right click on Creation Panel->Library button clears current selection.
• Presets now can use library materials. Each material of the preset is replaced by a material from the library with same name.
• XRef import is disabled by default for Preset models. This behaviour can be overriden editing manually the XML definition file (property xref=1).
• XRef materials always are merged in the scene, regardless of the Library Browser settings.
• The templates layer now keeps a single copy for each plant model. Scenes created with previous versions (from 4.0), are automatically optimized when saved with Forest 4.1.
• Fixed: error loading preset if exists in the scene a Forest object with same name as used in preset.
• Added support for labels and thumbnails at library level.

Fixes

• Fixed major viewport slowdown when using animated VRay proxies.
• Note: By efficiency reasons, now Forest doesn’t update automatically if you modify a Custom Object and this is animated. Use Display->Update to reload them.
• Point-cloud colors are gamma corrected.
• Point-cloud mode is suggested for Laubwerk objects.
• Fixed bug with nested Forests when inner object is on Custom Edit mode.
• Geometry->ID Color are properly updated after cloning.
• “Add Multiple” selectors (Custom Object/Area/Surface) now accept geometric objects created from splines.
• Fixed updating issue when two o more areas share a same spline or object.
• Fixed crashing bug using Tree Editor when object is empty (‘F’ icon).
• Fixed items rotation when using Forest in XRef scenes with “Bind” option.
• All Maxscript functions that have size as parameter, now accept zero to use the default item size (Custom Objects only).
• Uninstaller doesn’t remove installed catalog add-ons.
• Fixed crash when assigning Custom Objects directly from the templates layer.
• Fixed crash using Octane material converter.

See the full Forest Pack Release Notes here…

Forest Pack Pro 4.1.2 Released is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iToo Software has released a new episode of their regular Tips & Tricks tutorials. In this 28 minute video they explain how Forest Pack Pro controls animated geometry.

“In this Tips and Tricks episode we answer several questions frequently asked by users about animating with Forest Pack, and explain in detail how to control animation applied to scattered objects. Forest Pack has four unique modes that enable you not only to scatter animated objects with significant memory efficiency, but also randomise their starting frames, create offsets and control playback using maps. We’ll start by looking at the principles of these modes in detail and then apply the techniques to the simple scene shown above. ”

Go ahead and check out the “Animating with Forest Pack Pro” tutorials page now…

The files that come with this series are compatible with 3DS Max 2010 – 2015, V-Ray, Mental Ray, RailClone Pro or Lite, and Forest Pack Pro.

I’ll remind you that these tutorials are made by request, so if you have an issue you would like to see featured, please speak your mind in the comment section below. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes.

Animating with Forest Pack is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iToo Software have announced the release of RailClone 2.4 Lite and Pro. This update adds a host of improvements that significantly increase ease-of-use, including the ability to import and wire multiple segments, categorised and expanded exportable parameters, drag-to-swap links, auto-renaming of parameters and base objects, the ability to automatically calculate and export the current size of segments.

In addition to the release, iToosoft publishes the first of three guides to help users improve their RailClone skills. This first instalment, aimed at beginners, introduces the core concepts required to get new users up and running as quickly as possible.

New Features & Fixes

RailClone 2.4 also introduces new features including the UVW XForm operator to edit and randomise the tiling, rotation, and offset of UVW coordinates; a new Count mode to specify a fixed number of evenly rows and columns; the ability to add offsets to the start, end, top and bottom of generators; improved box mapping to allow multiple channels, plus many more features and fixes:

As always, a Lite version of the software is freely available to download as well as full release notes, both on iToo Software website.

Image courtesy of Sérgio Merêces.

iToosoft’s new RailClone 2.4: Faster and Easier to Use is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

If you’re looking to add some lifelike trees and vegetation in general as you see in this image by Jerome Cabezas which won the Best of Week 05/2014 than you need to use GrowFX. And the good news for you is that you can get it for 25% OFF until the end of April.

With GrowFX you can recreate digitally a lifelike 3D model of any plant, from grass and trees to woodland using a parametric oriented interface that you can set up yourself.

GrowFX lets you create broadleaf trees, conifers, palm trees, flowers, ivy and many other vegetational compositions. Its unique model building tools will help you create creeping plants, entwining scene objects, and shearing plants of any shape. Plants may bend around different objects.

To kickstart your GrowFX modeling you should check out this great article by XOIO.

Here are additional images that will show the power of GrowFX:

GrowFX is fully compatible with 3ds Max and all parameters can be animated.

25% OFF Until The End of April

GrowFX spring sale will give you 25% OFF until the end of April so you better act fast

GrowFX Spring Sale is Here, But Not For Long is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

A new scattering extension for SketchUp is coming soon – Skatter. There is only a video showing what is an alpha preview of what seems to be a very capable scattering plugin… kind of Forest Pack inside SketchUp with render engine instancing / proxy support (so it seems with Thea Render being used on the preview). Pretty cool and I look forward to see more and have a go at it!

Skatter has been already released!

Since this post was originally published, I joined forces with Thomas the creator and Skatter v1 for SketchUp is by now already released! Check it out at getskatter.com

Here’s the video and some screenshots from it below. Would love to know what you think of this?

Skatter supports ‘only’ V-Ray, Thea, and Kerkythea. The Bloom Unit guys are looking into it apparently, and there are plans to get Octane, Indigo and Maxwell Render on board as well. Sounds exciting and relevant to many SketchUp users.

Screenshots :

Skatter / A Scattering extension for SketchUp is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iToo Software has released a new episode of their regular Tips & Tricks tutorials. In this installment they combine Forest Pack and RailClone to examine ways in which the plugins can be used to add detail inside large buildings.

Forest Pack isn’t just for plants. It’s also well suited for adding furniture and characters to the interiors of large buildings to quickly fill a huge area over a number of floors. Instead of painstakingly placing thousand of objects, let Forest Pack do the heavy lifting for you and scatter random types of furniture on each floor.

In this tutorial from iTooSoft you’ll find a collection of tips and tricks for populating building interiors focusing of 3 possible scenarios:

1. Adding furniture to buildings where each floor is a separate object.
2. Adding furniture to buildings where the floors are combined and separating them would be too much work.
3. Adding furniture to buildings where the floors are created with RailClone.

The files that come with this series are compatible with 3DS Max 2010 – 2015, V-Ray, Mental Ray, RailClone Pro or Lite, and Forest Pack Pro.

Populating Building Interiors with Forest Pack is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

iToo Software have released a new tips and tricks episode that comprehensively explains the process of creating libraries and presets. As well as covering the basics for new users, they discuss how to package libraries to make them easier to distribute.

If you regularly use the same objects in your renders, it makes sense to add them to Forest Pack’s library browser for easy access, and If you work in a studio you can easily save files in a networked location so that artists can share and collaborate on a central repository.

In the second half of the tutorial iToo demonstrates how to support multiple renderers and trigger maxscript events to extend the functionality of the library. This section is aimed at users that that would like to add advanced features to make distribution even easier. iToo explains how to package assets and make them more accessible for users with different configurations.

As a bonus, the scene files for this tutorial contain over 30 plants models and 5 presets, so go ahead and check out the “Creating Libraries for Forest Pack Pro” tutorial page now…

These tutorials are made by request, so if you have an issue you would like to see featured, please visit iToosoft’s forum and make your suggestion. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes.

Creating Libraries with Forest Pack is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

XfrogPlants are now available in V-Ray 3.2 format for 3ds Max which was released a few days ago by Chaos Group. 1,600 high quality plants individually modeled by botanical experts using Xfrog procedural software.

One of Xfrog’s objectives when designing a shader system was to have a logic which can be used for both Hero Shots (closeup) as well as for far-off ecosystem distributions where each plant occupies just a few pixels.

This adds a lot of complexity into the logic since a shader up close needs a higher quality of settings and a much larger network compared to the one which is used for general scattering where one just needs to work the silhouette.

Traditionally this would mean having multiple shader designs each tailored for a specific use. This can result in inconsistencies and complexities. To address this, Xfrog have a structure which can easily adapt to the required situation while keeping things in a structured, organised and easy to understand or modify.

A : For General Ecosystem scattering, where the plants occupy the least space on the rendered frame.

B : Now if the ecosystem is backlit and / or the user needs the light scattering effect (but still does not need the close up leaf detail).

C : For close-up or hero shots, the maximum amount of detail is required.

These 1,600 models are available as discounted Bundles or you may choose to purchase any of the 9 individual Volume 2 libraries or, get any of the 180 individual Species you need individually by jumping here.

Making of “Along the Creek”

Ashish Dani has created the “Along the Creek” of a Canadian stream and its surrounding trees using the new V-Ray 3.1 XfrogPlants Europe 3 library.

Click here for the in-depth explanation of the shaders and render passes.

Free Samples

You are more than free to download any of the free samples that Xfrog are offering on their samples page.

XfrogPlants Volume 2 available for V-Ray 3.2 on 3dsmax is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog