Forest Pack 6 - Subscription

• 3ds Max 2019 and Arnold Support - Forest Pack 6 adds compatibility with 3ds Max 2019 including support for Arnold, Autodesk's powerful new built-in renderer.
• PFlow Support - Scatter items on static or animated particles while retaining Forest Pack 6's best-in-class randomisation and instancing capabilities.
• Effects Improvements: Multiple Effects - Use as many effects as you need simultaneously, including any of the 30 new effects added to the built-in library.
• New Tree Library - Quickly populate scenes using Forest Pack 6's free high-quality starter collection of trees and plants, including 11 new species.
• V-Ray improvements and Next support - Render with the latest versions of V-Ray, enjoy improved stability when using IPR mode, and faster proxy loading times.
• Interactive Distribution Along Splines - Scatter along splines with Forest Pack 6's new fully interactive path mode. With controls for spacing, offset, path following and randomisation.
• Effects Improvements: Maps and Falloff Curves - Use maps to control nearly any aspect of a scatter using Forest Pack 6 Effects and add falloff curves to manipulate any editable parameter.
• New Grass Library - Create realistic grass and ground cover using the new and improved lawn and weed library. Build up layers and customize grass exactly how you want it.
• UI Improvements - Simplify the interface for speedy everyday use, or unhide advanced features when you need them to release the full potential of the plugin.
• Interactive Marker Placement - Attach items to markers, matching their position, rotation and scale. Editing the marker automatically and instantly updates Forest Pack.
• Select all dependencies - Select all of a Forest Pack 6 objects dependencies with a single click including geometry, areas, surfaces, splines, objects and more.
• Update Manager - Get new and updated content and install it to your library browser the moment it is released with Forest Pack 6's new update manager.

Billions of Polygons

Create scenes with virtually unlimited geometry. Renders with hundreds of thousands of objects each with millions of polygons are now possible thanks to Forest Pack 6's advanced geometry shaders, compatible with most popular render engines.

Points-Cloud display

WYSIWYG scattering is possible with Forest Pack 6's points-cloud display mode. Preview huge polygon counts while maintaining viewport responsiveness and avoid time spent rendering previews.

Convert to Instances

Convert Forest Pack objects to Max instances with the click of button. Ideal for sharing with users or computers without the plugin, using renderers that aren't already natively supported, or exporting to real-time engines. For large pipelines provides the ability to export data in an X3D file.

Meshes and Proxies

Add almost any geometry and Forest Pack 6intelligently converts it to native render instances on the fly, so there's no need to spend time creating proxies. If you prefer proxy objects, they're fully supported too.

Parametric Objects

If you're able to output an object as a mesh, you can use it in Forest Pack 6. This includes parametric objects like GrowFX plants, Laubwerk Trees, RailClone styles, and even nested Forest Pack objects!

Probability

Control the exact composition of a scatter using probability values. Percentages are automatically normalized so there's no need for tricky maths.

Groups

Scatter groups of objects and preserve their composition. Useful for clumps of flowers and grass, the contents of a group are handled as individual objects so although their position relative to one-another is retained, they can still be individually randomized.

Include and Exclude Areas

Use Include areas to add scattered objects. Use Exclude areas to remove objects from an existing scatter. There's no limit of the number of areas that can be combined, so you can design complex relationships and dependencies to create the perfect distribution.

Splines

Closed splines are the fastest way to define large irregularly shaped areas. Alternatively use open splines with an adjustable width to create paths, hedges, and many more linear designs. Splines are fully parametric and changes update instantly in the viewports. You have complete control, each area can be overridden to include its own distribution map, density and scatter items.

Paint Areas

For more intuitive scattering, use Forest Pack 6's advanced brush tools to paint areas on any surface using a mouse or tablet. Painted areas remain fully parametric with separate controls for distributing map, objects, and density. If you want to edit with standard spline tools, you can easily convert between paint and spline areas with the click of a button.

Surfaces

Scatter objects on uneven surfaces using XY mode for landscapes and terrains, or if you need to scatter geometry on all sides of an object, use the UV coordinate instead. Control the scale and density of scatters using slope angle and altitude, and randomize objects on stacked surface to quickly populate building interiors.

Forest Objects

Forest Pack 6 objects can be used to influence each other. Using falloff curves you can control the density and scale of a scatter around the perimeter of another Forest's object. For example, automatically adding fallen leaves under trees or excluding grass from under hedges are just a couple of examples in a multitude of applications.

Any Geometry

Need to remove scattered objects from around objects? No problem, just add the geometry as an excluded area and they are removed instantly. Alternatively, invert the curves to populate objects only around the perimeter. Even huge objects are supported, the algorithm is highly optimized for high-poly geometry.

Built-in patterns

Forest Pack uses black and white maps to create distribution patterns. A white pixel creates a tree, and a black pixel a gap. Over 20 default map types are included, but you can easily create your own for any type of design.

Maps

If the built-in patterns don't include the design you need, you can use procedural maps or images to create any distribution you want.

Match Color on Bitmap

Create your own cluster patterns by matching plants to color found in a bitmap. This is ideal for matching planting plans provided by Landscape Architects.

Clusters

Simulate the growth patterns found in nature with Forest Pack 6's unique Cluster mode. Group plants of the same type together with many controls for shape, noise, and edge blur.

Edge Mode

Perfect Edges every time are easy with Forest Pack 6's innovative Edge Mode. This feature can automatically remove elements from the scattered geometry to ensure that boundaries are crisp and clean.

Falloff Curves

Control the size and density of objects around the perimeter of a scatter area using Falloff Curves. Used in combination with include and exclude areas, it's easy to add or subtract items around the base of other objects, including other Forest Objects!

Altitude

Control scale and density using Altitude based falloff. For example, due to lack of oxygen, trees often get smaller and more sparse at higher altitudes.

Slope Angle

Control scale and density Slope based falloff. Prevent trees growing on surfaces that are too steep to create naturalistic growth patterns on terrain.

Randomize Maps

Forest Maps allows you to randomize the maps applied to scattered objects. You can choose to shuffle the maps by object or by element for maximum control and life-like variation.

Optimize Materials

Quickly apply Forest Color maps and apply automatic material optimization with a single button. In some circumstances scenes can render up to seven times faster after optimization. The circumstances scenes can render up to seven times faster after optimization.

Randomize From Map

Create a palette and tint colors using a texture swatch! Forest Color can extract random values from a bitmap to allow you to easily match colors from photographs.

Use Texture on Surface

Sample the texture from a map applied to the surface area and use this to tint the overlying objects. For example, you could use aerial photography of fields to create natural color variations in a grass scatter.

Add tints

Add even more variety by tinting maps. Colors are selected at random from a user definable gradient and applied using one of five transfer modes and a randomizable strength parameter.

Frustum Culling

Minimize strain on your computer's resources by limiting the scatter to the camera's field of view! Create a fly-by with millions of trees, without wasting resources on trees that are outside the frame.

Distance Based Falloff

Use falloff curves to change the density and scale of a scatter based on distance from the camera! If you have multiple cameras in the scene, you can use their environment range to set a different value for each one.

Forest LOD

Switch the geometry and materials of scattered items based on their distance from the camera or their size in the render view to help speed up renders and manage RAM.

Probability Graphs

By using a probability graph you can precisely control the chances of a value being selected from a given range. This is ideal if you want to randomize the transformation of objects within a few narrower bracketed values instead of across the entire range. For example, if you are scattering buildings on a town grid, you could create a probability curve to ensure they only rotate at 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees.

Position, Rotation and Scale

Make the re-use of assets nearly impossible to detect by randomizing their position, rotation and scale. Set a simple minimum and maximum vale and Forest Pack 6 takes care of the rest.

Maps

Use grayscale maps to control the position, rotation and scale of scattered objects. Alternatively use color maps and set the XYZ parameters using RGB values for maximum control.

Probability Maps

Probability maps allow you to control the probability of a value being selected using a grayscale map. Scatter objects in black areas of the map will not be randomized, objects in white areas will receive a value selected from the full range.

Add and Edit Individual Objects

Use Custom Edit mode to add, place or edit items manually. Fine tune an existing scatter for the perfect render, or start from scratch by placing individual objects.

Follow Splines

Distribute evenly spaced items along splines. Objects can be set to orientate themselves to the path, retain their original rotation, or use randomized transform settings.

Use Markers

Position and orientate objects using markers, other objects and meshes for reference. Make sure your planting perfectly matches the architect's plans by using their imported reference markers to precisely place objects.

Follow Geometry

Forest Pack 6enables you to scatter animated objects while maintaining significant memory efficiency. Any animated geometry can be used including proxies. In the default mode, the animations are all synced, but there are 3 powerful options that enable you to randomize and control playback.

Randomize

Randomize the time offset of animated geometry to ensure that scattered objects are not played back identically! This is far more natural when using plants and trees with a wind animation or any other situation where you don't want the animation of objects to play in perfect sync.

Control Using Maps

Control the play back of animated objects using maps. You have two options, either set the offset of the animation and let it play, or specify the current frame using a gray-scale map.

Library Browser

Add a new scatter to you scene in an instant using Forest Pack 6's Library Browser. You can store and load billboards, individuals, individual 3d objects or entire scatter presets in the library, all accessible with a couple of clicks!

Built-in Presets

The Forest Pack 6library contains many predefined styles, ready to use. Forest Pack 6 includes over 150 models and presets, with materials for mental ray, V-Ray, V-RayRT, Maxwell, Scanline, Octane, Arion and Thea Render.

Integration with 3rd Party Libraries

In addition to the libraries supplied with Forest Pack 6, we provide catalogues for many third party suppliers including Xfrog, Evermotion and HQ Plants. With the expansions installed, the plants are immediately visible in the library and ready to use.

Create and Share

Create your own libraries and easily share them with colleagues or other users. The Forest Library is fully customizable with advanced features including the ability to automatically load materials to match the current renderer and run custom Maxscripts on load or import.

Specs

Installation Requirements

In order to work properly, your copy of Forest Pack 6 — 1-Year Subscription requires:

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