5 000 000 000 000 polygons

[Morne]

I know that itoo and Icube don't provide the same plugins and that each one should have is difference but if we could see that here it could be very usefull !

Thanks !!

I agree. I'm ready to purchase, just I'm struggling to choose, vrayscatter, forest pack or groundwiz... Some kind of comparison table would be very usefull.

[plastic_]

I've compared them, although I'm more familar with Forest, there may be some mistakes im my Vrayscatter review.

Differences:
With ForestPro distribution is controled with a border spline (can have islands). It's made for gravity style distribution (trees), although the result can be rotated in space freely.
Vrayscatter doesn't care about gravity, it can also populate a teapot, which makes it more flexible, but ForestPro is much nicer to handle for, well, forests.
With Vrayscatter, distribution is controlled with maps, which can be tedious, but there is no other way, if you populate a teapot, I guess.

(apparently Vrayscatter can also use splines as borders now, haven't tried that though).

Exclusive features:
ForestPro can scatter ordinary objects (instances), VrayScatter can only use proxies. Personally I avoid proxies as long as it's possible because they -) are slower -) are annoying/restrictive.

Vrayscatter can do interesting stuff because of it's free distribution method, as mosaic tiles. It is more flexible with maps, controling proxy colors, etc. ForestPro can only tint colors randomly.

Interface
Forest wins here, it's very intuitive and works as expected.
Vrayscatter can get a bit cryptic (but you're used to that as a Vray user )

Licensing:
Here it gets interesting. There's something fishy about Vrayscatter. I don't know the people behind it, there is no company I can see. The developer is posting in this forum, but he also said that he isn't resposible for licensing issues or sales. I don't understand how they operate, and I don't like it.
Previous versions of Vrayscatter had ridiculous rendering restrictions (pay per node), this was fixed after massive protest.
From what I read, licensing is still a pain in the ass, when computers have to be reformated.

Itoo (ForestPro) on the other hand are real people with a real website, who respond e-mails quickly, have been around forever as plugin developers, what makes it easy to trust them.
Also they offer most of ForestPro's functionality for free in ForestLite (color tinting disabled and only works with planar distribution).

Personally I've desided for Forest, although Vrayscatter is more powerful (with drawbacks in the handling).

[voltron7]

I'm not picking one over the other, just adding a few comments about Vrayscatter...

-Vrayscatter works great using splines as borders (islands too.)
-VRS has a few other options for distributions, not only by maps.
-VRS does give a good amount of control for things like object rotation, scale, etc.
-VRS support is a bit sketchy, but has not been a problem, so far...
-About licensing, why are folks needing to frequently re-format their HD?
-my only con with VRS is that the collision feature does not preview in the viewport.
-I've noticed if I tell VRS to only distribute a tree one time, it takes less memory than if I just had a single vrayproxy of that tree in my scene, so sometimes I'll use a VRayscatter instead of a vray proxy. (wonky, I know)

I am eventually going to get ForestPro, too because it seems great...

[raistlin]

I've try forestpack lite, and there is something really great, we could paint proxys... one by one... and this is a really great stuff... to populate some details or put some flowers in a view, just one tree in front of a camera... where VS is really hasarduous... (i have to creat lot of maps to populate ground with differents proxys... and the greyscale to orient the proxy... i'm laughing... this is why there add the spline scatering i think...
And yes VS is really powerfull with proxy... but only that...
This is my advice...

[trick]

...-About licensing, why are folks needing to frequently re-format their HD?...

With a little imagination: wait until someone from Dell (or someone else) comes messing around with your Workstation and you are on a deadline ! If Itoo would have supported proxies a little earlier I would have choosen it over VRayScatter anytime ! Support and user friendliness is in its own league !

[percydaman]

vrayscatter seems kinda spendy to me. How much is the forestpack pro?

[Morne]

Animation: Forest or VrayScatter or Groundwiz

I know you can "animate" proxies with vrayscatter such as grass blowing in the wind. Can this be done with either Forest Pack or Groundwiz?

[raistlin]

yes... and in forest pro you can animate an object (with blend etc) and scatter this animated object... wher vrayscatter rotate his proxy... there is a lot of possibility with forest... Vrayscatter should be better in the animation to really fight with forest... (i think only in this domain sure)

[duke2]

I own both, but i'd use them exclusively if they:

Forest Pro:
-Allowed a surface mode, don't restrict me to using a spline.
-Removed the gravity-oriented workflow (can't spawn a forest on a teapot).

VRayScatter:
-Multiple proxies in 1 vrayscatter.

[jacksc02]

I own both, but i'd use them exclusively if they:

VRayScatter:
-Multiple proxies in 1 vrayscatter.

Couldnt agree with you more on this one.
I had a scene with 10+ vrayscatter objects and it was a nightmare to fine tune, BUT it was fast to render

[sea2stars]

Duke2

There is currently a surface mode in Forest Pro.

[duke2]

Yes but it's an alignment thing. You have to basically duplicate what you're doing: create a rectangular spline the size of your terrain, then add forest pro, then add the surface. Preferably it would be the other way around - select a surface and then select a control spline if desired.

[Da_elf]

opps. made a wrong comment and deleted it

[Karba]

http://karba.eol3d.com/VRayScatter&V.../explosion.avi

[duke2]

http://karba.eol3d.com/VRayScatter&V.../explosion.avi

Neat! Control proxy animation time by texture?