Forest Pack vs GroundWiz vs VRayScatter

[Shimakaze]

So there's been a lot of random topics about these plugins lately. How do you all feel about these plugins? Which do you prefer?
Forest Pack
GroundWiz
VRayScatter

[Bathyscaph]

Here is why I went with Forest Pro:

1. The ability to scatter dozens of objects at once
2. A great deal of flexibility for scattering. You can fill a region, exclude areas, scatter in patterns or random clusters, and then you can hand-edit the results if needed
3. Speed. For all the flexibility it's fast and can render billions of triangles using proxies.
4. Forum. The developer takes the time to answer questions and charts the development of the tool.
5. Long history. I never used the tool when it was focused on billboard trees but it says something that this company has been developing for max for so long with a lot of loyal customers.
6. Licensing was also an issue. I believe VRayScatter is tied to your hard drive which is not a limitation I want. Groundwiz charges for server licenses, another thing I want no part of. Software licensing is a big enough pain already without any additional weird restrictions.

[percydaman]

We use groundwiz here, but I'm not the one who does our tree planting and such. But from what I've seen, groundwiz does ALOT more then just planting of vegetation.

[mikeh]

forest pro.
been using it for years and have seen no reason to switch to brand x. Support is lightning fast and always helpful. the software changes and adapts to the times, unlike a lot of other ones. It started out as a billboard tool but has molded itself into spreading 3d models around as easy as it did 2d billboards. (and it still does 2d billboards) It tackles the materials of the items as well. There's nothing like it, as far as I'm concerned.
mh

[Neilg]

Only just had a play with forest and I love it, so theres another vote for that.

[Shimakaze]

Alright my turn then. I bought Groundwiz a few years ago (before Forest supported custom objects and before VRayScatter) so I didn't have many choices. The advantage with it is that it has some pretty good tools for making procedural ground textures based on height and slopes. On the downside though, you have to actually calculate the possition of the trees (which takes a little while) as opposed to Forest which does it more or less realtime. I don't know how good Forest's support for collisions and stuff is though since it's not available in the lite version.
Another thing, does Forest support LOD?
Oh, Groundwiz is apparently going to be out for Max 2010 sometime this week.

[Spikeadeliv]

VRayScatter for me

VRayScatter for me, lightning fast and allowed me to do stuff I would only dream about, did exactly what it promised form scratch, personally for terrains I use Geo Control, maybe its me but the other software seems to take ages before actually rendering. With the arrival of this plug-in it looks like every other similar software is ramping up their feature sets, not a bad thing.
After only 4 months out VRayScatter can now use splines to designate areas and linear arrays, not ground breaking but a very useful update, maybe need to give it a while longer.
I am sure they will admit that it doesn't create terrains etc, it wasn't meant to................so far.

laters

Spike

[duke2]

VRayScatter for me, lightning fast and allowed me to do stuff I would only dream about, did exactly what it promised form scratch, personally for terrains I use Geo Control, maybe its me but the other software seems to take ages before actually rendering. With the arrival of this plug-in it looks like every other similar software is ramping up their feature sets, not a bad thing.
After only 4 months out VRayScatter can now use splines to designate areas and linear arrays, not ground breaking but a very useful update, maybe need to give it a while longer.
I am sure they will admit that it doesn't create terrains etc, it wasn't meant to................so far.

laters

Spike

Yeah I agree, they've made some great developments in what have so far been free updates! And it's always a good thing that the arrival of some new technology promotes competition

[trick]

A good thing about Itoosoft is that they officially allow you to use (by same user and not at same time) Forest on both home and office PC. I had to buy 2 VRayScatter licenses for that !!

[Morne]

groundwiz where are you in image post?

In image post I'd say Itoosoft and VrayScatter is neck and neck. How about seeing some images from the Groundwiz crowd?

[glyph]

here's some rough Groundwiz images - this was a proof of concept job - and it didnt go any further unfortunately

the overall look and texture complexity was left simple - in hindsight and with more time, a more complex texture might have sold it

anyway Groundwiz is fantastic at building up complex materials - you can mix materials/maps based on :
arbitrary height of your geometry
angle of geometry
north -south -east -west orientation

this was using the free version so done with noise maps - the paid version allows image and other maps

took a bit of getting used to and means your maps may end up very complex to navigate

for terrain texturing I think in the hands of an expert (which I'm not) and with plenty of time it could be very useful

its scatter tools are secondary really - but they work fine

-- also support was responsive and helpful even for free version

[Chris-C]

Anyone tryed out SpeedTree here?

[sea2stars]

Using Speedtree with GI creates some issues. To keep the poly count down, the leaf plates are texture maps that keep the normals pointed towards the camera. So you have to deal with opacity maps that move. Also, In an animation you'll notice the plates following the camera around if you get too close; too unnatural for me. I started using proxied meshes and haven't looked back.

[Spikeadeliv]

A cautionary tale.........

I had a catastrophic motherboard failure last night, I tried connecting the harddisk with the VRayScatter licence to another motherboard, hoping it would tolerate it for a few more hours for me to finish a job (it luckily worked a few years ago long enough for me to finish a job off in a similar situation).
BUT I forgot about no new VRayScatter licences within 6 months after applying for a new one, so I re-did the job in Forest Lite as had to use a new harddisk with a different motherboard, luckily the terrain was flat and the deadline was this morning......................

No guesses were my next software purchase is.

laters

spike

[duke2]

I had a catastrophic motherboard failure last night, I tried connecting the harddisk with the VRayScatter licence to another motherboard, hoping it would tolerate it for a few more hours for me to finish a job (it luckily worked a few years ago long enough for me to finish a job off in a similar situation).
BUT I forgot about no new VRayScatter licences within 6 months after applying for a new one, so I re-did the job in Forest Lite as had to use a new harddisk with a different motherboard, luckily the terrain was flat and the deadline was this morning......................

No guesses were my next software purchase is.

laters

spike

Yeah the license thing is ridiculous, it's far too inconvenient for legitimate users.