vray scatter vs forest pro memory handling

[powerandrubber]

I like both of these plugins and have been successfully using FP for years. Although it seems that I can't render near as many objects (in my case grass clumps) with FP. I'm wondering what the differences are under the hood regarding memory management/handling. Is it me or is VS more capable as far as shear number of instances rendered are concerned? IE should I buy VS even though I already have FP?

[YoyoBoy]

I'm curious about this too. I mean, why do I run into huge memory problems scattering VRay Proxy tree models around with the PFlow, but the VRay Scatter demo works great?

[beestee]

I imagine it has to do with how and when the scattering occurs. If it is at rendertime, and per bucket, then there is much less memory involved than if the scattering is 'baked' into the scene.

Do PFlow or ForestPro have an option to disable or minimize display count until rendering? This may make the difference.

That said, it looks as though there is another contender soon on the way: http://mdo.emecstudios.com/index.php...coscatter.html

[Undersky]

I'm curious about this too. I mean, why do I run into huge memory problems scattering VRay Proxy tree models around with the PFlow, but the VRay Scatter demo works great?

That's because PFlow can't render the trees as proxies. If it renders at all I'm guessing it converts them into meshes. And since particles in max still are haunted by the ghost of maxes past, everything is rendered as one big mesh. Although I think you can chose how to render it in the Render node (or perhaps Birth node... I don't have max here). However, it still isn't rendering the proxies as proxies, thus the benefit is lost.

[Itoosoft]

Do PFlow or ForestPro have an option to disable or minimize display count until rendering? This may make the difference.

In Forest Lite/Pro you can minimize the number of objects in the viewport, setting the "Display->Simplification Level" parameter. This lets you to scatter and render millions of items.

There are big differences between the scattering tools that create native instances of VRay at render time (as Forest or VRayscatter) and other generic tools as PFlow, which creates Max instances.

[powerandrubber]

The problem is at rendertime, not a viewport issue but thanks for the input. Further testing has me concluding that VS can render more polys than FP (unless I'm doing something wrong) but both are inadequate for large areas of short grass on my machines. So I'm going with Autograss which will be a great combo with FP for me though dreading the price.

[Itoosoft]

The problem is at rendertime, not a viewport issue but thanks for the input. Further testing has me concluding that VS can render more polys than FP (unless I'm doing something wrong) but both are inadequate for large areas of short grass on my machines. So I'm going with Autograss which will be a great combo with FP for me though dreading the price.

If you create high density areas, as grass fields, be sure to select the most dense distribution map (as the "Full" bitmap) before to adjust its size. This is more optimal than increasing the density on a "Scattered" map. Also enable Random Translation to disguish the grid effect of the full map.

However, for these type of scenes i prefer to scatter a grass clump object, instead creating millions of grass blades. You can even to chain two Forest objects (one for clump and other for the field), as described here:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=275.0

[powerandrubber]

Yeah I've tried all that but no success with short (4") lawn grass on a large surface. Possibly with more horsepower than my Q6600 with 4gb but I decided on autograss which is working great. I'd love to see you guys make a similar one click grass solution plugin (Grass Pro?) with memory capping and unlimited render node license which everyone here would be weeping for joy over! Still very happy with FP and will use the 2 in combination.