Multiscatter or Forest Pro?

[windrockwater]

Can anyone give me some ideas on the differences between Multiscatter and Forest Pro? They are roughly the same price (coincidentally). I would be using either one to create natural looking fields of grass, and, to populate areas with various plants from my own library of plants. I also use the painter script to paint plants too.

I have tried Forest Lite and it seems remarkably similar to Multiscatter but i am sure there are differences. But i wonder if anyone knows their differences. I am using Max 2010 and Vray 2 with a small render farm.

I do have railclone Pro and love it!

[peterguthrie]

both are great, but it seems I've been using forest pro more often lately. I prefer the interface, and the ability to cluster species of plants together (ms might have this too now?)

The new subscription format for forest pro maybe counts against it, i'm still undecided, but willing to give it a go

[kiteman]

Forest is really stable. Works perfect for me, and service is great.

Regards.

[JohnVK]

I have minor experience with Multiscatter so I must admit my recommendation is going to be a little bit one sided but I'd say go for Forest Pro

The amount of dev that goes in it is simply amazing. New (useful!) features are added very regularly. The support is second to none. The tool is VERY stable. Problems are solved very very quickly and Itoo Software is VERY responsive! Even right here!

The only "downside" to this is that you would need to be on subscription to be able to get the beta releases in which issues are solved and new features are added. But really, I don't see how paying the 50 Euro a year subscription can be seen as a downside for a tool like this. Especially if you consider a new point release usually came out every two years and, like with any software, you would need to upgrade to get the new features (obviously). That would mean your overall costs pretty much stay the same as they were before the subscription setup. I gladly pay a yearly donation for a tool like this it's pocket money compared to some other software we are using

Besides, no one is required to go on subscription. You can go on subscription at any date and still get all the betas and newest releases from there on. And for a company it's actually quite nice to be able to know what your yearly software costs are going to amount to (budgeting).

Like Peter said, I really love the clustering options! That allows for some really convincing vegetation planting.

I also love the "visible to camera" options which only builds trees that are visible to the camera. Great for saving resources! And works with animation as well of course. It also allows you to have the objects always face the camera which can come in very handy at times.

Another feature I use a LOT is the ForestColor map which you can use for several purposes in a VRayMtl. Superb!


I can truly say I could not live without Forest Pro anymore and this Month I'm going to add RailClone to my software arsenal as well.

[plastic_]

I prefer forest, and I'd recommend it.
However, the new subscription is a big turn-off.
I don't like being trapped, so I try to avoid it for new projects.
Proxies and xrefs are also good, I can go a long way without plugins.
I'll update when I'm really in need for it, that is, when I have to render a huge forest.

[plastic_]

What you don't mention is that there are no recompiles for new max versions if you're not in subscription.
When I purchase a tool, I like having the security that it will work for some time, and not expires in 1 year.
I gladly pay for an upgrade when there are useful new features, but I like having the choice to keep working with the version I purchased. Like with Vray. Doing recompiles of previous versions is what I would call "service". But each to their own, that's only my opinion.

I have minor experience with Multiscatter so I must admit my recommendation is going to be a little bit one sided but I'd say go for Forest Pro

The amount of dev that goes in it is simply amazing. New (useful!) features are added very regularly. The support is second to none. The tool is VERY stable. Problems are solved very very quickly and Itoo Software is VERY responsive! Even right here!

The only "downside" to this is that you would need to be on subscription to be able to get the beta releases in which issues are solved and new features are added. But really, I don't see how paying the 50 Euro a year subscription can be seen as a downside for a tool like this. Especially if you consider a new point release usually came out every two years and, like with any software, you would need to upgrade to get the new features (obviously). That would mean your overall costs pretty much stay the same as they were before the subscription setup. I gladly pay a yearly donation for a tool like this it's pocket money compared to some other software we are using

Besides, no one is required to go on subscription. You can go on subscription at any date and still get all the betas and newest releases from there on. And for a company it's actually quite nice to be able to know what your yearly software costs are going to amount to (budgeting).

Like Peter said, I really love the clustering options! That allows for some really convincing vegetation planting.

I also love the "visible to camera" options which only builds trees that are visible to the camera. Great for saving resources! And works with animation as well of course. It also allows you to have the objects always face the camera which can come in very handy at times.

Another feature I use a LOT is the ForestColor map which you can use for several purposes in a VRayMtl. Superb!


I can truly say I could not live without Forest Pro anymore and this Month I'm going to add RailClone to my software arsenal as well.

[JohnVK]

What you don't mention is that there are no recompiles for new max versions if you're not in subscription.
When I purchase a tool, I like having the security that it will work for some time, and not expires in 1 year.
I gladly pay for an upgrade when there are useful new features, but I like having the choice to keep working with the version I purchased. Like with Vray. Doing recompiles of previous versions is what I would call "service". But each to their own, that's only my opinion.

Well, it doesn't expire in one year. You can keep using it for as long as you wish. It's not like the Forest Pro version for 3ds Max 2012 stops working the moment 3ds Max 2013 is released. So you still get to keep what you have purchased.

Like you say, if you need a new version, just pay the 50 Euro then and you get it. Including 1 year beta's and whatever new things are released within that year. But I wouldn't want to call it being trapped. It's not like you sign a contract or anything. You have the choice to do whatever you want.

But I do agree on the recompile for, in this case, Max 2012 issue. I think it would have been decent if no payment was required for a mere recompile. I think Itoo needs to seriously reconsider on that part. Recompiles for new 3ds Max releases should be made available without additional costs for existing customers.

On the other hand, I'm paying 50 Euro a year (which I still think is laughably low for a tool with this much value, the ROI is incredible!) so I will never run into the problem that I cannot have a recompile for a new Max release. I'm looking at it from the bright side: this way I'm supporting the continued development of the tool and in a way, help keep the tool alive. Nothing is for free in this World. Business is business. If a business can't make money, it dies and goes away. I don't want Forest Pro to go away

But yeah, to each their own, you're definitely right

Other than that, don't anyone blame me I'm not the developer, nor a reseller. I'm merely voicing my enthusiasm for the tool & the developer(s).

[simmsimaging]

Just on support alone it's worth going with FPP in my opinion. Tool works very well, although I can only compare it to VrayScatter, not Multiscatter.

I think the subscription system is actually a pretty good implementation in this case (gotta make that great support profitable somehow after all), but I do agree version recompiles should be free though.

/b

[Itoosoft]

Hi all,

Sincerely, the main reason because we don't offer Forest versions for Max 2012 out of the subscription is not the money, it is a logistical issue:

Most of times, a mere recompilation is not enough to make a plugin compatible with a new Max version, specially with 2012 because the changes introduced in the Max core (Nitrous and others). This is even more critical with complex plugin as Forest, due to the large amounts of code involved. And every change in the code always introduces a certain degree of instability.

Currently we spend approximately half ouf our time daily to provide technical support, and this having an unique branch of Forest under development. If we recompile old versions for 2012, we should worry about two branches of the plugin: including testing, technical support and bug fixes.

For sure, the situation along the years would be much worse, perhaps with customers using Forest 3.4, 3.6, 3.8... and they requesting new recompilations and patches for each Max upgrade. But, it is not Max only... VRay also has its own updates. Currently Forest includes more than 30 targets for each combination of Vay and Max, that must be compiled and tested. Unfortunately, to keep the quality of our technical support we must focus on a single branch of the software.

One option would be to offer recompilations of the retired plugins without support, but what should be our reply if a customer found a bug with one of these releases and Max 2012: ignore him or spend time fixing the problem on multiple versions of the plugin ? We prefer to hold the stable versions unchanged, and use our development resources to improve the software.

Well, i know that many of our customers don't like our policy about the recompilations, but i hope that you understand our problem.

[peterguthrie]

Hi all,

Sincerely, the main reason because we don't offer Forest versions for Max 2012 out of the subscription is not the money, it is a logistical issue:

Most of times, a mere recompilation is not enough to make a plugin compatible with a new Max version, specially with 2012 because the changes introduced in the Max core (Nitrous and others). This is even more critical with complex plugin as Forest, due to the large amounts of code involved. And every change in the code always introduces a certain degree of instability.

Currently we spend approximately half ouf our time daily to provide technical support, and this having an unique branch of Forest under development. If we recompile old versions for 2012, we should worry about two branches of the plugin: including testing, technical support and bug fixes.

For sure, the situation along the years would be much worse, perhaps with customers using Forest 3.4, 3.6, 3.8... and they requesting new recompilations and patches for each Max upgrade. But, it is not Max only... VRay also has its own updates. Currently Forest includes more than 30 targets for each combination of Vay and Max, that must be compiled and tested. Unfortunately, to keep the quality of our technical support we must focus on a single branch of the software.

One option would be to offer recompilations of the retired plugins without support, but what should be our reply if a customer found a bug with one of these releases and Max 2012: ignore him or spend time fixing the problem on multiple versions of the plugin ? We prefer to hold the stable versions unchanged, and use our development resources to improve the software.

Well, i know that many of our customers don't like our policy about the recompilations, but i hope that you understand our problem.

no probs, think i will subscribe now

I have an idea Carlos, can't itoosoft buy the rights to Brix from the ashes of Materialwerk? Itoosoft's excellent support together with what is one of my most used plugins would be a great combo. I'd buy it all over again, AND buy a subscription!

[windrockwater]

Well since I just bought Railclone I thought I would go ahead and get Forest Pro also. (I was gun-shy to buy another 'plant plugin' because I bought Vue Xstream a year ago and never found a way to use that in my renders in a good way and it cost a pretty penny!).

But I may be in love all over again. Here is a render that's using Railclone and Forest Pro together. Roughly 7 minutes for 1920x1080. Still tweaking the grass settings. But thats not the plugins fault. There seems to be alot of nice tweak-ability in Forest Pro. So far so good.

[rivoli]

for what is worth, I'd cast my vote for forest too.

[tricky]

We're users of ForestPro and RailClone Pro too and thoroughly recommend them. They are quite complex to use, but its quite easy to get a hang of the core features of ForestPro. Itoosoft support is second to none and they respond quickly to questions.

I would say that we struggle with Railclone. It is a very powerful tool, but it just seems quite hard to get our heads around what we are doing with corners and things like that - trying to get a simple rectanglar curb/kerb/kurb stone to co around a corner seems to be different everytime I use it! However, we will perservere.

[windrockwater]

Well Itoo software seems to get the same kind of good support comments that Vray does! So I feel better about the purchase. Having some trouble trying to add my own custom content to the railclone library. But will keep at it. The combo of Glue, Railclone and Forest is pretty powerful. I could have used these plugins on pretty much every project I worked on in the last year.

[voltron7]

no probs, think i will subscribe now

I have an idea Carlos, can't itoosoft buy the rights to Brix from the ashes of Materialwerk? Itoosoft's excellent support together with what is one of my most used plugins would be a great combo. I'd buy it all over again, AND buy a subscription!

Yes! That would be so good!