Grass

[glorybound]

How are you guys doing your grass, for your exterior arch viz work. I use Autograss, but was thinking about purchasing iToo, but only if I can do my grass using it; I'm trying to combine some plugins, if I can. Currently, I have MultiScatter, but I prefer Autograss for my grass.

[glorybound]

Also, Forest Pro is $100 more than MultiScatter. Is it worth it?

[Jason Stewart]

I like Forrest Pack. The great thing is that it has a bunch of presets that come with it for different stuff, they include some decent models. Check out the demo version, its limited in what you can do but I think it will give you a good idea of what it is capable of.

I have used multiscatter and to me Forrest Pack is much better.

[Neilg]

forest pro is significantly better than multiscatter. I use it for everything. grass, trees, planting, car parks, office furniture...
being able to go into the scatter setup and move individual ones by hand once it's set up is a godsend.

[glorybound]

1/3 better? Forest Pro is $380 and MultiScatter is $280.

[davexl]

Haven't tried multiscatter, but Forest Pro is worth it for me. Very powerful, not too hard to learn to a workable level.

I hate being dependant on plugins, but Itoo seem pretty established.

Grass presets are excellent. I use them on jobs with very little tweaking, and I am a tweaker.

[Mokiki]

I bought multiscatter like 2 years ago and I'm probably going to buy a forest pack license within the next 2 weeks. For 1 simple reason itoo software seems to be way quicker with updates. When Vray 3 was released it took ages until a working multiscatter version was released. Itoo had a beta version I think like within the week and a full version shortly after.

[Jiri.Matys]

Forest pack is much much better. Multiscatter is good, but when you have a complex scene (I mean not so complex), its soooo slow in viewport. Forest Pack on other hand is really fast in viewport with complex scene (I mean much more complex scene than I even try in Multiscatter).

[raymarcher]

Forrest Pack + close discussion please .

[Franx]

There's also VrayPattern. Frugal on system resources and renders huge areas of grass very fast.

[Neilg]

1/3 better? Forest Pro is $380 and MultiScatter is $280.

forest pro consistently works, has better features, is faster in the viewport, the floating license system is MUCH better. it's no contest. i'd still recommend forest if multiscatter was $50.

[glorybound]

okay, I think I am sold!

[rivoli]

i'd still recommend forest if multiscatter was $50.

couldn't agree more. forest is an amazing plugin, which, contrary to many other things with max, always work as you would expect. very much like vray I'd say.. that alone is reason enough for a purchase, I think.
it also has quite a few presets for automatic grass creation, which I think you may find useful, if lawns are the main reason you're looking for a new scattering plugin.

[glorybound]

I am not sure why I went with MultiScatter, but I did, and I don't use it. When I try to use it, my viewport becomes wonky, so I avoid sing it. Also, their support, or lack of, left a bad taste in my mouth. I am planning a new rig and I am being selective on what I install.

[Vizioen]

I used multiscatter for 2 years now, and switched to forest pack (with railclone bundle) about 3 months ago. Not planning on switching back either. Support is way better, faster updates, presets, performance,...etc) What's 100$ if you save lots more time and resources using this.