VRay Scatter vs. Forestpack Pro ?

V-Ray for 3ds Max V-Ray for 3ds Max :: General
1

Which version would you recommend ?

VRay Scatter vs. Forestpack Pro ?

So far they almost do the same, except Forestpack Pro also supports non-proxy objects.

Any tips ?

Thanks,
Martin

2

My vote goes to Forestpack Pro. I am more then happy with it, the support is awesome and like you said, you dont need to to convert your trees, gras and so on into proxies.

3

i would have the same question--

what other advantages are there?
can i load just as many millions and milions of polygons?

does it give me better scattering control?

(does it allow vray proxies or not, and if not, would that be a disadvantage?)

thanks :slight_smile:

4

Theres a free version which is fully functional (doesnt allow spreading over meshes, just flat surfaces)

It’s quite capable of a lot, I did a test a while ago with a few billion polys worth of proxes no trouble.

5

… support for VrayScatter is quite poor
…the tool itselve works fine and the new MultiScatter can do a lot more … scatter objects not only proxies … mentalray support

6

so the forestscatter can do proxies as well?

anyone can say anything the scattering functions themselves? i found them to be a bit poor in vrayscatter
like how accurate can u lay down grids and control those?

7

tryharder, where we can find info about multiscatter?

8

cecofully, the softawre is in betastage, this is the link to the forum

http://rendering.ru/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=9a745c3682889db75db813bc5163e8f9

hope that helps

9

i hope they release another licence when you want to migrate from scatter to multiscatter, solidrocks really rocks in that way, one for work and one at home, it should be fair for the amount of money(not price at the moment) they will want us to pay

10

Thanks for your responses! Very helpful.

One more question regarding the rendering with a renderfarm.

Which version includes the rendernodes for rendering in a network ? Or is it necessary to buy additional licenses ?

11

"so the forestscatter can do proxies as well?
anyone can say anything the scattering functions themselves?"In forest you can use vray and mr proxies, but you dont have to, in my test there wasnt much of a difference regarding ram if i simply used meshes instead of proxies. The scatter area is defined by splines, you can also use splines to exclude parts of the area. Inside this area you can choose between different distribution modes. You can use a preset or you can use your own image file. In the latest release you can also use a color map and asign differents plants to different colors, which is qiute a nice feature. More about the distribution settings can be found here: Procedural modelling and scattering plugins for 3ds Max

**“Which version includes the rendernodes for rendering in a network ? Or is it necessary to buy additional licenses ?”**With Forespack Pro you get unlimited render nodes. Dont know about VS.

Cant get the qoutes to work…

12

olli, any words about their license system? say i have a computer at work and one at home, is there any dongle / floating license or something?

13

If you choose the stand-alone license then its linked to one pc and can not be used from another. If you choose the network license everyone on your network could use it but if you want to use it at home you would need to have access to your office network. As far as i know there is no floating license.

14

thx olli. bad news…

15

Thanks, that helps ! Also it seems that Forestpack Pro has “slope” and vray scatter doesn´t.
So all in all, FPP seems to be the better solution, more flexible and also easier to handle
form my pov.

16

How does groundwiz compare?

17

“olli, any words about their license system? say i have a computer at work and one at home, is there any dongle / floating license or something?”

Hi, i can reply to your question:

We have not problems about installing Forest in one additional computer (at home or laptop), provided that you don’t use both copies simultaneously. Although this issue is not covered in our license agreement, we are flexible about it.

We use the activation system only as a way to protect us against the piracy, but not to bother to our users. For security reasons, the activation server allows to activate a license only a certain number of times (5 by default). But if you exhaust the maximum number of activations, you may write us an email requesting more.

By respect to our competitors, i prefer not to compare Forest with other products in this thread, but i will be pleased to reply all your questions in our forum or by email.

18

I am very happy with ForestPro. Super stable plug-in with great support.

19

+1 for ForestPro

Issues are quickly resolved, often with an update or a beta, the plugin is continuously evolving and given the time it’s been around it has a proven track record; I’ve been using it since 2000.

20

I have VRS, and agree about support. It is good when you get support, but there is a major inconsistency with being able to contact them.

VRS works great and the Multiscatter works even better. VRS does not have anything named “slope” but you can adjust settings to make it work fine on slopes…

I still want to try FPP…I think I want to have both, ideally…