Forest Pack Pro 3.04 beta

[iToo]

A new beta version of Forest Pack Pro is available. See this post for instructions to download it:

http://www.itoosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=140.0

Note: If you use network licenses, and your current Forest version is older than 3.03b, you must also upgrade the Licenser Server to version 1.03 (download it from User Panel->My Products)

Forest Pack Pro 3.04b

- New parameter to Material->Mental Ray: "Irradiance Color", use it to adjust the effect of Global Illumination (Final Gathering) over Forest objects.
- Fixed a bug with "Four Planes" geometry template, that was creating an invalid mesh under certain conditions.

Forest Pack Pro 3.03b

- New full editor for the Library Browser. It allows to edit standard libraries, add new items and import materials to create new libraries automatically.
- Improved support of paging keys and scroll bars for the Library Browser.
- Mental Ray shader fixed to work with IES Sun lights.
- Fixed bug when loading scenes that use "Following Spline".
- Forest Tools instancing was not taking random transformations. Fixed.
- New options for Self-shadowing detection: full object (trees don't cast shadows to other trees on the same Forest object) or only each tree to itself.

Custom Edition mode:

- Added button to reset trees to its default size.
- "Use Mesh Dimensions" parameter now is used for custom objects.
- Random mirror was not working. Fixed.
- New button to select trees by ID.

Licensing:

- Network protocol improved to avoid issues with some firewall devices.
- License Manager now works with bigger fonts.
- Fixed error with workstation names longer than 15 characters.
- "Change License Mode" utility now remembers that last mode configured.

Installer:

- Microsoft Runtime libraries are installed when needed.
- Network render nodes installation supported.

Forest Pack Pro 3.02b

- In Max 2009, network rendering nodes were requesting a license. Fixed.
- All parameters are compatible with Imperial Units.
- Batch Rendering issues fixed.
- Added support for Vertex Color in Custom Objects.
- New parameter: "Animate only at render time". Enable it if you use high-poly animated custom objects, as Onyx trees.


Previous releases:

Forest Pack Pro 3.01b

- Button "Places Trees" on surface options was always disabled for Custom Edition mode. Fixed.
- New option for Custom Edition mode: "Linked Surface", places automatically the trees over the surface.
- Creating trees in Custom Edition mode now generates random geometry IDs, and get the size from the Geometry List.
- Creation Tools is fixed to use random geometry IDs as well.
- "Randomize Geometry" button moved to Custom Edition rollout. Added new parameter to reset trees size
- New parameters in material rollout for use with Mental Ray:

* Prevent Self-Shadow / Fast opacity: these parameters has been moved from "Forest Material" to "Forest" plugin, to make easy to adjust the Mental Ray behavior without modifying each material used by Forest.

* Trace depth: maximum raytrace depth used in Forest Material rendering (default 3)

* Opacity Level: defines the minimum level of opacity of the mask textures used by Forest Material. As instance, a value of 80% considers all pixels darker than RGB=204,204,204 (255*80% = 204) as opaque)

(these last two parameters are used to speed up rendering with Mental Ray, but in some situations using lower values would create image artifacts. To disable them use Trace Depth=99, Opacity Level=100%)

* Self-illum factor: used to adjust the self-illumination of all materials used by the Forest object (works only with Forest Material)

- Fixed compatibility with "mr Photographic Exposure" control
- The rendering algorithm of Mental Ray shader has been modified, some scenes may look different (brighter or darker) in Forest 3.01. Use to new "Self-illum factor" parameter to adjust it.
- Mental Ray render speed has been greatly increased. As instance, a sample scene with 5000 trees that needed 3m27s in Forest 3.0 now renders in only 22s.

Installation

Use the supplied setup program, is not needed to have Forest 3 installed previously. If you want to upgrade it manually in other computers (as slave render nodes), these are the files that you need to overwrite:

<maxdir>\plugins\ForestPackPro.dlo
<maxdir>\mentalray\shaders_autoload\include\FShader3.mi
<maxdir>\mentalray\shaders_autoload\shaders\FShader3.dll
C:\Program Files\Itoo Software\Forest Pack Pro\LicenseMode.exe
C:\Program Files\Itoo Software\Forest Pack Pro\licpanel.exe

Where <maxdir> is your 3DS main directory.