Itoo Software Forum

Information (read-only) => Announcements => Topic started by: iToo on November 12, 2011, 07:58:41 PM

Title: Forest Pack Pro 3.7.1 beta
Post by: iToo on November 12, 2011, 07:58:41 PM
Note 1: Beta versions include new features and fixes, but a beta version is NOT the final version of the product and therefore we not guarantee an absence of errors that may disrupt the computer's operation and/or result in data loss. Use it always at your own risk.

Note 2: Because the changes introduced in the processing of Areas, the distribution of items created with previous versions of the plugin may be slightly different.

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYk7t19R7OU#ws)

Forest Pack Pro 3.7.1b


The Area panel has been completely rewritten. Now each Forest object can handle multiple areas, from three predefined types:

  * Spline. It works as in previous versions, including or excluding items from the area surrounded by the spline. You can use open or closed lines, which are detected automatically, replacing the old "Following Spline" parameter.

  * Geometric Object. It lets you to use any mesh as excluding area, removing items from the region occupied by the object. This type of area is optimized to work with high-poly objects in real time. Internally it works painting over a bitmap the mesh of the surface (as seen from the top view), and computing the distances to the items. Object areas use two parameters:

      "Top limit", is the limit of height in the mesh to which the exclusion is computed.
      "Map Size", defines the size of the internal bitmap (512 by default). You may increase it to improve the precision of the excluding process (usually when very large objects are used).

  * Paint Areas. Use them to add or remove items painting directly over the terrain. To difference to other painting tools, the Paint areas are editable and can be converted to splines and back. They can be used as "Include" or "Exclude" areas.

Regardless from their type, each area adds the following properties:

- "Include/Exclude" mode.
- Override Dist.Map. It lets you to modify the Distribution map, and adjust the Scale and Threshold values.
- Select Models. Use it to select the models (from the Geometry List) which are used in the area.
- Affect Falloff. Adjusts the strength of the falloff curves (Density and Scale).

Note: the order of the items in the list is significative: Exclusion areas have effect only to the areas below it.

New features and changes:

- The Forest object is not linked automatically to the Area spline, as before. You must link it manually if needed.  If the Area spline is scaled, this would generate different results respect to previous versions.
- Scattering performance has been greatly improved for large areas and complex splines.
- Added parameter "Areas->Scale Falloff->Affect Height only".
- Decreasing falloff curves are now allowed.
- Added support for points-cloud in VRay proxies.
- Scale falloff by distance to the camera.
- Falloff values from the camera's environment range.
- The Maxscript functions to get items' properties now work in Generate mode.
- Added Maxscript function: getFullTransform(n). Return the matrix of an item in local coordinates.

Fixes:

- The number of maximum items on viewport is much more precise.
- Forest is properly updated after rendering when using manual update.
- Fixed minor issues on billboard importing.
- Vertex color was not rendering on VRay.
- Scale Min/Max values were swapped in the Transform rollout.
- Improved Distribution Map file search on network paths.
- Camera clipping now is disabled when editing in Custom Edit mode.
- Fixed instability issue with Maxwell proxies.
- Fixed potential memory leak in VRay render.
- Mental Ray was triggering a "locating instance fmr_..." error on certain configuration of hidden layers.