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Information (read-only) => Announcements => Topic started by: Paul Roberts on September 22, 2025, 10:36:24 am

Title: ForestPack Lite/Pro 9.3
Post by: Paul Roberts on September 22, 2025, 10:36:24 am

ForestPack 9.3 is here! 
This release introduces wind animation for ivy, tapered branches, new controls for distribution maps, random scaling by area, and improvements to painting and surface tools. 
You’ll also find extended viewport options, better handling of sloped terrains, and fixes for stability in V-Ray and Corona. 

Read the full release notes below, or check our blog post (https://www.itoosoft.com/blog/forestpack-93-animated-ivy-tapered-branches-and-improved-scattering) for a detailed breakdown.

Forest Scatter 
New 

• Added support of V-Ray 6 in 3DS Max 2026.
• Added Distribution → Image → "Use as Density Map". Lets you use Distribution Image as a grayscale density map instead of a black/white bitmap.
• Added random scale by Area (min/max).
• Paint/Erase mode can be changed dynamically in Paint areas holding Ctrl/Alt key respectively.

Improvements 

• Surface → "Scale to fix sloped areas" is limited to 150% to avoid very large items on sloped terrains.
• Context menu → Selector dialogs are larger and resizable.

Fixes 

• Fixed: Forest object rebuilds twice during IR frame change in Corona Renderer.
• Fixed rare crash using Collisions Checking with large distributions.
• Fixed distribution interference when using both Include and Exclude area Falloff.
• Fixed error loading library presets with empty Custom Objects.

ForestIvy 
New 

• Variable branch thickness using Min/Max Width and Scale Falloff parameters.
• Leaf placement is adjusted according to branch thickness.
• Added Growth → Branch Rotation (min/max). Rotates branches around the trunk.
• Baselines can be extended by painting over their end.
• Added Wind animation, with parameters:
• Growth → "Enabled": enables animation globally.
• Growth → "Strength": global animation strength (default 20%).
• Growth → "Loop (frames)": animation speed (default 300). Lower = faster.
• Leaves → "Strength": animation strength for selected layer (default 100%).
• Branches → "Strength": animation strength for branches (default 100%).
• Display → Viewport → "Display Animation": enables wind animation in viewport (disabled by default).

Improvements 

• Improved behaviour of Surface → Mat.ID → Exclude. Branches are now pruned when they hit an excluded surface.

Fixes 

• Fixed: ForestIvy→"Use Multithreading" generates different branches distribution when it's enabled or disabled.
• Fixed bug which was generating different ivy distributions in render nodes.
• Because this fix, ForestIvy generates different random distributions in FP 9.3, compared with FP 9.2
• Please Keep this in mind if you need to edit ForestIvy scenes created in FP 9.2.

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NOTES 

• Branches distribution may change when enabling Wind Animation, since some features are incompatible with animation.
• To keep existing distribution, you can animate only the leaves (set Branches → Wind Animation → Strength to 0).
• When Wind Animation is enabled, Growth → Death Distance is taken as the length of the hanging branch, not the distance to the surface object.