I must say that it would be great if in the future we could have forest libs downloaded as a seperate file, choosing what kind of materials we need... Vray, Mental Ray, Maxwell, etc...
Well, that's easy. I just wrote a couple of scripts (FMat = Forest Material):
- FMat2VRay: converts all materials from current library from FMat+Standard to FMat+VRayMtl
- StripFMat: converts from FMat+Standard to Standard
- AddFMat: converts from any material to FMat+material
How to convert Forest libraries to VRayMtl:
- Copy ForestMaterialTools.ms to <maxdir>\scripts\startup
- Create a new toolbar (Customize User Interface), and drag the macroscript FMat2VRay from "Itoo Software" category to the toolbar.
- Open a Forest material library from the Material editor (libraries are stored in Program Files\Itoo Software\Forest Pack Pro\matlib).
- Click on FMat2VRay button
- Save the library
I've also attached the Forest Pro libraries already converted to VRayMtl using this script.
And this amazing script to convert any material to VRayMtl would be useful too:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vraymtlconverter-v2-5For Mental Ray is better to use FMat+Standard, because Forest converts internally the Standard material to a custom MR shader that is optimized for billboards. For Meshes/Proxies you can use FMat with Standard or Arch&Design materials, as you like.
I think it would not be difficult to write a script for Maxwell, but unfortunately i have not a Maxwell license here.