Forest Pack Pro & Forest Color Tweet

[djropi]

Hello all,

I know support for octane with forest pack is a bit new at this point, but I was wondering if anyone might have a solution for applying a material a la forest color to the overall particles? Essentially the Lee Griggs particle landscapes using forest pack. A tutorial is here and I am getting stuck around the 14:00 mark with the forest color material: https://vimeo.com/103136391

iToo currently says on their website that forest color is not supported with most GPU renderers (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FOREST ... t+Practice), but thought I would take a shot in the dark to see if anyone might have a workaround with the current octane release. Materials can be applied to the original object generating the geometry which includes the bitmap, but the uv mapping is for the single cube and not the overall piece. Thanks for any help or tips!

[azen]

Hi,

It is possible to get it working, though to understand your particular situation, ould you provide more detail about the geometry you are using?

Materials can be applied to the original object generating the geometry which includes the bitmap, but the uv mapping is for the single cube and not the overall piece.

Clarification on that point would be appreciated.

Cheers!

[djropi]

Hi Azen,

Thanks for the response. I am using a primitive cube or similar inside 3ds max to populate the surface of a plane using forest pack. The forest pack generated items will inherit the material of the original cube, but I was not able to apply a single bitmap that fit the entire surface of the plane. The texture would wrap around each individual cube and there did not seem to be a way to properly uvw map the forest pack surface.

However, I did start playing with projection inside the diffuse slot of a glossy material. I applied the material to the original cube and used the xyz to uvw mapping method with world space. Things looked pretty crazy at first but after eyeballing the surface I was able to get the texture to fit pretty close on top of forest pack. Its rough but it does seem to work. I also tried the box projection method which looked fine from above, but viewing the instanced cubes at an angle showed the texture was being stretched in some strange way which I could not fix. XYZ to UVW projection with some manual tweaking in the 3d transformation works for now, but if there is a more efficient way of approaching the texture application to forest pack i'm all ears.

[oguzbir]

Hi Azen,

Huge thanks for the efforts with the forest pack.
Forgive me jumping in like this but.. Wouldn't it be perfect if you just get connected with people at its developers
For years of working with their tool, they are very helpful and would probably happy to help octane developers.
To sell their stuff to more octane users?

Few years ago I contacted them to push compatibility with octane max plugin. Even though they said yes. They need to talk to people who understand their language. Being a good user will never mean I or other can provide the best ideas .

We've been demanding all these for too long. And would be really nice to itoo and otoy developers get hand in hand and provide us the best approach.

thanks.

[azen]

Hi,

Thank you for the details djropi. I take your approach is working for you, but you are hoping for a more efficient, less painful approach. I am awaiting access to a Forest Pack Pro in-house license at the moment - I will keep this thread updated with meaningful findings.

Few years ago I contacted them to push compatibility with octane max plugin. Even though they said yes. They need to talk to people who understand their language. Being a good user will never mean I or other can provide the best ideas.

The limitations they have with integrating into Octane seems to do with issues around working with GPU acceleration. I have not had personal dealings with the iToo team, so I will see what will come of establishing a dialogue with iToo. Another factor at play is the upcoming Octane 3 - if the integration work is too extensive, it would likely need to wait until Octane 3 support for 3ds Max is stable. Fixes are being actively applied to the current 2.x plugin (which will carry over into 3.x of course), and if Forest Pack integration falls simply into the "fixes" category then there is a chance of getting this resolved properly. Otherwise, we will need to get past Octane 3 before assessing feasibility. This will receive attention however, seeing as Forest Pack is quite popular among users. Hopefully a favorable result can be delivered.

So, once I have a valid license in hand, I will get started on working through the usability issues with Octane/Forest Pack for you djropi. Any additional information would be appreciated - just to ensure that I am properly duplicating your setup and issues.

Cheers,
Azen

[oguzbir]

The limitations they have with integrating into Octane seems to do with issues around working with GPU acceleration. I have not had personal dealings with the iToo team, so I will see what will come of establishing a dialogue with iToo. Another factor at play is the upcoming Octane 3 - if the integration work is too extensive, it would likely need to wait until Octane 3 support for 3ds Max is stable. Fixes are being actively applied to the current 2.x plugin (which will carry over into 3.x of course), and if Forest Pack integration falls simply into the "fixes" category then there is a chance of getting this resolved properly. Otherwise, we will need to get past Octane 3 before assessing feasibility. This will receive attention however, seeing as Forest Pack is quite popular among users. Hopefully a favorable result can be delivered.

Dear Azen,
Thank you for the answer.
And please please don't take this personal.. ever.

What I understand from your saying is that we have to wait till 3.x comes out. (Totally understandable). And wait further more to have it stable(makes sense). And wait even more see main stanalone dev's understand (once again) that forest pack or railclone from itoo is particular a good plugin it should be made compatible to octane. So it's like a effing dejavu dream.

When you search in forum for itoo's random textures, railclone, random color or any other important feature, you can see It has been demanded since the beginning of max plugin 1.0. Say, 5-6 years??
And we didn't get any answers like you answered in years. If there are things that can't be done due to integrating gpu. Than it should be shouted out loud. Or a main topic has to be made by the developers and they should tell us why there is still no targeted IES light, Why no forest color, or similar technique.

So whenever these requests are made either a major product launch is due. Or bug correcting the main release in on the way.
Or the developer doesn't have a license to it. ( not only you of course we've waited for dear Karba to have his own license, and Jimstar and you )

Whenever the water is calm, when it seems like an integration can be made then I couldn't see a big sign of cooperation between itoo and otoy devs. That is because devs have alot on their plates. And they simply can forget that. Which is understandable at people perspective but not understandable in terms of a company product support.
These above are facts.. But they also actsas and seem like distracting attention from users. Stall them.

As a user of both itoo's plugins I have to cheat, create our own workarounds, or change renderer for that particular area of the scene.
And that demand doesn't go away overtime. We still need those..

I know there are limits what you can do on this matter as a new dev. Sometimes it's better to know that or any other feature will not be integrated. So we can move on....
I know users want every feature for each CGI industry or disipline.
But it's really frustrating and hurts as a user.

As a simple user I do love and applaud all your contribution so far. I really do..
Again. Please don't take these as accusations made directly to you. .
But at the end it just doesn't change anything.

Best,
Peace,
Cheers,

[azen]

Hey guys,

Thank you for the kind and honest words oguzbir. I have reached out to iToo Software, seeking to jump-start a collaborative effort to resolve these usability issues as best we can. Working on things such as this for the 3ds Max plugin, is gradually becoming a primary role for me in OTOY. While developers are hard at work on other important developments, I will aim as best I can to handle these issues (and even more so as I shift more and more into this role).

Cheers,
Azen

[voltaire585]

Good to hear Azen, Forest is one of the cornerstones of our pipeline, so a full integration would be highly beneficial, with features like random color and handling of custom geometry.

[mark0spasic]

Octane for max v3 is here for some time now, do you have some news about Forest pack pro, as you can see from Itoosoft website Moskito render has support for Forest Colour, Forest Material and Material > Random Tint, as far as I know Moskito render is GPU only render, please add support to missing features in Octane render.

[mark0spasic]

I can see in new version of Vray GPU 3.5 they added support for ForestColor map.
Quote form Chaos group website:
https://labs.chaosgroup.com/index.php/rendering-rd/v-ray-gpu-improvements-in-v-ray-3-5-for-3ds-max/
"ForestColor map support for Forest Pack:

We have been working closely with iToo Software to more directly support ForestColor texture from Forest Pack in the GPU code. This feature will allow users to better take advantage of the color variations provided by the ForestColor map. This feature is now supported by V-Ray GPU as well."
I`m waiting answer from Otoy on this.