Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

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ForesterAuthor: 3DQuakers
3DQuakers, one of the few providers of Softimage video training, is proudly presenting its first Softimage plugin: [..] Forester is a procedural creation addon that renders the creation of natural elements like trees, forests, grass and flowers a breeze! With its procedural approach, Forester generates the geometry using ICE, making the creation and editing of elements very straightforward. Forester is not aimed for technical directors, but for artists. No ICE knowloedge is required. In fact, Forester will add all the connections automatically, so the user would only have to change the element parameters. Forester elements come with lots of parameters to render the customization process very fast and intuitive. Almost all geometry come with built-in UVs, called Space UVs, that fit perfectly over the geometry, and render exactly the same way in Mental Ray and Arnold.

Pricing information: Forester v1 is launched with an introductory price of 159 USD, for single machine use. Additional licenses cost 100 USD per machine. Prices are subject to increase after the launch period.

A lot of documentation videos to be found here

Related plugins: TGen, LKLightning, StrandTree, Ivo Tree, Recursive Tree (click »vegetation« tag). Here is an xmas tree demo setup by Matt Morris: http://www.matinai.com/si/xmas_tree_settings.jpg

New plugins, tools etc.
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by 3DQUAKERS » 30 Jul 2014, 17:41

2nd Question: Already doable with the Conifer Tree. Increase the Tr Insertion parameter and play with the Spread Profile F-curve to get an instant Christmas tree!

3rd Question: For the branch length up the trunk, decrease the Expand Top parameter to a negative value, like -0.5. This will shrink down the length towards to top of the tree.
Charbel Koueik
http://3dquakers.com
3D Training and Development

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mattmos
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by mattmos » 01 Aug 2014, 14:20

I tried with the conifer tree but the spread profile just affects the orientation of the branches. Ideally I'd like to be able to plug an fcurve into the Br ins parameter so that I can have more branches emitting from the bottom of the tree and far less coming from the top. The branch length - decreasing the expand top gets me somewhere, but would much prefer an fcurve again to drive the length of the branches emitting from the trunk for more control. Is that possible at all?

This is really just minor feedback from trying to get very specific shapes with the plugin, its been very useful so far to get the base tree quickly. Thanks! Had to remodel the top to get the shape of branches I needed, but would have taken a lot longer without Forester than it did to get this far:

Image

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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by 3DQUAKERS » 01 Aug 2014, 15:23

To control the branch emission bias with an f-curve, I would need to implement this internally. I added it on my to-do list for the next version.

And, nice render!
Charbel Koueik
http://3dquakers.com
3D Training and Development

Alen
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by Alen » 06 Aug 2014, 12:49

now, that is nice xmas tree! been trying to do the same but run out of time...any special insight on making it much appreciated mat.

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mattmos
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by mattmos » 06 Aug 2014, 14:29

This was the starting point using forester:

http://www.matinai.com/si/xmas_tree_settings.jpg

Then copied the UVs to a normal UV set before freezing the tree and remodelling. Had to thin out the top a fair bit and reshape the upper branches to get that very specific shape. Also bodged together a needle distribution compound based on distance from the trunk and also a weightmap based on the UVs (so each branch had more needles towards the end).

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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by Alen » 06 Aug 2014, 14:38

thanks for the explanation!

Alen
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by Alen » 14 Dec 2014, 09:55

btw you can use lattice for additional shaping and tree is live....and pretty much any deformer witout breaking the ice tree

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bb3d
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by bb3d » 30 Oct 2015, 19:18

During the last 1,5 years Forester turned out to be one of my most used addons for Softimage, great job guys!

Now I have a few questions...
- Forester generates some kind of UVs, when applying a texture they are available as "Space UV". But if I freeze the geo, there is no UV cluster and therefore no UVs in the texture editor. How can I get a UV cluster from the Space UVs?

- Is there any development going on for the Softimage version? I noticed, that it now costs 250€ while I bought it last year for 150€. But what would justify such a drastic price increase without any new features?

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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by 3DQUAKERS » 31 Oct 2015, 03:28

The old price was an introductory price.

If anyone wants to get Forester XSI at the old price still, please email us.
Charbel Koueik
http://3dquakers.com
3D Training and Development

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druitre
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by druitre » 31 Oct 2015, 12:24

I do this with a script I found on Rray, will look monday on my comp for its name. Bake ice uvs, if I recall.

Cheers,
Jasper


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bb3d
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by bb3d » 01 Nov 2015, 23:10

@3DQUAKERS:
Thanx for the info. Currently I don't need more licenses, but I would pay for an upgrade if it would provide at least the same feature level as the C4D version, including those nice presets.

@Bullit:
Unfortunately I didn't have any luck with Fabricio's script so far. It crashes Softimage if I try to run it on any Forester mesh. Tested in 2013 SP1, 2014 SP2 and 2015 SP2. Also just freezing a Forester object crashes Softimage sometimes.

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druitre
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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by druitre » 02 Nov 2015, 12:59

Bullit: Yes, that's the one.
bb3d: It works over here, 2013/14/15. No idea why it would crash over at you. Odd. Contact Fabricio?

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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by mirkoj » 03 Nov 2015, 08:43

I asked about those presets as well as they would be fantastic addition but unfortunately reply was that there are no presets for SI version nor they are planned at all :(
Which probably means no more development or SI as well, really a shame :(

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Re: Announcing Forester a new plugin from 3DQUAKERS

Post by bb3d » 24 Jun 2016, 19:56

I have an urgent question...
For my current project I have to create a landscape with trees and export the scene to the Unity engine as FBX. Unfortunately Forester generates just a particle system for the scattering. Is there a way to bake the scattered objects into a single mesh? Any help would be highly appreciated.


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