[andrebaros]

Most of what I render is buildings in urban contexts or interiors... not a lot of plants so I use Onyx when I need plants and render in Maxwell. I may have something coming up with is mostly landscape (some trees and lots of tall grass) with a tiny bit of building. This seams to me like something that Teragen or Vue would be better suited to, what are people's favorites today and what are the learning curves like for these programs?

[JTB]

What do you use now for modeling? if you use Max with Maxwell, try forestpack, much cheaper...
Check www.itoosoft.com

[Maximus3D]

Vue would be a bad investment at the moment because it's infamous for it's horrible instability problems even when run in standalone mode, it's even worse when you run it via the XStream plugins. Vue 8 is 'just around the corner' so let's hope they make it a better one than 7.x is.

Terragen 2 is great but it's kinda weird when you work with external geometry imported into it. However it's renderquality is stunning!

/ Max

[andrebaros]

Right now I model everything architectural in Revit, then compose, bevel, plant, accessorize, etc. in Max then render with the plug-in. Works pretty well.

I'll check out forestpack, I never saw it before.

Thanks

[JTB]

Right now I model everything architectural in Revit, then compose, bevel, plant, accessorize, etc. in Max then render with the plug-in. Works pretty well.

I'll check out forestpack, I never saw it before.

Thanks

Yes, I know you use Revit, I do too... I am DPASA in Augi forums (You know.... the constantly complaining guy! )
Well, forestpack is a great tool, uses planes or custom objects for the trees, you can use it for grass, forest, even for crowd of people.... It is easy, cheap and you can use 3d models for trees close to the camera that will be inserted as instances (there is a tool for this) so if you have Onyx or even some free 3d trees you can use them...

[wagurto]

Could you explain a little bit how does Forest pack works with maxwell? I saw that works with mental ray and vray but I wonder how does maxwell works with forest.
thanks

[JTB]

Could you explain a little bit how does Forest pack works with maxwell? I saw that works with mental ray and vray but I wonder how does maxwell works with forest.
thanks

Forestpack creates planes as a default tree object... Your material is a tree image with alpha...
You can use an object made by 2 or 4 planes or a custom object...
If you use a custom object it can be a 3d tree. Then, there is a tool that transform the 3d trees to instances... So you use instances with Maxwell... like mr proxy..

Suggestion to all.... There is the forestpack lite which is free... It is a great start...

[wagurto]

Thx JTB for the explanation. Since you are a revit user let me ask this? how do yuo handle revit objects with the maxwell instance object active? When i check instance objects on maxwell my revit model goes crazy.

[JTB]

Thx JTB for the explanation. Since you are a revit user let me ask this? how do yuo handle revit objects with the maxwell instance object active? When i check instance objects on maxwell my revit model goes crazy.

I had the same problem with Max2009.... Now with Max Design 2010, everything is ok... (I also use RAC2010)