EasyNat Frustration

[Tom Tom]

I am very disappointed with Easynat!! I would NOT recommend it. It eats up ram like the cookie monster. The plants are constantly losing there maps and takes a long time to reapply them. There is incredibly difficult registration process in both the install and buying new plants. The website makes it seem there are good for forest, in fact they are not.

 

Imo they spent too much time insuring no one could copy the trees and not enough time on the actual tree.

[Claudio Branch]

I have experienced similiar frustration with SpeedTree. I tried everything I could but, they just don't look very good and take way too much time to render.

 

It makes me wonder, who is actually getting some productivity out of these commercial 3d tree packages in an animation, not just a single rendering?

 

Perhaps there is somone out there who has a testimonial and a little 3D footage to back it up!

[Tommy L]

looks like tumbleweed is the only 3d vgetation answer to your question Claudio.......

However, I bought the Xfrog Tropical library and I have used it for one still so far. In test rendering though, I think vray can pump these out quick enough for an animation. With vray, its all about the materials more than the geometry. As long as there isnt a dependence on transparencies, it seems like it'll render as many polys as you want.

[Claudio Branch]

Getting tired or too busy to keep modeling your own?

 

I haven't used V-Ray...I attempt to use MR for GI, but it's tough to get rid of flicker and I understand it's really the same issue with V-ray?

 

FG map vs. Irradiance map - who wins?

 

I am using alot of opacity mapping with Forest Pro...I am going to try to get Vue xStream to help solve my forestation woes...

[Tommy L]

I havnt used MR for a long time, about 2 years or more. They have improved it bigtime in max9 apparently. But vray is grease lightning. If MR has got better than vray, Ill take another look, but i cant afford Max9 right now, even less afford to alter my workflow!

The reason I bought the xfrog trees (despite a reasonably successful forray into modelling my own) was job specific. I have to do some close ups of tropical villas (see WIP) and the planting is the main part of the image. I also bought the bamboo generator from Onyx. Nice peice of kit, but you kind of need to know what the bamboo looks like that you want to make. Easier said than done, and the materials are a bit funny.

I hvnt used ForestPro or Vue, but Ive heard VERY good things about Vue.

I think all vegetation is really person/job specific. If you use X software and its a close up still then one solution doesnt do it for Y software and a longshot animation. The result of this is alot of people buy one thing, dont use it properly on one job, then bash it in the forums. I think most of the products will have their merits.

For close up stuff with Vray, I can recommend Xfrog library. Dont know about the generator cos i havnt used it.

Hope this helps!

[Claudio Branch]

I havnt used MR for a long time, about 2 years or more. They have improved it bigtime in max9 apparently. But vray is grease lightning. If MR has got better than vray, Ill take another look, but i cant afford Max9 right now, even less afford to alter my workflow!

 

I have heard alot of good things about V-Ray:

 

very fast, uses proxies, flicker-free animation when used with irradiance map

 

And some bad:

 

Difficult to learn (as with MR or more so), problems using opacity mapping, proxies need to be instances

 

Correct me if I am wrong on any of those points...

 

V-Ray appears to be marketing itself much better than MR. For me, it is probably going to come down to which one handles GI in animation the best. I haven't really given MR a fair shake within my Max 9 64x workflow.

[Ukamti]

Hey I really agree with Tom and Cloudio that most of these trees software dosent help at all. But the experienced comments of Red cape guy can not be denied that we buy the softs and without giving them our hand fully complaints about their success. Apart from that Yes there is a tough competition between Vray and MR Sometimes one gets something in the newer virsion and sometimes other. Hey by the way I think it is time of Max 10 release. Let us see what improvements MR has in it.