3DQuakers releases Forester for Cinema 4D
3DQuakers has released Forester for Cinema 4D: an interesting new plugin for creating animated vegetation and for distributing instanced plants and rocks throughout a scene.
The tool was previously a Softimage plugin, but several new features have been added in the Cinema 4D release, including improved wind animation and libraries of readymade vegetation.
Generate procedural, wind-animated vegetation
Forester consists of four modules: Forester Trees, MultiFlora, MultiCloner and Forester Rock. The first two provide a parametric system for generating 3D plants, with support for 3DQuakers ‘HyperWind’ technology.
The tutorial videos for the software give an idea of the range of controls available, including root, trunk, branch and leaf parameters for trees; and separate controls for grasses and flowers in MultiFlora.
In addition, the software ships with libraries of 72 readymade trees and 50 MultiFlora plants, which can also be used as the basis for custom content.
The library assets don’t contain many textures (only “simple bark textures” for the trees, nothing for the other plants), so users will need to create their own materials compatible with their preferred render engine.
Scatter up to 1.5 million plants and rocks throughout a scene
The MultiCloner module enables users to scatter up to “about 1 to 1.5 million” plants across a scene with the option to filter instances according to slope, height, camera frustum, noise functions and weight maps.
Placement of the instances can also be adjusted manually.
Unlike the trees and herbaceous plants, Forester doesn’t come with a library of readymade rocks, but its Forester Rock object looks pretty easy to customise.
Pricing and availability
Forester is available now for 64-bit Cinema 4D R14 and above if you’re using Windows, or R16 and above if you’re on OS X. It supports “all major third-party renderers”, including V-Ray, Arnold, Octane and Thea Render.
Individual licences cost $350, compared to $250 for the Softimage version, and there is a sidegrade plan for existing Softimage users.
Read more about Forester for Cinema 4D on 3DQuakers’ website