Forester Pro Version 1.29
by Matthew Genge · 04/07/2015 (10:47 am) · 6 comments
Forester Pro is a tree and plant creator for T3D that produces randomized models for your applications. Forester models export with collision meshes, LODs and vertex colours for wind effects and import seamlessly into the world editor. In addition to generating random models Forester also allows you to edit models by moving, rotating and scaling branches and leaves.
We've just released version 1.29 of Forester Pro which includes new texture options for branches. You can now apply repeated textures around branches in reflected and non-reflected mode. Reflected mode allows you to use textures that aren't seamless horizontally so they reflect uv coordinates at the seam. This mode can, however, produce artifacts depending on texture used. In non-reflected mode seamless textures are needed by will be artifact free at seams. In addition to this update Forester Pro now also produces automated lightmaps on export for FBX models, although these aren't relevant for T3D. The image below illustrates the two different texture modes for branches.
A free version of Forester Pro is available that can be used to generate randomized models of seven types of trees. The registered version is $30 and there are over 130 tree types available in our tree packs (at $10 for ~5 tree types).
Upgrades are always free and can be obtained from our website.
www.hptware.co.uk/forester.php
We've just released version 1.29 of Forester Pro which includes new texture options for branches. You can now apply repeated textures around branches in reflected and non-reflected mode. Reflected mode allows you to use textures that aren't seamless horizontally so they reflect uv coordinates at the seam. This mode can, however, produce artifacts depending on texture used. In non-reflected mode seamless textures are needed by will be artifact free at seams. In addition to this update Forester Pro now also produces automated lightmaps on export for FBX models, although these aren't relevant for T3D. The image below illustrates the two different texture modes for branches.
A free version of Forester Pro is available that can be used to generate randomized models of seven types of trees. The registered version is $30 and there are over 130 tree types available in our tree packs (at $10 for ~5 tree types).
Upgrades are always free and can be obtained from our website.
www.hptware.co.uk/forester.php
About the author
I am an Earth Scientist who likes writing games for fun.
#2
The feature that you can use non seamless textures horizontally is not really useful, they have to be seamless vertical anyway. So why not make it seamless in both direction when you have to edit them anyway?
04/10/2015 (7:15 am)
Yeah, down with ugly mirrored textures.The feature that you can use non seamless textures horizontally is not really useful, they have to be seamless vertical anyway. So why not make it seamless in both direction when you have to edit them anyway?
#3
"Runtime Error 506 - Could not load image at line 5350
CWD:c:\Program Files (x86)\Forester
LOAD IMAGE gui\newstext.jpg,11001,0,0"
After that the program closes, after a few tries I manage to start the program.
Another thing is the save as .dds option is not very useful, it saves in a weird format that looks ugly ingame, like with no mipmaps enabled and it is not compressed, it is from the size as an uncompressed bmp image and the point in .dds format is to save space and loading time.
04/23/2015 (2:15 pm)
I get an error when trying to launch the program:"Runtime Error 506 - Could not load image at line 5350
CWD:c:\Program Files (x86)\Forester
LOAD IMAGE gui\newstext.jpg,11001,0,0"
After that the program closes, after a few tries I manage to start the program.
Another thing is the save as .dds option is not very useful, it saves in a weird format that looks ugly ingame, like with no mipmaps enabled and it is not compressed, it is from the size as an uncompressed bmp image and the point in .dds format is to save space and loading time.
#4
Thanks for a nice tool.
06/16/2015 (5:33 am)
I am still using this tool and I really love it. I even use it with Unreal 4 and it works pretty fine(as long as you disable shadows when baking lights as that will give some annoying UV overlaps :O) ).Thanks for a nice tool.
#5
Repeating texture does not work on trunk, there is always an ugly spot and I can't imagine anyone really wanting to use the ugly mirrored textures.
And the vertex colors for wind are also wrong, the trunk should not receive any color, it is red here, like red for branches, maybe because the trunk gets handled as a branch, but the trunk should be black in vertex colors. If the trunk receives vertex colors it will wobble around ugly in the wind, which looks unrealistic.
08/04/2015 (1:31 pm)
Found more problems:Repeating texture does not work on trunk, there is always an ugly spot and I can't imagine anyone really wanting to use the ugly mirrored textures.
And the vertex colors for wind are also wrong, the trunk should not receive any color, it is red here, like red for branches, maybe because the trunk gets handled as a branch, but the trunk should be black in vertex colors. If the trunk receives vertex colors it will wobble around ugly in the wind, which looks unrealistic.
#6
1.Bounding box gets generated wrong, it is too small when you have big leaf, since it seems to only encapsulate the branch meshes. I think bounds are useless anyway.
2.There is no way in naming materials in Forester, you can give them a name inside, but they will be given another name in the model and I could not influence that much. I would want to name the materials used in the trees like I name my materials normally, for better organization.
3.The export workflow is quite complicated, you have to configure all your settings again every time you export your model and it can be annoying since you sometimes forget which settings you used before and overall it wastes some time, the export configuration should be saved somewhere.
4.When you export you have to define a directory every time, even when you just want to export again with other settings and you have to name a new one or in a different location every time. It would be much better to just overwrite your old save, but you cannot do that, since if you define a save name that already exists as a directory Forester just navigates to that and you have to type a new name again.
08/04/2015 (3:06 pm)
Addition:1.Bounding box gets generated wrong, it is too small when you have big leaf, since it seems to only encapsulate the branch meshes. I think bounds are useless anyway.
2.There is no way in naming materials in Forester, you can give them a name inside, but they will be given another name in the model and I could not influence that much. I would want to name the materials used in the trees like I name my materials normally, for better organization.
3.The export workflow is quite complicated, you have to configure all your settings again every time you export your model and it can be annoying since you sometimes forget which settings you used before and overall it wastes some time, the export configuration should be saved somewhere.
4.When you export you have to define a directory every time, even when you just want to export again with other settings and you have to name a new one or in a different location every time. It would be much better to just overwrite your old save, but you cannot do that, since if you define a save name that already exists as a directory Forester just navigates to that and you have to type a new name again.
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