Forester is a complete 3Dlandscape generation and visualisation tool. It
creates scene description files that are renderedusing POV-Ray (an
excellent freeware ray-tracing program).
Forester uses a number of object placement algorithms to position hundreds
or thousands ofobjects onto the landscape terrain, each one rotated and/or
scaled differently to help hide the factthat the same objects are being
used repeatedly. For example, a dense forest could quickly be placedover a
hillside, using a series of basic probability tests to define the location
of each tree. Itwill prevent trees from growing underwater or on steep
slopes, and can position them so that theydon't grow too close together or
too far apart. It can also take into account the altitude to reducethe
chances of trees growing higher up the slopes.
Objects can also be placed using an 'Image Map', which allows third-party
graphics tools to beused to 'paint' objects onto the landscape. The image
map takes the form of a Windows Bitmap file,where the colour of each pixel
in the image defines which object(s) are located at the
correspondinglocation on the landscape.
A water layer can be defined in the scene, with control over its colour,
reflection, murkinessand wave size. A 3D cloud layer and fog/haze layers
can also be included for more realism. The scenecan quickly be altered by
changing the Season - objects can be defined with multiple textures
sothat, for example, a tree in winter would be white with snow, whereas in
summer the same tree wouldbe green and leafy.
Forester will also produce animations - the camera and objects can be
animated along predefinedflight-paths, and the clouds and water can also
have a simulated animation effect. The use of MotionBlur greatly enhances
the animated movement. The animation can be viewed in the DirectX
previewwindow prior to being sent to POV-Ray for rendering (which can be
pretty time-consuming!).
Feature List
* Various object placement algorithms and probability functions
* Image Maps for using Bitmap files to locate objects
* Full scene animation
* Animation Timeline
* Object/camera flight paths
* Customizable landscape texture
* Animation sound mixing (attenuation, Doppler, panning)
* Motion Blur
* Procedural grass simulation
* DirectX 3D preview
* Camera Focal Blur
* 3D cloud simulation
* Water layer
* Fog/Haze layers, including atmospheric media
* Object Location export
* Flight path export to TGS script
* 3D image generation (for viewing with tinted glasses)
* Object masking and merging with Terragen images
The Forester Arboretum is an add-on to Forester for creating trees
suitable for rendering by Forester/POV-Ray. Each tree is modelled in full
3-dimensions, from the trunk and branches right down to the shape of each
leaf. The tree generation algorithm is flexible enough to create a wide
variety of tree species, from pines to oaks.
Download File Size:3.23 MB
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