FORESTER FOR CINEMA 4D
Forester is a plugin for Maxon Cinema 4D that provides tools for the creation of natural elements such as trees, plants, rocks, as well as their geological distribution over polygonal terrain. Forester is comprised of 4 modules, namely Forester Trees, Multiflora, MultiCloner and Forester Rock. Forester is one of the best and most successful Cinema 4D plugins because it offers a completely procedural solution to environment creation all within the familiar Cinema 4D workspace.
Following is a brief summary of the main features that each one of these modules provides.
FORESTER TREES FEATURE OVERVIEW
FAST TREE CREATION
Forester’s streamlined workflow enables the user to create trees from scratch or start from a tree library item and end up with a beautiful tree in no time
EXTENSIVE TREE LIBRARY
Forester’s tree library is versatile enough to satisfy most needs. User created trees and plants can be saved into the Cinema 4D preset library for later use
INDUSTRY LEADING WIND EFFECTS
No other plant creation tool comes close to the realism and ease of use of the HyperWind technology that Forester offers for its trees and plants
MULTIFLORA FEATURE OVERVIEW
PROCEDURAL PLANTS
A procedural plant is an editable object that can be turned into an unlimited number of plants using specific parameters and rules. All Multiflora objects are parametric.
EXTENSIVE PLANT LIBRARY
Multiflora comes with an extensive plant library ranging from grass, to wheat and flowers. Any plant imaginable can be created with Multiflora
HYPERWIND ON PLANTS
Plants react to wind just as trees do, to create an immersive natural environment that just comes to life
MULTICLONER FEATURE OVERVIEW
HIGH DENSITY SCATTER
Scatter hundreds of thousands of objects with ease using Forester’s MultiCloner, combining ease of use with ultimate control
GEOLOGICAL FILTERING
MultiCloner’s geological filtering rules allow for clones to be filtered according to slope, height, camera frustum, noise functions and weight maps
SOPHISTICATED DISTRIBUTION
MultiCloner’s distribution controls allow for artistic as well as realistic placement of clones. Even spacing and distribution bias give extra control over clone arrangement
FORESTER ROCKS FEATURE OVERVIEW
HIGH REZ PROCEDURAL ROCKS
Rocks are created as procedural objects with many functions to allow for realistic rock planting
DEFORMATION LEVEL CONTROL
Rocks have 3 deformation levels, each providing a different noise pattern. User can use all 3 or a combination to achieve the desired effect
SEAMLESS TEXTURING
Seamless textures are wrapped around the rock with no visible seams. Forester rock is providing the UVs for user-created seamless textures
FORESTER RENDERER COMPATIBILITY
Forester for Cinema 4D is compatible with all major third party Cinema 4D renderers, including VRay, Arnold, Corona, Redshift, Octane, Thea and more.
FORESTER FOR CINEMA 4D FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Which versions of Cinema 4D does Forester support?
Forester and its Expansion Packs for Windows and Mac OS X are compatible with Cinema 4D R18, R19, R20, R21 and S22.
If you are running an earlier version of Cinema 4D than R18, you can get in touch with us to check for plugin compatibility.
Is there a trial version of Forester?
There is no trial version of Forester. All the functions of Forester are demonstrated very clearly in the video documentation, which exposes all facets of the tools. The reason that Forester does not have a trial version is due to the fact that Forester is a generator plugin, whose elements can be made editable.
Does Forester support Team Render and CommandLine rendering?
Yes Forester supports free Team Render and CommandLine rendering. Just place the Forester plugin folder in your client machine Cinema 4D plugin folder and Forester will load on the render client normally. The main machine does require a Forester license, but the render client machines do not require a Forester license.
What is the upgrade plan for Forester customers?
Customers who have purchased Forester version 1 will receive all 1.x updates for free.
Forester licenses are permanent. They will never expire.
The same policy applies to the Forester Expansion Packs.
How is Forester licensed on the user’s machine?
Currently, Forester is locked to the Mac Address of the chosen machine, which is the digital address of the Ethernet card on the user’s Windows or OS X machine.
When licensing according to the Mac Address, before requesting the license key, the user needs to decide which machine he/she will be installing Forester on. The provided license will enable the user to use Forester on that specific machine. A single purchased license entitles the user to run Forester on 1 single machine.
Does Forester have support for Cinema 4D License Server?
For machines running off a License Server, Forester is licensed according to the Mac Address of that machine. Forester does not support floating licensing at the moment.
How to render animated trees and plants with Motion Blur?
To render with motion blur, tree and plant wind needs to be cached using the CACHE SIMULATION button. The cache simulation button is found under the Simulation tab for trees, and the HyperWind tab for MultiFlora plants.
Does the Forester library contain any built-in materials?
Forester’s tree library comes with simple tree bark textures. MultiFlora plants also have built-in textures that will update whenever the user selects a new plant from the included library. The MultiFlora creates automatic texture tags depending of the type of plant chosen. Users can also use custom textures if needed.
Does Forester use Alpha Maps?
Forester trees and plants are procedural geometry. This eliminates the use of Alpha Maps, and thus keeps the rendering very efficient. Users can however opt to use alpha maps, as any other type of map supported by Cinema 4D, if they so require.
What renderers does Forester support?
Forester supports all major Cinema 4D third party renderers, including VRay, Arnold, Octane, Corona, Redshift, Maxwell and Thea Render.
Some render engine which are still in the alpha/beta state are not fully supported. Please email us if the renderer you are using is not mentioned in this F.A.Q.
How many trees and plants come installed with the Forester library?
Forester ships with 72 different Forester trees and 50 different MultiFlora plants. These trees and plants are all procedural, and therefore can be changed with unlimited variations.
Can Forester be activated to run on several Cinema 4D installations on the same machine?
As long as it is on the same machine, users are allowed to run Forester on their installed Cinema 4D versions.
Does Forester run on Mac OS Catalina?
Forester running on Mac OS Catalina might give a warning the first time it runs. To enable Forester to load normally, open the Mac System Preferences – Security and Privacy, while Cinema 4D is loading. When a warning window pops up, like “ForesterR21.xlib” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified click on Cancel, and in the System Preferences – Security and Privacy click Allow Anyway. Repeat this for all issued warnings.
Close Cinema 4D and run it again, this time when you get the warnings, click on Open. From then on, Forester will load normally without issuing any warnings.
Does Forester ship with a rock library?
Forester does not ship with a rock library. This website features a rock gallery to show what is possible with the Forester Rock object. Users are encouraged to create their owns rocks and save them in the Cinema 4D preset browser for later use.
Can a Forester license be transferred? If Yes, what is the cost of the license transfer?
A customer who has purchased a license for a 3DQUAKERS software product, such as Forester, can transfer the license to another user, by paying a license transfer fee. Once the license transfer has been completed, the previous license owner has no more legal right to use the software product and is required to remove it completely from their computers.