cgSide shows how to use image maps to place vegetation when scattering with Maya Bifrost.

Check out this new tutorial from cgSide that shows how to use image-based maps to determine what type of vegetation will scatter on which parts of a terrain.

Bifrost can read (with a tiny bit of work) vertex colors, and the Paint Vertex Color allows you to import and use an image map. cgSide shows how to combine the maps and nodes to make a system that can use image-based maps to multi-scatter stuff across a surface.