UltraScatter - v1.5.0 released [Commercial]

Richard Haseltine

Jimbow said:

Szark said:

It occurred to me last night that this script could be even better if it could be coupled up to a morph randomizer. So for example we could use morphing rocks and trees and get Ultrascatter to vary the shapes just like Vue does but it a more simplified way. But being Instances I don't know how that could be achieved. ??? 

I doubt you can do that with Daz instances. You can always copy your trees and vary the morphs on the copies, put them under a Group, and scatter the group rather than individual objects.

No, it wouldn't work - an instance is a direct clone of th source, it can't be varied except for its global transforms (translation, rotation, and scale of the whole item). If you want to make adjustable copies you could use the Duplicate commands, or Send in the Clones for more control, but the drag on the system would be much greater.

Szark

thought as much

thd777

Richard Haseltine said:

Jimbow said:

Szark said:

It occurred to me last night that this script could be even better if it could be coupled up to a morph randomizer. So for example we could use morphing rocks and trees and get Ultrascatter to vary the shapes just like Vue does but it a more simplified way. But being Instances I don't know how that could be achieved. ??? 

I doubt you can do that with Daz instances. You can always copy your trees and vary the morphs on the copies, put them under a Group, and scatter the group rather than individual objects.

No, it wouldn't work - an instance is a direct clone of th source, it can't be varied except for its global transforms (translation, rotation, and scale of the whole item). If you want to make adjustable copies you could use the Duplicate commands, or Send in the Clones for more control, but the drag on the system would be much greater.

Indeed. The difference is that in Vue the plants (SolidGrowth or PlantFactory) as well as the Vue Rocks are entirely procedural, i.e. they are just a bunch of formulas at the basic level. For this reason Vue can generate different versions as instances.

Ciao

TD

Jerife

Fenric, if my memory recalls correctly, did a shader randomizer for the Carrara Replicator. A whole full parking lot with two or three replicated cars could fake well if they weren't all the same color, or a group of people in the background would seem different if their garments weren't same color.

I don't know if DS would allow something similar

Szark

thd777 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Jimbow said:

Szark said:

It occurred to me last night that this script could be even better if it could be coupled up to a morph randomizer. So for example we could use morphing rocks and trees and get Ultrascatter to vary the shapes just like Vue does but it a more simplified way. But being Instances I don't know how that could be achieved. ??? 

I doubt you can do that with Daz instances. You can always copy your trees and vary the morphs on the copies, put them under a Group, and scatter the group rather than individual objects.

No, it wouldn't work - an instance is a direct clone of th source, it can't be varied except for its global transforms (translation, rotation, and scale of the whole item). If you want to make adjustable copies you could use the Duplicate commands, or Send in the Clones for more control, but the drag on the system would be much greater.

Indeed. The difference is that in Vue the plants (SolidGrowth or PlantFactory) as well as the Vue Rocks are entirely procedural, i.e. they are just a bunch of formulas at the basic level. For this reason Vue can generate different versions as instances.

Ciao

TD

This is why I included "But being Instances I don't know how that could be achieved. ??? "

 

I suppose it would have to be done prior to make the instances but so far there is no other way then to load > morph, load > morph, scatter and so on. I have no issue with that it was just a thought I had in bed.

PhilW

Jerife said:

Fenric, if my memory recalls correctly, did a shader randomizer for the Carrara Replicator. A whole full parking lot with two or three replicated cars could fake well if they weren't all the same color, or a group of people in the background would seem different if their garments weren't same color.

I don't know if DS would allow something similar

It is Sparrowhawke3D's Instance Randomizer, and yes, it is a very powerful tool. Vue and Octane have a similar function, but I am not aware of anything in DS yet that will do this.

Szark

PhilW said:

Jerife said:

Fenric, if my memory recalls correctly, did a shader randomizer for the Carrara Replicator. A whole full parking lot with two or three replicated cars could fake well if they weren't all the same color, or a group of people in the background would seem different if their garments weren't same color.

I don't know if DS would allow something similar

It is Sparrowhawke3D's Instance Randomizer, and yes, it is a very powerful tool. Vue and Octane have a similar function, but I am not aware of anything in DS yet that will do this.

sweet so it is possible for the idea to exist so I am not going mad. :)

PhilW

It was me who asked Sparrowhawke3D to make the plugin for Carrara, specifically so that I could make this product:

http://www.daz3d.com/night-and-day-city

Each building has multiple parts that are randomly turned on and off each time it is duplicated, in addition to changing texture colours, so each duplicate looks different from the next.  I am not aware of any reason that this could not be done in Daz Studio too.

Szark

awesome product Phil.

Richard Haseltine

In DS a Geometry Shell can have different materials from the original, while using the same geometry. It's a half-way house. However, I didn't mention those above as - to the ebst of my knowledge - there's no scattering or duplication tool which creates them.

Oso3D

Am I doing something weird, or do 3DL instances not cast shadows?

 

MelanieL

Ah, WIll, I think you've hit the bug I reported a while ago. Here's my finding from the error report:

"The 3Delight renderer in DAZ Studio appears to have an error when rendering shadows (also reflections) under certain circumstances.

If a figure is added to a scene then an Instance or Instance Group is created to duplicate the figure, then 3Delight does not show correct shadows (or reflections) of the original figure nor of the Instance(s) if the figure is at higher mesh resolution than Base Resolution. This therefore affects all the Genesis and Genesis 2 figures, as well as any object to which SubD is applied.

I attach an example in which a David 5 figure (which loads at High Resolution) is involved. From left to right in the attached jpeg is a sinlge David 5 figure (rendering correctly), figure plus an instance (note the lack of shadow for both Davids, while the shadows of his clothing appear correctly), figure plus instance but with mesh resolution level set to Base (rendering correctly again).

I first noticed the error in DAZ Studio 4.6 (it may have existed in earlier versions) and is still there in DAZ Studio 4.8. Incidentally, the Iray renderer produces the shadows and reflections correctly at any mesh resolution."

Does this match your experience? I raised this in June 2015 and the last I heard was "Looks like there is an issue with how 3Delight deal with render priorities. I will let the dev team know about this issue and have them start working on a fix. As soon as I hear back from the dev team you will be the first to know" that month. I hadn't tried it in DS4.9 but sounds like maybe it's still not fixed.

Oso3D

Pretty much, yes.

Thankfully it hasn't been hugely noticeable, but if you look at the following scene, note that the palm trees (one is the parent, one is the instance) and all the rocks (two parents, a bunch of instances), none cast shadows.

Then look at the second image, with a forest. None of the trees cast shadows. Granted, with a yarn motif, people are probably too distracted to notice the bug, but...

So it doesn't apply if it's at Base resolution? That at least offers a work around. Hrmph.

 

Oso3D

Should I comment on the bug? Should you poke somebody? Sigh.

 

Oso3D

Just tested with spheres. Yep. Subd shuts off shadows. Dangit.

 

MelanieL

timmins.william said:

Should I comment on the bug? Should you poke somebody? Sigh.

I'd actually forgotten about it  - I'll add a "what is happening" to the bug report, but if we really want it fixed then if you raise another with your version of the problem it may get more attention.

Oso3D

I just tossed in a bug. It's VERY easy to repro.

Make a plane. Make a distant light with raytracing shadow. Make a sphere. Make 10 node instances of sphere.

Render in 3DL. Hey look, shadow.

Add SubD to sphere, render again.

Hey look, no shadows.

 

I'm glad you told me it's linked to SubD, because at least it gives me a workaround. Before I thought it was just something to do with instancing itself.

 

Jerife

PhilW said:

It was me who asked Sparrowhawke3D to make the plugin for Carrara, specifically so that I could make this product:

http://www.daz3d.com/night-and-day-city

Each building has multiple parts that are randomly turned on and off each time it is duplicated, in addition to changing texture colours, so each duplicate looks different from the next.  I am not aware of any reason that this could not be done in Daz Studio too.

 You are rigth, SparrowHawke sorry, and I remember that thread. 

Gendragon3D

Jerife said:

Thanks PhilW, thanks Artini, I'm loving this tool Howie has made for us 

Gendragon, você falar ou compreender o espanhol?

Hello! Sorry plea response delay!
I do not know how to get warning when a message on the forum in which I am participating was answered!

To answer your question, I speak Portuguese, but I can understand something of Spanish, thanks for asking!

Gendragon

 

xjadexxx

I may have missed it in all the fine commentary. Can this product be used to scatter lights? I mean spotlights, point lights, etc.

Thank you for your help!

Richard Haseltine

I haven't double-chceked, but lights don't instance (the point of instancing is to save on reproducing the geoemtry and materials - lights don't have the former at all nor the latter in the same way).

Jimbow

With the orientation map, I'm guessing this could be used to create cities that don't have a perpendicular grid system.

Artini

I have checked in iray and also could not get scattered lights (neither point lights nor spotlights) to work in Daz Studio.

But it is possible to simulate point lights with the spheres with emission material applied.

Below is an example render of 30 spheres (2 cm diameter) scattered over 2 meter cube.

The cutout opacity on the cube was set to 0, so it does not show up on the render.

mcorr

Can anybody explain why previously uploaded picture attachments (which graphically bring to life the written explanations) are disappearing?????

Chohole

Which attachments are missing,  I glanced back 3 pages or so and see all the attachments.

 

TangoAlpha

A lot of images around pages 7,8,9 seem to be missing. I presume it's all connected with the server problems we've been seeing?

mcorr

Chohole said:

Which attachments are missing,  I glanced back 3 pages or so and see all the attachments.

 

for example, mine on page 8

Gendragon3D

HowieFarkes said:

MelanieL said:

barbult said:

MelanieL said:

HowieFarkes said:

JPiat said:

HowieFarkes said:

JPiat said:

Hello,

First test with ultra scatter.

My remarks :

1) If the pivot point of the geometrie is not a the bottom, you will have problem : floating instances.

2) Impossible to use the limit by surface tools, the script failed. I must test on more simpler geometry, but I use the greometry editor tools to create my surface inside DazStudio.

 

Awesome image!

re. 1: If you set the rotation point to "bottom" the instances should no longer float - but generally best to use objects with the pivot point in a suitable location

re. 2: How are you creating the selections? What should be working is to select some polygons with the geometry editor tool, then right-click and select Geometry Assignment -> Create Selection Set from Selected...  Give the selection set a name and then it should turn up in the "Limit Scatter to:" list.

Thank for the reply.

For the second point : I'm still unable to make it work.

1) I create a plane and a surface call "Path" in the Geometry Editor.

2) I create a group of two simple primitive

3) I launch the script, select the "path" surface in the advanced tab

4) It fails : Empty group are created, that's all.

I join the scene just in case.

Feature request for the 1.1 version : A full 0°->360° range for rotation on the Y axis and an increment : Buildings prefer 90° for rotation.

 

Are you not creating a "Selection Set"? It must be a selection set - not a surface - for it to work.

I've just been trying UltraScatter for the first time today and I ran into exactly the same problem. The manual says "Limit Scatter to ... allows the selection of a material zone or selection set to constrain where instances are scattered" - are you saying it MUST be a selection set and NOT a mat zone? If so, perhaps you could add a clarification of this in the manual.

I found a couple of posts on Page 5 that give a work-round (using Geometry editor to create a selection set) which I successfully did for a primitive plane. But how does that work for an environment prop from another product - would I have to (a) repeat this bit every time I wanted to use that prop, or (b) save a copy of it with modifications (not ideal in case the base product is updated one day)?

ETA: I must add that I'm really enjoying using the script in every other respect. I can see it will get a lot of use from me - thank you for creating it

MelanieL, I'm very confused by this, too. I wanted to scatter something on Genesis 3 Female's face. When I go to the Advanced tab the "Limit scatter to" drop down box shows the surfaces of G3F. It does not show the G3F Surface Selection Sets, like Skin, Nails, Skin-Lips-Nails. If I select the Face, nothing happens and I get errors in the log file.

2016-12-12 19:12:41.681 Loading script: D:/DAZ 3D/Studio/My DIM Library/scripts/ultrascatter/ultrascatter.dse
2016-12-12 19:12:55.296 WARNING: Script Error: Line 1233
2016-12-12 19:12:55.296 WARNING: TypeError: Result of expression 'oSelectionGroup' [null] is not an object.
2016-12-12 19:12:55.296 WARNING: Stack Trace:
    <anonymous>()@D:/DAZ 3D/Studio/My DIM Library/scripts/ultrascatter/ultrascatter.dse:1233
2016-12-12 19:12:55.343 Error in script execution: D:/DAZ 3D/Studio/My DIM Library/scripts/ultrascatter/ultrascatter.dse

Yep, that's exactly the error message I got with my primitive-plane-with-added-mat-zone and using the Mountain Trail prop and selecting the path mat zone.

I just loaded up a G3F and used the Geometry editor to select the "face"  polys and create a selection set which I called "G3F-Face" - then I scattered some tufts of grass on this selection and here's what I got - grassy hands!  I must admit I'm mystified!

You are right to be mystified - it is not working as expected and I'm working on a fix for it.

 

Gendragon3D

I could not do anything with it!
Had imagined it would be like Bryce or Look at my hair,
where you can paint which will be applied to instances.
It would be much more useful and practical to know what we are doing,
for example, to know if a street trees have a wall
edges as shown in one of the promo!
In this case, require precision, no luck!

barbult

If you need precision placement, you can create maps that control the areas where the instances will be scattered. Take another look at the documentation that is included with the product.