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Just a friendly reminder to Ted, we don't need no stinking DAZ studio and UltraScenery
(respect to HowieFarkes for making something that brings some Carrara functionality to it, I was not insulting him)
we have the best landscapes going around right here in Carrara
I keep looking at their render times in their thread
by all means toss them some trees and weeds but while they are rendering their 2080ti racks off hours on end I even on my crappy Ryzen3 with 8Gb of RAM managed to render a scene with volumetric clouds just CPU in minutes.
they need trees and grass
unless a complete tree generator and vertex modeler for DAZ studio is the next project
Octane now is rendering me an animated version I will share probably in my own thread once done,
I was surprised all Teds trees actually fit on my 980ti with a couple Gb headroom too volumetric clouds, replicated ocean and all.
Often Carrara trees choke Octane but I was able to go full detail mesh on all of them
I am duly reminded.
Context for visitors. Relating UltraScatter and UltraScenery in Daz Studio, and using DSON props in Carrara.
UltraScatter and UltraScenery are different products.
UltraScatter Pro - https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatterpro--upgrade-from-ultrascatter-advanced-instancing
UltraScenery - https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascenery--realistic-landscape-system
UltraScatter is a Howie Farkes plugin for Daz Studio that allows users to control Daz Studio instances similar to how Carrara users control surface replication. UltraScenery is a Howie Farkes plugin for Daz Studio that uses UltraScatter to automatically populate a heightmap generated landscape with trees, bushes, grasses, and other plants. UltraScenery gives users less direct control than UltraScatter, but the UltraScenery presets come much closer to the wonderful Howie Farkes scenes we all know and love in Carrara than I generally achieve constructing landscapes myself. Bottom line, UltraScenery is an automatic bio-system generator from multiple plant props.
Thread for UltraScenery by Howie in Commercial Forum - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/380431/ultrascenery-commercial-released/p1
Thread for UltraScatter by Howie in Commercial Forum - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/101156/ultrascatter-v1-5-0-released-commercial/p1
The UltraScenery presets include a few feature options, including a road, a stream, a lake, and an island. @TangoAlpha has created UltraScatter presets that include additional props. He added a small pier to a lake preset, for example. Howie has said that he will allow mere mortals like me to play with the UltraScenery scene generators. In the Art Studio forum, @barbult has a thread on how we can make our own UltraScenery preset with other plant props, and Howie has blessed it. The primary thrust of those discussions thus far has been for Studio Users to substitute other plants (eg., Predatron's bushes) for the plants included in UltraScenery by default.
Thread by barbult to customize UltraScenery - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/408551/ultrascenery-experiments-and-experiences/p1
Do I have the skills to customize UltraScenery? I think I do, and I am experimenting with a proof of concept. I am using Carrara to model plants for an UltraScenery preset. I am also experimenting with UltraScatter, distinguished from UltraScenery. For these experiments, I am converting my creations to OBJs and then to DSON format. I am sharing with Carrara users the grass and the tree that I created. For the grass, Carrara can load and read DSON format props so I don't see any reason to fuss with shader locations and similar for a second carrara file. For the tree, the DSON OBJ is much more resource intensive than the Carrara plant modeler. I have provided both the DSON format and the original Carrara CAR format for the tree, along with the shader map for the leaves. Unfortunatley, I am concerned about how well my custom trees are shared in Carrara format. Let me know if you get an error message for the leaves or if it says the shaders are missing.
Carrara has a plant modeler, a terrain modeler, and replicators - and I love it!!!! But UltraScenery is above and beyond a surface replicator (UltraScatter). UltraScenery is a plugin to mix multiple replicators of plant ingredients in a Howie Farkes landscape recipe automatically. I suspect a similar plugin could be created for Carrara if one had Howie's genius for combining multiple surface replications to create bio-systems.
So, I hope Carrara users enjoy the free grass and tree. If I appear to be going to the Dark Side, know that there is still good in me - I am currently using Carrara to model the tree instead of Arboro or something similar. But paraphrasing Yoda, UltraScenery is the quick and easy path, literally. If I go now, help them I could, but I would become an agent of evil.
.
Sickleyield has written about making money with Daz3D
https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Making-A-Living-at-DAZ3D-407828896
https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Making-a-Living-At-DAZ3D-Part-2-The-First-Product-565231074
This was probably my best Carrara landscape and I still like it.
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Beautiful, Wendy. As Dart would say, Carrara rocks! Or Octane. Those are awesome rocks.
Looks a little more dangerous than a pelican. Love your critters.
Ultrascenery only exists because DAZ studio users are afraid of Carrara
are afraid of leaving DAZ studio
will dig their little stiletto heels in to stay in DAZ studio at all costs
I love your landscape and Bunyip's and everyone else in Carrara, the challenge showed many fine examples and the power of Carrara.
I am posting here as using your plants also made in Carrara, will not disrespect that outside thread but I might be inspired by a few more of their renders yet
(not copy, just take my Carrara camera and shoot similar photos)
Appreciate your feedback.
good stuff. thank you
This is very cool stuff! Am I surprized? Nope! I love this thread!
I will share the video here too
did not want to spam your thread but it is at least all your foliage
Along the lines of this recent topic, the way I've stored the three various chunks of terrain, populated wit duplicated (replicated for the large on only) trees, shrubs and deadwood into the browser for Woodlands, this scene took literally a few minutes to create and then a few more to render.
For the bedrock pushing up through the ground, I opened the group of the smallest terrain chunk preset and duplicated just the terrain piece and pulled it out of the group (leaving the original terrain in the group). Then I positioned it to look right - like bedrock peering through the eroded soil, and then duplicated, rotated, translated and scaled it a few times to complete the look.
I've grown so accustomed to working like this with the EnvironKits, that it really takes not time to do this stuff - and it's fun, too!
I had a lot of fun making this video back when I was discovering, myself, how much I loved using my own crazy product! Just like Starry Sky for Carrara, after it was released and I thought it was really cool, all of a sudden I start finding new ways that my own creation was making my own work so much more productive and fun! Not tooting a horn... just happy!
For these two, I mainly used the Largest chunk from the Objects > Nature browser (Woodlands) and then grabbed individual instances of the trees from inside the group and placed them by hand where they needed to be around the content I dragged into the scene.
To help get the right shape for the terrain, I again just simply duplicate an existing one from one of those presets, and scale, rotate, etc., to get it how I want - and being Carrara low-density terrains, I can feel free to make many duplications to further tweak the ground's shape how I need it to be, and then decorate it with tree instances!
...and for this one, I combined Badlands, Underwater Realms and Woodlands elements to create my own new custom EnvironKit - Forested Cliffs, using the same techniques mentioned above. All of the EnvironKit terrain shaders work with all of the EnvironKit Terrain pieces.
A tip regarding EnvironKit terrain shaders, however:
In their default state, the details of the image mapped (forest, grassy) terrain shaders are out of scale by a long shot, which is really useful for distant shots. The added detail adds much more interest to the distant scene.
If we want to get closer to the terrain, however, like if we are next to a cabin or looking at a character, etc., we need to increase the tiling of each of the texture maps in the terrain. For close shots, I crank mine up to 30 x 30.
Videos welcome!
I love your environment kits. Very generous to make them free so that others can use them.
Speaking of putting things together quickly, here is a quick scene I put together remembering my train travels through the desert Southwest last year.
Although the clumped grasses may look fake, it is probably the most realistic aprt of the image. Here is a promo pic
Subtle element of my landscape, the grasses are concentrated in shallow gullies.
I'm attaching screengrabs of the settings I used for the landscape and the shader that I used to control the placement of the shrub grass. I used the plateau filter in the terrain modeler to create the central meadow. To control the surface replicator placement, I enabled shader control, then used a mixer. I used elevation. I set black for the elevation above the plateau and white below. The blend is important as well.
Adding the stray grass. I duplicated the terrain, lowered the detail of the duplicate, converted to vertex object, and then grew Carrara hair on the duplicate terrain meadow area.
I've posted the pic in the renders thread.
Update combining hair and with surface replicators
looks real to me
This is awesome! you mention in your follow-up post that the grass looks fake. It can bog down the render, but adding translucency to folliage makes it look a LOT more real!
Wow, yeah! That second one really looks great!!!
Wow! Okay, I see what happened. It takes me so long to type that I was typing my posts when you submitted yours!
Rock On, Wendy! Very nice!
Thank you, Wendy and Dart.
Thank you Diomede for your freebies - always love to see your design work and your renders with your creations in them, makes me want to get my own work out as well !!!
Cities - Using Replicators
Working on something for Misty's challenge for establishment shots and zoom ins. Lil Side Challenge = Outpost.
Got me thinking about some lessons from the advanced Carrara tutorials by @PhilW. I had started cities for previous challenges. Here is another start.
- I gathered some low res buildings, plants, and people that I have put together over the years.
- Intend city blocks of 150-160 square feet.
- Intend neighborhoods, and want taller buildings generally closer to the city center.
- Intend open space in city center for an acropolis. Acropolis base will be 320 by 320. Can use a terrain of same size with zero edge filter.
- Create several city blocks. For each, load related buildings and replicate with grid setting of 4x4 (cell sizes 40 by 40) or 3x3 (cell sizes 50 by 50). Group each city block and save separately.
- ** innovation (I think not in PhilW tutorial) ** Replicate city blocks in concentric neighborhoods. Use the replicate rectangle setting and choose even number by even number. Result is empty middle.
- Using the above rectangle grid, replicate blocks that have dense buildings of low height 8x8 with cells set to 160. Then repeat for taller city blocks 6x6 with cells set to 160. Then tallest 4x4.
- City blocks match the cell size, so should get neighborhoods with narrow streets separated by wider streets and cell edge.
- Insert a plane and scale up to match city size. In shader, use a mixer. For the blend, include a tile that has the number of tiles adjusted to fit the number of city blocks. Should get the wider "streets" between neighborhoods.
- Replicate the lo res people on the city plane with z rotation set to 360. Many will be hidden inside buildings but that is OK. Some should be in the streets and courtyards.
- Insert a new terrain in the city center. Set dimensions of base to fit center empty area of the replicated blocks. In my case, 320, which is matches a missing 2x2 rectangle replication.
- Zero the edge of the terrain and lower it slightly beneath the city plane. Replicate the lo res trees on the outer areas of the terrain (can use elevation shader to control placement)
- Place acropolis buildings on the center terrain
- I replicated cubes for the city wall.
- ** unfinished - gap in front and rear walls for city gates - corners of city walls need towers - areas outside city need details
- ** unfinished - may replace acropolis buildings with a taller tower or pyramid temple
Just a WIP.
Suggestions welcome
Assets
Replicated city - try 1
Same version of city, but zoomed in a little. The people should be more noticeable.
Same version of city, but zoomed in more to the base of the tallest building on the acropolis.
Another WIP. Added a realistic sky with two levels of clouds and fog enabled. Replicated some distant mounds with trees and even more distant mountains with volumetric clouds.
Still needs a main gate and corner towers.